missional
Such governance requires a missional orientation with deep and wide biblical and theological apprehension that spans the traditions and churchmanship we cherish, rather than the adversarial, partisan, or ideological way we risk having become accustomed to.
Despite the pressures, I believe the CofE still has a precious and unique place in our society, with all sorts of missional opportunities.
I believe good governance is a missional necessity, enabling the Church to use its resources effectively and accountably in pursuit of its calling.
The work with our young choristers is deeply missional, creating paths to faith through music for people from all backgrounds without financial or social barriers.
The Church faces significant missional, theological and organisational challenges: declining participation and engagement with younger generations; safeguarding and rebuilding trust: racial justice; changing patterns of ministry and stewardship of resources.
Parish ministry sees no conflict between pastoral and missional; faith and community.
Synod’s decisions carry real financial weight — and missional consequence.
I would support legislation to build an inclusive, missional and generously orthodox Church of England.
I would commit to Being prayerful in my service Being faithful in upholding and safeguarding the truth of scripture in all areas Being missional in seeking to ensure the Gospel is being served across the breadth of our diverse parishes Thank you for reading.
I have a strong academic background, with publications on Franciscan spirituality, chaplaincy, and the missional potential of cathedrals.
My commitment to you If you choose to vote for me, I would commit to: ● Being prayerful and seeking Jesus’ will and guidance in all that I do. ● Being faithful and remaining rooted in the truth and authority of Scripture, allowing God’s Word to shape, challenge and guide me. ● Being missional and seeking to see the gospel lived and proclaimed across the breadth and diversity of our parishes. ● Being Christ-centred and seeking to love others as Jesus has loved us.
The parish is the fundamental missional unit of our Church and must be staffed and financed in a way that is sustainable across newer dioceses who do not have historic assets, particularly across the North of England.
Finance is one of my main priorities as a candidate and must be addressed in the next five years of Synod so that good, missional, grass roots ministry can be found across the whole of the Diocese and beyond.
strategies to ensure that jobs and roles for clergy and lay officers are life-giving (missional) and possible (organisational), be that in terms of pastoral or faculty legislation, safeguarding or health and safety policy, the list could go on.
Our heritage buildings are immensely valuable – missionally, socially and culturally – but keeping them well maintained is a huge pressure on our clergy and laity, we need to talk about how to release people into their missional vocations.
General Synod is well placed to enable the Church to live out its missional opportunity to be prophetic in how we care for God’s creation.
Mission and Finance (the two go together!): In my time on Archbishops’ Council Finance Committee and the major Diocesan Finance Review team, we significantly increased funding to maintain the witness of churches in poor areas, and increased support for missional projects to reach people who do not yet know Jesus (the majority of these projects are parish-based).
The networks established will be invaluable in championing causes and missional issues relevant and prevalent to the Church of England Birmingham, and finally representation still matters; Racial Diversity in General Synod membership among both clergy and Lay membership is still an ongoing issue.
My Christian faith is extremely important to me/living as a first generation convert from a Muslim background, born and brought up in Yorkshire, I want the Church to remain relevant to society and missional.
At the heart of my ministry is a simple conviction: the Church of England must continually recover its missional nature and identity.
Renewing our missional identity must begin locally, but it is a calling we share as the whole Church.
There were many times over those 22 years where we kept re-discerning if there was a call back to England and to the Church of England, but the call kept being renewed for fresh missional, and often highly sacrificial (as well as joyful!), ministry in the Anglican Province where I was ordained.
My own missional life experience, my current contextual priority and my cross-cultural work across many provinces in our Anglican Communion, means that I often bring different assumptions and perspectives to critical
Prior to coming to England, our family initiated and lived within an intentional missional community for young adults based around the secular university.
I’m privileged to be on the PCC, the Deanery Synod, the Diocesan Synod, the Diocesan Patronage committee and the Bishop’s Council and have been able to see Bishop Jonathan’s clear missional vision for church growth developing.
As a member of General Synod, he would be a pastor who is strategic, missional and places youth and children at the heart of the life of the church.
As an archdeacon for 11 years, I focussed on being alongside clergy and parishes in missional leadership (designing systems to support them), and pastoral care (establishing clergy wellbeing convenants in two dioceses).
I believe the Church of England has some enduring and remarkable missional opportunities, not least our nationwide coverage.
I believe in these key missional tenets, and would like to encourage Synod to help parishes foster these activities.
Missional Frontlines:
I believe that Synod’s bold commitment to Net Zero by 2030 is prophetic and working together on the environment has proved to be a significant missional activity, touching on our common humanity and transcending more sectarian church divides.
But believe the Church must retain confidence in telling people about him and am therefore interested in all missional and evangelistic discussions.
I am keen to develop missional activities that discover and engage with where God is at work in our communities.
I believe that it is in “not letting go” that we work through the significant missional, practical, financial and safeguarding challenges that the next 5 years of Synod will hold.
Numerical church growth is currently framed as a missional priority within the Vision for the Church of England in the 2020s.
Missional opportunity: I have been struck by the changing demographics of Oxford diocese which I believe presents us all with a joyful missional opportunity.
I will argue for greater transparency and fairness in the allocation of funding both nationally and within dioceses for education, training, and missional initiatives with a stronger voice for deanery synods and parishes in determining how resources are used to build the Kingdom of God in every parish.
In my twenties, I took a break from my banking career, and spent a missional year with YWAM which included overseas ministry in Venezuela.
I felt a very strong calling to the Church of England and have sought to bring my missional pioneering and theologically reflective skills into the centre of my ministry.
The Church has a crucial missional opportunity to be prophetic in how we care for God’s creation through our discipleship, our finances and our buildings and land.
A Missional Mindset Three years serving Christian students in the Czech Republic taught me to ask how the gospel takes root in a culture not my own.
Sent, Not Settled: I will call for a Synod with a missional instinct, one that takes seriously how the gospel reaches across culture and class to people who wouldn't otherwise expect it to be for them.
In short, if you want someone who is passionate to make disciples of all ages, longs to see parishes renewed and strengthened as the missional centre of the Church of England and who loves our church’s reformed, biblical doctrine, vote for me!
At the same time, what happens nationally in the Church of England matters because it either supports and enables the ministry of local churches or undermines/erodes their missional presence.
We must embrace this as a missional challenge and not simply about ‘balancing the books’.
Research shows that most missional activity takes place in the context of the parish.
I strongly stand in support of the Church of England in her missional, ministerial and environmental calling especially in the 21st century.
MISSIONAL FINANCE
In missional terms, this means for me that the Church of England has a vocation to be here to welcome those who feel, or have been told, that they don’t belong (and that might include some of us), who don’t feel worthy enough to approach God, who don’t yet know that they have a place in the heart of God.
I accept the urgency of the missional and evangelistic task facing us, but sense that at times we have been too impatient in our search for quick fixes to apparent problems, without always weighing fully what God might be saying to us and asking of us.
I sit on the Stewardship and Missional Activities committees.
Both the Word and Sacrament are essential to the church’s core identity and missional activity.
I am deeply committed to the missional, pastoral and ecumenical vision of the Trust, and I find it enriching to serve, and to work alongside, people whose views are different to my own.
The Church of England faces numerous challenges in the present day: many of our congregations are shrinking and ageing; there are too few clergy, and many of them are demoralised and overworked; ordinary parishes feel neglected, especially in rural areas, while it seems that endless sums of money can be found for new missional enterprises; and our volunteers are few in number.
Sustaining mission by empowering parishes to attain continuous growth, and uplifting the voices of young people who have found or returned to their faith through missional work, but who do not feel represented within the Church’s governance. [email protected] +44 7943792550
Can you imagine our missional impact if we had the courage and confidence once more to be the parish church in every parish?
I am deeply committed to the Church of England – to its sacramental and missional life, working for the advancement of God’s Kingdom; and to its Christian witness as part of the worldwide church.
As we face increasingly complex and demanding times, I pray we can move forward as a church without anxiety: not chasing passing fads but focussing on nurturing missional disciples.
A missional own goal.
All missional activities should originate in the local as this is our fundamental mission.
I’m passionate about the Church of England – its missional opportunities, its parish system, its rich history, and yes, even its complex and sometimes unwieldy structures!
In my view, this is not to replace clergy, but to expand the missional capacity of parishes.
Missional Faithful
To this end, the cure of souls held by the incumbent offers missional opportunity that should be preserved and strengthened.
I bring a unique blend of rigorous legal training, experience and hands-on parish ministry to the table—skills directly applicable to the legislative and missional work of the General Synod.
Missional Focus: Being a bold voice for global and local mission, championing all Five Marks of Mission across the full breadth of the Church of England.
Through this I have also gained an understanding of the financial, missional and governance challenges our Diocese is wrestling with.
I am completely committed to the missional imperative of creation care and the fifth mark of mission and value the opportunity within General Synod of seeing how this can dovetail with our other priorities.
Adrian Clarke brings the wisdom of his experience of planting a BMO in the high- density urban area of the A5 corridor, one of the most unreached parts of the diocese- he is an essential missional voice to speak into Synod in this season
I spent formative years as a child singing regularly in a church choir in the then Bradford Diocese, and know first-hand what a fantastic missional opportunity church choirs can provide, as well as the experience and education children and young people can access through the Anglican choral tradition.
If you choose to vote for me, I will commit to: being prayerful at all times, in my service; being faithful in upholding and safeguarding the truth of Scripture; being missional in seeking to ensure the gospel is being served across the breadth of our diverse parishes.
This missional focus can lead us to challenge the normal order of society when it is to the disadvantage and oppression of some but through Christian faith and Scripture, the church can achieve in social action ‘abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20).
But I’ve also experienced how faith in Jesus can change & transform us, and the beauty of Christian community when it works well and works together; I believe inclusion is missional, as is disagreeing well and collaborating.
Since living in Leicester, I have been an active member of a city centre church where I have led homegroups, supported a number of small group leaders and have pioneered a Missional Community focused on connecting Christ, Creation and Community.
I want to encourage church leaders to help their congregations develop their gifts of giving, so that the joy and freedom that comes from giving tithes and offerings with a cheerful and giving heart may be experienced by individuals and their churches, and consequently help to enable the church as a whole to be more intentionally missional.
England as exemplars of missional, prophetic, pastoral and liturgical practice that have the potential to lead the whole church in the ways of Christ
Local Missional Leader
many missional events such as our Easter Adventure, Christmas Quiz, Summer Festival and Fireworks community event, which saw a combined attendance of around 1000 people; and
We need structures that provide safety and good governance while also being agile enough to respond to missional opportunities, which includes the growing and releasing of leaders (lay and ordained), to meet the God inspired missional opportunities proactively.
To be missional in seeking to ensure the gospel is faithfully and creatively represented across the breadth of our diverse parishes.
I am standing for election to the House of Laity because I believe the General Synod needs more voices shaped by both deep faith and daily, on-the-ground missional focus.
Synod’s national debates can feel distant from parish life; I want to advocate for young people by keeping the realities I see daily at the YMCA in front as the Church wrestles with these conversations na- tionally while welcoming the missional gifts of sisters and brothers from the global church.
As a committed member of our Deanery Synod, I want to help ensure that the national voice of our church remains grounded in local realities, faithful to the life and words of Jesus and missional in service particularly to our rural communities.
This experience has given me a practical understanding of both the joys and the missional challenges facing our parishes today, particularly in rural areas.
A Missional Church
I offer both a proven track record and a perspective that deeply understands modern ministry pressures, young family life, and the urgent missional imperative to reach younger generations.
Growing Younger & Pioneer Mission: Bridging parish traditions with pioneering missional expressions to engage under-40 demographics and secure the Church's long-term future.
I will vote prayerfully and conscientiously on every motion—evaluating decisions not by factional pressure, but by their practical, missional impact on frontline parishes and clergy wellbeing, while upholding biblical faith and the unity of the church.
Having leaders on General Synod who understand both traditional parish structures and new, pioneering expressions of church is vital to ensuring national strategy remains grounded in local missional reality.
This matters because the parish is fundamentally missional.
The care of and advocacy for creation is high on my missional priorities too; teaching the value of all of creation in God’s eyes in and of itself irrespective of how we might value or devalue it.
Utilizing and developing the arts as missional tools .
The Church has a crucial missional opportunity to be prophetic in how we care for God’s creation through our discipleship, our finances and our buildings and land.
It should be named, cherished and given a renewed confidence that enables attractive, sustainable missional and numerical growth.
Local missional energy needs wider missional support, to encourage healthy missional activity everywhere.
Only one archdeacon from each diocese can be elected and it would be good for me to be there representing the whole breadth of missional and parochial life of the diocese.
What I hope to offer to General Synod Coming previously from another Christian tradition and also previously from another Anglican province, I am still full of wonder and delight at what is good, beautiful, true and avant garde about how the Church of England seeks to honour the great commission of Christ through breadth, parochial life and engagement and missional commitment.
About me I currently serve as the Diocese of Bath & Wells' Missional Priest for Youth and Young Adults.
I have served in five very different churches in the diocese, before moving to the Cathedral, and am passionate about the missional potential of the local church, whatever its size or context.
I am keenly aware of the importance of robust safeguarding and its vital missional nature.
I will be supportive of Churches across our breadth of tradition, and especially where there is a desire to adapt to our changing missional landscape.
Helping Churches collaborate, learn from each other, embrace missional change, and become more able to share their faith and impact their community is vital for our cultural moment, and vital to preserve our important diversity.
Healthy, collaborative and missional leadership is vital for our Church.
How will Synod work strategically to resource and support missional activity that is responsive to those deepening inequalities?
Those involved in Save the Parish are perhaps not my natural allies and bedfellows, but I have some sympathy with the desire to re-assert the centrality of the parish to the Church of England’s ministry (as well as chaplaincy and other missional settings where there is a strong pastoral engagement with those outside the bubble of the church).
I value enormously having been formed in a church tradition that has mission and evangelism at its heart, but I have always ministered in the ‘middle ground’ of the Church of England that has given me a greater breadth of sympathy, an instinct for meeting people where they are, and a theology that is pastoral as well as missional.
Poverty, of course, is not limited to social housing estates, and having witnessed first hand the challenges facing those living in ‘hidden deprivation’ in both rural and coastal areas I commit to bring awareness and missional- focus to those living in poverty of all kinds in our Diocese, be that financial, food or infrastructure based.
Local Missional Leader, Stanford on Soar
Local Missional Leader and Reader
Over the last four years, my husband and I have shared in missional leadership in a small rural parish; I have grown in my understanding of the challenges of mission and ministry on the ground.
My medical background led to a lasting interest in ethics, which I developed through an MA in Bioethics, an MTh focused on resource allocation and doctoral research into missional hospitality across cultures in urban churches.
I joined the PCC for my local church in 2024, feeling honoured to be in the room whether we’re discussing unglamorous things like boilers or more exciting things like vision and missional strategy.
I believe the parish remains an extraordinary missional gift: a commitment not simply to gather a congregation, but to seek the flourishing of a particular place and be present for the long term.
I regard safeguarding and how we treat those abused in our communities as missional priority not an add on.
The discussion around missional structures will need to be ongoing as the Church of England looks to the future.
I will champion the Church’s Net Zero targets while supporting parishes to realise the missional opportunities of creation care.
For me, this is not simply a financial question, but a missional one.
Families should not simply be the recipients of children's ministry, but part of the worshipping and missional life of the Church.
The Church’s calling is both pastoral and missional.
Prior to ordination training I had the great privilege of serving across varied missional contexts in both northern and southern provinces (CEMS participant in Sunderland with a four group benefice of churches and work as pastoral assistant at St Martin-in-the-fields) I whole heartedly affirm the aims of the Save the Parish network because I believe that our greatest strength lies in our historic parochial model of church.
Our missional issues are also leading to financial challenges.
This is an issue of justice and a missional priority which will be a significant feature of the next quinquennium if we are to re-build trust in the institution.
While Christ is Lord of the church and the bringer of growth, much of church life is dependent on having servant-hearted, missional ordained and lay leaders at the helm.
07398 102428 [email protected] (<-- Click to email me!) My policy summary: Passionate about inclusivity in all areas Supporter of missional outreach Believer in clergy and their place in communities Calling for robust safeguarding and church safeguarding reform Advocate for climate and ecological care by the the CofE and Church Commissioners
If elected to the House of Clergy, I would listen carefully, celebrate our differences where they exist, and seek to represent our rural communities, which form the heartbeat of the worshipping, missional life of our diocese, alongside our market towns, urban parishes, and gathered churches.