All Blog Posts Tagged 'church' (33)

Here in Hannover the talk is all about change. The conference Kirchehochzwei not only has nearly 1200 people attending today and tomorrow, but also is a feat of imaginative organisation. I seem to do a lot of stuff…

The latest moves by the Church of England in the long-running drive to open the episcopate to women as well as men will, I hope, be encouraging. The process is vital and cannot be rushed; but, this is being progressed as swiftly as possible.

The statement following yesterday's meeting of…

Being in a place of scarcity and threat compels us to look through different eyes at our own situation and life. Gaining a first-hand acquaintance with the church in Sudan last week (as I had…

We arrived in Khartoum an hour late and got to the guesthouse where we are staying at 5am. So Sunday was spent asleep until we were collected and taken to the Cathedral where I was preaching at the 6pm Communion service.

There were probably 40 people in the Cathedral. Over dinner with the…

Yesterday an open letter from thirty church leaders in Yorkshire and Humberside was published. Addressed to the Prime Minister and copied to the Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, the letter aims to highlight concerns about the…

Advent. Begins today. The start of the church's year. Already.

The point of the timing is that we live with the expectation and anticipation that ends in Christmas… which turns out to be the beginning of a story that doesn't begin or end there. God, God's world, God's people.

I…

A recording for a BBC Radio 2 documentary at 8am this morning in London. Then the Chris Evans Show Pause for Thought on 'imagination'. Then a keynote conference address on communications challenges facing the church (mostly posed by the digital age and social media). Then a panel discussion at…

This morning we went with the Meissen Commission to visit the Martin-Luther-Gymnasium in…

Back from holiday on Arran, we finished off with a night in Liverpool and the Liverpool vs Manchester City game at Anfield this afternoon. Holidays are disorientating. My mind goes all over the place. I managed to read four novels in the week, but spent most time playing with my two year old…

After a day of hard meetings I laughed when I got an email with the link to this video. Most of us just moan about things like the budget, but the wife of the Dean of Wakefield got creative and made the point much more effectively.

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One of the challenges of listening through the ears of a different culture is trying to work out (a) what is being said, (b) how is it being said, (c) to whom is it being said, (d) why is it being said, and (e) what is being heard from what is being said.

Listening to a keynote speaker at…

The great thing about spending a week in Southwestern Virginia before the annual Council is that we got to meet a shed load of people and arrived at the Council already knowing many new friends. It also means that people trust me enough not to be perturbed when they come across something that…

Is it possible any longer to live without electronic media? I write this on my laptop with my mobile phone next to me on my desk (I am expecting a call) and a load of tweets telling me to watch Sherlock on iPlayer.

The Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), as part of its ten-year…

What a wonderful start to 2012.

Manchester Utd lose at home to bottom-of-the-table Blackburn Rovers. Then Manchester City lose to a last-gasp goal by Sunderland. Add to that the return of Steven Gerrard to Liverpool’s growing-in-confidence team and the sun is already shining though the…

Last Monday I left home early and drove through the most beautiful countryside up to the north of my diocese. The Yorkshire Dales are gorgeous anyway, but add in a massive dollop of snow blizzards, high winds and freezing temperatures,…

It looks like the conversion of St Paul’s wasn’t exactly a Damascus Road experience after all.

The delayed publication of the latest report by the St Paul’s Institute shows that, even if the City was unaware of it and the Occupy protesters ended up on the cathedral steps more by accident…

Back in 2007 I took a group of twenty to Central Zimbabwe for two weeks. The day after we arrived we walked to a farm and saw with our own eyes the desert that had once been a thriving and fertile farm. It has to be remembered that this was a time when the Zimbabwean economy was in free-fall and…

I know Christmas is coming, but Easter hasn’t quite disappeared yet.

Last Easter saw the launch of the Real Easter Egg – the UK’s first ever Easter egg to mention Jesus and tell the Easter story on the box. Produced by…

The Meissen Commission continued it’s work this morning with a review of last night’s interfaith seminar at the German Embassy.

This then led into a deeper discussion of how…

OK, it’s a tacky title from a tacky song. But, I was reminded of it during a fascinating cross-cultural session at the College of Bishops meeting in Oxford today.

Bishop…