Responding to Dominic Cummings

It is not often that a single story dominates everyone’s online conversation—yet that is what happened over the weekend, when I found that just about all my Facebook friends were commenting on the same issue. And it is not often that the bishops of the Church of England appear to speak with one voice on … Continue Reading

What does Holy Communion do for us?

I have been contributing to the Church’s Renewal and Reform stream on developing lay leadership, and one of the questions that has come up is: ‘What does the Church of England actually believe about the laity and lay leadership?’ I am not referring here to what some have called ‘ecclesial lay leadership’, that is, the … Continue Reading

Does Christmas preach the good news?

What are you aiming to do in your Christmas services this year? For many, it is an opportunity to make use of this season which is rooted in Christian festivities—though we hardly need reminding how far many Christmas traditions have moved from that. Five years ago, it was reported that one third of children aged … Continue Reading

My election prayer and manifesto

The Church of England communications team has released a prayer for the nation at the time of the General Election, and it has not been well received. I offer here a prayer I wrote for Christian broadcaster Trans World Radio, which they recorded and broadcast earlier in the week. There were three main things on … Continue Reading

Mission, creation and incarnation

I was grateful to Philip North for offering a response to my critique of his views on mission in relation to the incarnation, published in the Church Times. There is nothing quite like hearing someone’s point of view in their own words, and it has been immensely valuable to have this exchange. I offer here … Continue Reading

Do we need to take Jesus to our urban areas?

Last week, Philip North, suffragan bishop of Burnley, made a typically challenging and provocative claim in an article in the Church Times: ‘We don’t need to bring Jesus to urban estates’. His central argument is that we have failed to engage with our urban areas because too often we have brought a packaged message from … Continue Reading

What state is the Church of England in?

The Church of England statistics department released its Statistics for Mission report last week, quite a bit earlier than last year, and it is was not good news—though curiously there was almost no comment on it on the airwaves, in contrast to last year. We will be discussing this at the next meeting of the … Continue Reading

Should clergy count their days and hours?

A few days ago, Donald Allister, Bishop of Peterborough, wrote to his clergy and talked about self-management in relation to time keeping and time off. It has garnered some interesting reactions. This is the extract in question: Clergy Care In a number of dioceses, bishops have started instructing clergy to take two consecutive days off … Continue Reading