Questions for General Synod candidates

A favourite Bible passage of mine is Jesus’ conversation with the Syrophoenician woman. Despite the barriers between Jews and Syrophoenicians, Jesus loves her, as God loves all his children. Jesus listens to her, and her voice is heard.

We are called to do the same.

Living abroad and studying languages has given me opportunities to experience different cultures more deeply. Ducking under diggers and watching new roads appearing in Kazakhstan, sharing a flat in Germany with four others from Poland, Nigeria, Vietnam, Cyprus, and worshipping with churches abroad and across the Birmingham and Worcester dioceses, I have gained new understanding, appreciation and love for our multicultural world, country, diocese and parishes.

If elected to General Synod, I will commit to listen to, learn from, include, and seek to advocate for those whose voices are often overlooked, and to encourage others to do likewise.

God loves all outrageously, and calls us to love and include everyone, not ‘in spite of’, but ‘because of’ our different cultures, experiences and lives. We must value and hear every voice, working together as a diverse and unified Church to form the beautiful tapestry of God’s children with God always at our centre.

As a woman of Indian origin, I bring my experience of growing up in a marginalised community to help raise awareness and strengthen inclusion within the Diocese. As co-chair of the Racial Justice Forum, I brought my lived experience to help the Diocese to be pro-active in looking at ways that we can gain a better understanding of the diverse and marginalised communities within our Diocese and improve our data collection, so that we can monitor improvements, identify any deficits, to ensure justice is embedded in our governance.

Answering this if I may: my international experience has taught me that much of what institutions treat as settled truth is often closer to bias. When I speak of the parish first, I am told I am nostalgic, which misreads me. What I want is a Church that stays able to include everyone: the rurally isolated as fully as the economically marginalised, the old as well as the young, gay, straight and everyone in between, those living with illness or mental ill-health, the migrant and the refugee. Living among the persecuted Christians of Iraq showed me that only a Church confident in its own faith can be that open, in its love of Christ and of one another.

Like every large institution, the Church listens best when it already believes it knows the answer. If it listened first, and let strategic plans and accounting follow, we’d deliver far more for Worcester, in the Black Country and the Vale alike. I want Synod to ask the people it legislates for what they need before it votes, questioning its assumptions, because what people need and what the Church thinks they need are rarely the same thing.

I haven’t lived abroad like Hannah; however, I do have an international perspective and experience. I teach periodically in Europe and work extensively with international students from example Nepal, China, India, Africa as well as Europe. I know the increasing challenges these young people face reporting to me that they no longer feel safe in the UK. I can use my daily experience of working with those from other cultures to speak up for the marginalised.

I believe that the Christian community should advocate for those marginalised for any reason including race and class. I have attended General Synod Racial Justice Fringe meetings and have supported their work when voting in Synod. In 2024 the Living Ministry Report identified the Church had a ‘deeply embedded culture of elitism’ causing significant problems for working class clergy. I grew up in a working-class community. I would continue to advocate for maintaining ministry in income deprived communities nationally and locally. I have played an active role in developing policy to support working class clergy as one of the General Synod Representative on the National Advisory Group for the Terms and Wellbeing of Ministers (AGTWAM).

The overarching Diocesan vision is “to grow as Kingdom People”. A favourite saying of mine is, “preach the Gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words”. People should know that we are Christian because we are Kingdom People – we love one another and have God at our centre.

Loving one another means loving everyone. I have worshipped with many churches across the Diocese (and further afield), am young, and am passionate about working towards a Church that actively welcomes, includes, and supports all to flourish as who they are.

As stewards of God’s creation, we are also called to love the world. Climate action is urgent, and I am committed to prioritising this.

The Church seeks financial stability and growth. As a languages student and student ambassador when universities are struggling financially and language studies are declining, I bring experience of working to tackle these challenges.

If elected to General Synod, I will bring all that I can – my skills and experiences, a heart open to listen, learn, and grow, and a faith rooted in my belief and trust in a God who loves us all outrageously, and for whom “nothing [is] impossible” (Luke 1:37, NRSV).

I am not a single issue candidate and have spoken in General Synod debates on knife crime, rehabilitation, care leavers, safeguarding. My passion and experience lies in safeguarding and racial justice which is where I have made the greatest contribution locally and nationally.

Within the Diocese I have supported the Diocesan Safeguarding Advisory Panel to strengthen its safeguarding work with the criminal justice system.

As co-chair of the Racial Justice Forum, I have provided strategic direction to our work on racial justice, and provide safeguarding advice to the West Midlands Racial Justice Initiative.

Nationally, I successfully delivered the Diocesan motion to General Synod to strengthen the partnership between the Church of England and the Probation Service, and work with Bishops and Diocesan safeguarding teams to implement the motion.

I have chaired the National Safeguarding Panel, an independent body within the Church of England, that scrutinises safeguarding practice across the Church.

As a member of the Liturgical Commission, I have written prayers for safeguarding and racial justice.

As member of the Safeguarding Structures Board, I am contributing to future independent safeguarding arrangements across the Church.

This demonstrates that I don’t just speak about change, I actually deliver it.

I am a strategist by trade and a social researcher by training. My working life has been spent on intractable social and organisational problems, helping institutions establish what is true, what they can afford, and what they should stop doing. Synod’s next five years will turn on those questions: the national funding review, how the Commissioners’ £11.6 billion endowment is used, and what the new Mission and Pastoral Measure allows to be done to a parish and by whom. One test would decide how I engage at Synod: what does this do to frontline mission and ministry in our Worcester parishes?

The researcher in me wants to know why, what and where. I would go and look at churches unlike my own and ask what is actually happening to them before Synod decides what should. As a village churchwarden I know what a vacancy or a merger does to a community, and that a rural church losing its services loses a social support nothing replaces. Rural parishes must be resourced as seriously as city and resource churches, and every congregation supported in its own style and tradition. We do not need one at the expense of the other.

My professional background is in HR. I have used this experience to advocate for support for the wellbeing of lay ministers and clergy and would like to continue this work. I worked on the successful motion addressing bullying in the Church and challenged the expectation of a six-day working week for clergy, arguing “The requirement for a six-day working pattern is ingrained in the Church of England. This [motion] would give clergy explicit permission to look after themselves.” I am a member of the National Advisory Group for the Terms and Wellbeing of Ministers and the working group reviewing the Professional Guidelines for the Clergy.

Chairing the Diocesan Vacancy and See Committee, gave me an insight in the priorities of our Diocese. As a lay chair of General Synod, I regularly chair the whole Synod giving me experience of the National Church.

I’ve lived for 38 years in a vicarage and took a full part in parish life, firstly in Hull and then 27 years in Worcester Diocese; at rural Powick, Malvern and in the Black Country in Wollescote and Pedmore. I know the Diocese well and would love to keep representing it.

In my time on Synod, I have gathered experience across a wide range of areas not least in how legislation is formulated, debated and amended. From my financial services experience of 36 years, I have regularly contributed to debates on the Clergy Pension Scheme, Church finances particularly in how they impact on Parishes and the provision of Clergy and the Archbishop’s Council budget. I understand HOW as well as why monies need to be diverted from the National Church to dioceses and particularly Parishes. As a person with a degree partly in Theology and Church History, I am also very interested in Ecumenical relationships particularly highlighting our links and relations with the Methodist and Roman Catholic Churches,

As a School Governor for over 20 years, I have also regularly contributed to educational debates both at School and Higher Education level.

The new Mission and Pastoral Measure (MPM) is currently a draft, and will not be perfect, but the question focuses on benefits.

The new draft aims to put pastoral care more clearly at its heart.

Big changes must be thoroughly considered, but solutions should be provided as soon as reasonably possible. The new draft seeks to simplify processes and change consultation processes to provide greater clarity for parishes, PCCs and clergy sooner, including the implications of parish reorganisation on clergy ministry.

The new proposal also seeks to increase parishes’ agency. Currently, parishes have a voice and the MPM tries to honour everyone’s “traditions, needs, and characteristics”, but trust and equality of knowledge are sometimes lacking. Informal conversations between the Diocese and parishes, new learning materials, and new policy frameworks intend to help PCCs and clergy to be better informed and better able to contribute to discussions. The framework proposed for “fallow periods” aims to enable thinking time without stasis.

The review of the MPM demonstrates a desire for improvement. Proverbs 16:3 encourages us to “commit to the Lord whatever [we] do” (NIV). I hope that, after further consideration and prayer, the MPM will better serve all.

The new Mission and Pastoral Measure seeks to modernise, simplify and make fairer the Church of England’s processes for pastoral reorganisation, ministry deployment and church buildings which are seen as complex and outdated. These changes also aim to build trust and reduce administrative burden.

Work on the new measure is still ongoing but I welcome and supported the changes which are planned to be in line with the Church’s vision and strategy to be simpler, humbler and bolder. As a result

Parishes and deaneries will have more autonomy to bring forward their own proposals rather than simply responding to diocesan plans.

PCCs will have less bureaucracy and be able to transfer their responsibility for building repair and maintenance to an authorised third party for a temporary period.

Clergy will have greater transparency about how decisions about deployment and workloads are made.

This Measure governs what parishes fear most: closing a church, merging a benefice, removing a priest. Its first draft would have stripped parishioners of most rights to object, and was stopped only by the largest consultation response in the Church’s history. The revised draft is better, but its benefit to PCCs and clergy depends on a handful of provisions, and I will vote on each the same way. I will vote to preserve every existing right of consultation, representation and appeal when a diocese proposes change; for parishes facing closure or merger to have legal advice and representation, as dioceses already do at the parish share’s expense; to keep the Church Buildings Council in every closure decision; for parishes to receive a share of the proceeds when vicarages are sold; for the streamlined process to be used only for proposals that come from the parish, which the parish can halt; and for bishops to have due regard to a parish’s tradition before appointing a priest-in-charge. If those hold, the Measure will spare parishes years of exhausting process without making closures easier. If they fall, I will vote against it.

I see this legislation as part of the national agenda to construct a Church that is ‘simpler, bolder and humbler’ trying to focus our resources on the life of the church’ in the front line in our parishes … ‘(Archbishop of York, 2021). Its espoused aim is to reduce complexity, to enhance trust between diocese and parish, and to give greater voice to local parishes, PCCs and clergy on ministry provision.

It should:

• Provide a more flexible and simplified approach to managing pastoral and ministry changes.
• Give greater weight to the views of PCCs addressing the imbalance of power between parishes/PCCs and dioceses.
• By providing streamlined processes reduce legal complexity for PCCS during pastoral change.
• Implement a longer consultation period before closure to give a PCC and parish the opportunity to develop alternative plans.
• Provide more flexibility for parishes discerning the future of churches that are struggling. It will allow a fallow period allowing churches not to offer worship whilst the parish, PCC and clergy consider the best way forward.

This answer is based on current information. The final Measure may change through the revision process or when it returns to Synod for debate.

For this Measure to be successful and to work as intended, which its predecessor struggled to do, it should allow for a simpler process which takes less time, but still fully involves the Parish and all connected parties. The Measure should allow things to be more, “Bottom Up” and less prescriptive, “Top Down”. The plan coming from the Parish and local area should always be looked at first and I would also favour more Deanery involvement as to how any changes link in with wider Deanery plans.

Currently the whole process takes too long whatever the outcome. It benefits all to speed things up, but the views of local people should if at all possible be the major factor. If that is not the case, I would seek if elected to move an amendment in Synod to be voted on to make this the case!

Jesus prayed that his followers would be one so the world might believe in him; it is part of his mission and ours. However, I do not believe that unity is the same as uniformity. Part of the broad tent of Anglicanism is that we all share our identity in Christ, and yet we are all uniquely and wonderfully made. If the church can celebrate what we share and hold our differences with grace and respect yet resist a unity that seeks to silence the marginalised, then we will model something radical to the world.

If elected, I will speak honestly and courageously about what I believe, whilst seeking to listen and understand well. I will treat those who disagree with me with dignity and respect. Good relationships give space to hear each other’s stories and have difficult conversations. If elected, I will seek to use my voice and vote to build bridges rather than deepen divisions.

I will always work for unity both in the church and in society and it horrifies me how people take to social media to attack, undermine and belittle others. However, my own lived experience is that when the church calls for unity it does so by all too often asking oppressed and minority groups to sacrifice who God has made them and I do not believe that this constitutes unity. Unity will only become a reality when oppression, discrimination and hatred ends, and I will always work passionately for all those of us who have faced these things in the church and society.

Paul reminds us that the body, the Church, is one and is yet made up of many members. So, the Church is bound together in a profound community, where “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together it.” Encouraging the Church to remember this and promote unity is therefore vitally important.

I try to do this by listening and journeying well with my sisters and brothers in Christ. This doesn’t mean I have to agree with someone on every issue and topic, but it will mean that I will give space for them to share what they believe and that I will listen with respect and that I hope to be given the same respect in return. I also believe that the Church is poorer if people of differing opinions and traditions cannot be in the same room.

I am committed to working with others, through synodical structures, to finding solutions to issues which enable different opinions to be held well. This can be costly, but I believe that integrity and unity can be held together if the Church remembers that we all belong to one body.

I will promote the unity of the church by contending for Christlikeness in my personal engagement with synod, in the culture of synod itself, and in the substance of our debates. I believe unity is fundamentally rooted in the apostolic faith that was “once for all entrusted to the saints.” The church – as in every era – is called to live out this faith in loving obedience to the Lord’s commandments which means being a global community of radical love and holiness. Living this out with integrity is what should set us apart from the toxicity that’s rife within the modern world. Jesus is full of grace and truth, and in turn this should be manifested in his people. This is the kind of church I want to belong to and it’s the kind of church I’ll contend for if elected to General Synod.

You have raised some very important and challenging issues facing the Church of England, and I agree that they deserve proper space and time for consideration at Synod. Buildings, clergy and volunteer morale, recruitment, safeguarding and finances are all vital to the flourishing and mission of our churches.

However, I do not think that questions of sexuality and reparations can be set aside. While they remain unresolved, they continue to cause significant emotional pain. Brushing them under the carpet will only allow those wounds to fester. Furthermore, I believe that issues of sexuality and race are not separate from concerns about safeguarding, morale and finances. As long as inequality persists in these areas, it will continue to affect the wellbeing, unity and sustainability of the Church.

I don’t believe that this is an either/or but rather, both. As Christians we are called to be prophetic in our generation, just as Jesus was prophetic, and sometimes this requires robust discussion and debate around things such as sexuality and reparations. Avoiding these doesn’t mean they disappear. Leadership calls us to look at them. Furthermore, I would argue that safeguarding links to conversations about sexuality particularly around conversion therapy. Likewise, do we want LGBTQI+ people financially giving to our churches and supporting our buildings?

I also believe that Synod needs to work hard on helping to develop solutions to problems faced day-by-day in parishes and we have seen some of that work in recent years and I would want it to continue.

Synod is called to work hard for the Kingdom and there needs to be space for all of these debates and conversations and not ignore some in favour of others.

I give thanks that the Church is called to debate and discuss and focus on many important areas of our common life which affect individual people as well as the Church’s vison to be Jesus centred and shaped. The last five years on General Synod have shown me the breadth of Kingdom issues which have been taken seriously by the national Church. Many of your pressing needs absolutely resonate with the areas that Synod had been concerned about and will continue to do so in the future.

The debates on LLF, PLF and Project Spire have been about the Kingdom and it is vital that they have been given, and continue to be given, the time that they need. The Church must never shy away from challenging issues because these are issues that affect real people and communities who are hurting in so many ways, and who long to be who God has created them to be. Healing takes time. If we can find healthy resolutions to these issues, then we will show to the world that we are a Church who takes all of life seriously.

It’s not strictly the members’ prerogative to set Synod’s agenda – that rests with the Business Committee. However, I would deeply value Synod having respite from hotly disputed subjects so we can focus on the daily realities affecting parish life: buildings, morale, mission, safeguarding, and finances. At the same time, I respect that issues like racial justice and sexuality matter deeply to many. We can’t simply pretend these conversations don’t exist. It’s not hyperbole when I say that the future of the Church of England rests on how we find peace and confidence in our convictions and practices. I want to ensure we stand firm and confident in the apostolic faith we’ve inherited, while extending grace to one another.

A few weeks ago, I was privileged to lead a service using the Prayers of Love and Faith for a same-sex couple who had recently entered into a civil marriage. It was a joyful celebration of their love for one another and God’s love for them.

When I was asked about same-sex marriage at my BAP eleven years ago, I said I hoped I would be able to officiate at one before I retired. I still hold that hope today. I support the marriage of LGBTQI+ people in church and want the Church of England to be a place where all people know they are loved, valued and able to flourish.

I fully support churches in the Church of England being able to offer stand alone marriage services for clergy and laity who are LGBTQI+ and marrying someone of their own gender.

I stood for General Synod in 2021 because I wanted to be part of the debate that hopefully enabled equal marriage to be a reality in our churches. I didn’t want to stand on the sidelines, and I was encouraged by the start of the LLF process. I am standing for re-election because I still have hope that future meetings of Synod will vote on more inclusion for all, and that the gift of marriage in church will be available to everyone regardless of their sexuality.

Since 2014, when same-sex marriage was legalised in this country, I have had same-sex couples in deeply faithful, stable and committed relationships and civil partnerships, approach me and ask if I can conduct their marriage in their church. It has been painful and distressing when I have had to share that this is not possible. I have couples who say that they will wait, however challenging that it is. I look forward with joyful anticipation to the day when I can pronounce God’s blessing on a same-sex couple during their marriage service in their church.

As a parish priest, I take my ordination vows seriously, pledging to teach and uphold the doctrine of the Church. Jesus himself affirmed marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman – a teaching held consistently across the global Church throughout the ages. Marriage as a picture of Christ and his Bride is an essential part of the gospel story. While I am committed to pastoral care, compassion, and grace for everyone in my parish, I cannot support altering or compromising the Church’s inherited teaching and practice of marriage.