Current and past activity

I am Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell in the Diocese of Chelmsford and Area Dean for Basildon. My current and past activities all fit within the HeartEdge 4 Cs mission model.

Our three churches and halls in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry are hubs for the community in Wickford and Runwell. Between them activities and groups supported include: Coffee Mornings; Councillor Surgery; Art and Heritage Exhibitions; Floral Art; Gamblers Anonymous; Huff & Puff; Lace Makers; Ladygate Scribblers; Martial Arts; Meet & Make; Mothers Union; Parent & Toddlers Group; Parent’s 1st Group; Phlebotomy Clinics; Singing Group; Tai Chi; U3A; Unveiled arts and performance evening; Warfarin Clinic; WI Craft Group; Wickford Chapter; Wickford Lodge; Wickford Women’s Institute; Yoga. These groups and activities provide a wide range of social, leisure and educational opportunities for the local community, as well as providing warm spaces that enable those attending to save on heating in their homes while attending. In addition, local schools visit our buildings for a range of educational opportunities. 

Our Unveiled arts and performance evening plus our art and heritage exhibition programme deliver new cultural offers in Wickford. These seek to bring high quality art and performance to Wickford while also encouraging local talent by providing new platforms for local performers and artists. We take part in Bas-Arts Index and Wickford Voices (Creative Basildon) and use heritage displays provided by Basildon Heritage. We have worked with local arts organisations such as Runwell Art Club and Next Step Creative, while also utilising local artists and performers such as Jackie Burns (Space Artist), Dave Crawford (Musician), Eva Romanakova (Singer), John Paul Barrett (Artist) and Steven Turner (Dancer). We have supported the possible development of a Wickford Business Improvement District (BID), including joining the Town Team.

We are making use of the HeartEdge 4 Cs which has enabled a focus on cultural programming that has brought new contacts with the community and which is generating additional opportunities for grant funding. One church in the team is being developed as a cultural and heritage hub for the town, while others are expanding their focus on contemplative spiritualities and traditional parish activities. Within these initiatives, a new enquirers course has been introduced and a monthly discussion group for young people.

The Basildon Deanery is a group of Church of England churches in the Basildon, Billericay and Wickford areas. Our 19 churches are grouped in 10 parishes and have great community activities, enjoyable cultural events and artefacts, beautiful environments, and fascinating heritage. In the Basildon Deanery we have used Mission Opportunities Fund grants to set up a Deanery website (https://basildondeanery.co.uk/) and to work with mission consultants/coaches.  

My creative writing has been published by Amethyst Review, International Times, Strait, and Stride Magazine. I write regularly on the Arts for national arts and church media and my journalism has been published by: AM; Art+Christianity Journal; Artlyst; ARTS Journal; ArtServe Magazine; ArtWay; Church Times; Epiphany; Expository Times; Faith in Business Quarterly, Franciscan Magazine; Gods' Collections; Ilford Recorder; Image Journal; International Times; Journal of Theological Studies; Muslim Weekly; National Churches Trust; New Start; Seen and Unseen Magazine; Strait; Stride Magazine; Transpositions; and Visual Commentary on Scripture. 

My publications include: ‘The Secret Chord’ (Lulu, 2012, with Peter Banks); ‘Finding Abundance in Scarcity’ (Canterbury Press, 2021, ed. Samuel Wells); ‘Liturgy on the Edge’ (Canterbury Press, 2018, ed. Samuel Wells); ‘Living with other faiths’ (Contextual Theology Centre, 2006 / Greater London Presence & Engagement Network, 2009); ‘Christians in the workplace’ (Diocese of Chelmsford, 2007, with C. Ball, P. Ritchie and P. Trathen); and ‘Despair and Hope in the City’ (Alistair Shornach, 1990, with Philip Evens). I have poems that have been included in two anthologies: 'Thin Places and Sacred Spaces' (2024); and 'All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich' (2023).

My previous roles in the Church of England have been as: Associate Vicar for HeartEdge at St Martin-in-the-Fields (including three years as p/t Priest-in-charge at St Stephen Walbrook), Vicar of St John’s Seven Kings, and Curate at St Margaret’s Barking.

At St Martin-in-the-Fields I led the development of HeartEdge from its launch in 2017 to become a growing international and ecumenical movement of churches, organisations and individuals from Australia, Canada, England, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, USA, and Wales. The movement includes Baptist, Church of England, Church of Scotland, Episcopal, Independent, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Protestant Church of the Netherlands, Remonstrant, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army, United Reformed, and Uniting Church.

Initiated by the congregation at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 2017, HeartEdge is a movement for renewal, fuelled by people and churches sharing their assets, experience, resource and need. As an ecumenical network, HeartEdge brings together people to share ideas and experience, do theology and develop their church and community. HeartEdge is about churches developing four Cs: Commerce - Generating finance via enterprise, creatively extending mission. Culture - Art, music, performance re-imagining the Christian narrative for the present. Congregation - Inclusive liturgy, worship and common life. Compassion - Empowering congregations to address social need. 

I also had three main areas of responsibility in relation to the congregation at St Martin’s. First, I created an artists’ and craftspeoples’ group involving participants of all abilities which organises art workshops, a monthly drawing group, exhibition space in the Crypt, annual exhibitions, and a lecture series. Second, I was the clergy lead for the Disability Advisory Group, Disability Cross-Site Working Group, and annual conference on disability and church organised in partnership with Inclusive Church. Among other outcomes the support and facilitation I have provided enabled delivery of a full organisational Access Audit, six conferences, and two publications. Third, I was clergy lead with the Global Neighbours Committee which, as a sub-committee of the PCC, enabled St Martin’s to support their neighbours around the world by contributing to the funding of projects, through prayer, raising awareness and other activities. In this period I also led on their partnership with St Mary’s Cathedral Johannesburg. For three years I was also Chair of Westminster Churches Together.

I supported a curate as a team member at St Martin’s and undertook the setting up and preparation for a second curate who began after I had left. I was also a Post Ordination Training Tutor for Two Cities & Stepney – attending and contributing to POT (IME4-7) meetings in order to provide continuity of pastoral care and contribute to teaching. I also became an Associate Tutor for St Augustine’s College of Theology, teaching a module on The Arts, Culture and Christian Ministry and Mission.

At St Stephen Walbrook I created in ‘Start:Stop’ – reflections for those on their way to work - a mission model that worked in its context (creating a new sustainable congregation and drawing new people into the wider life of the church) and is replicable. I demonstrated the viability of a new Monday lunchtime service, now being taken forward as Choral Classics. I set and demonstrated the value (in terms of visitor footfall and deepening spirituality) of ongoing arts programming in a City church context. I revived the relationship between the church and Mansion House and introduced a new annual service to the City which was enthusiastically embraced by the Livery Companies and Ward Clubs. I also addressed the issues which were holding back the missional development of the church - and put viable, high-quality alternatives in place, often using the partnership with St Martin’s to do so. I was a training incumbent to one curate at St Stephen Walbrook.

St John’s Seven Kings aimed to grow together as a community of God's people, filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus Christ's example and teaching. I sought to lead us as a community (including a team of reader emeritus and authorized local preacher) in that aim and enable us to live it out through worship, love, inclusivity, growth, service, witness, healing and prophecy. 

I sought to do so, in particular, by: addressing financial issues through stewardship and hall usage; an ongoing programme of building maintenance; community engagement through community campaigns and groups (including the chairing of Seven Kings & Newbury Park Resident's Association and the Management Committee of Downshall Pre-School Playgroup, plus serving as a Community Governor at Downshall Primary School); further development of the St John’s Centre as a community hub; development of a community garden; schools ministry; development of a Ministry Leadership Team; use of a variety of styles of service; establishment of a youth club; delivery of a Sunday School and annual Holiday Club; clustering with three neighbouring Anglican churches; establishment of a local Scriptural Reasoning group; establishment of a social enterprise project (Seven Kings & Newbury Park Sophia Hub); and publicizing of our engagement with the Arts (including the creation of a local Art Trail) and the wider community. 

I began the development of these initiatives with a review of the existing Mission Statement for St John's and we reviewed progress by means of a worship survey, a mystery worshipper, and ongoing discussions in Ministry Leadership Team meetings. From 2008 I was a training incumbent contributing to the training of two curates.

I had wide ranging and varied experience during my title post, including a 15 month interregnum when I was the sole priest in the ministry team based at St Margaret’s Barking. In addition, to pastoral, preaching and teaching ministries, the occasional offices and leading worship, I set up and chaired the Faith Forum for Barking & Dagenham, organized an ecumenical programme of SOULINTHECITY initiatives across the borough, set up and supported a support initiative for self-harmers, organized the delivery of ESOL courses from the St Margaret’s Centre, and organized church involvement in a range of borough-led Arts projects.

My ministry has involved a focus on the following:

• The Arts i.e. organisation of concerts, performances, events, exhibitions and study days in each Parish and through commission4mission; oversight of contemporary Church Art commissions in each Parish and through commission4mission; delivery of Arts-related courses in parishes, through commission4mission and as part of Diocesan Lent and Eastertide programmes; painting/creative writing; arts-related journalism with a national profile, and publication of ‘The Secret Chord’. For my sabbatical I visited significant sites connected to the renewal of religious art in Europe during the twentieth century in order to reflect on the significance of these sites both for art history and good practice for commissioning.
• Inter-faith engagement i.e. managed a project which introduced a Faith Communities Toolkit to three Jobcentre Plus regions and piloted new approaches to Jobcentres working in partnership with their local faith communities, including design and quality assurance of a comprehensive Information Pack (the Faith Communities Toolkit) and delivery of training in the use of this Toolkit; set up and chaired the Barking & Dagenham Faith Forum including: agreement of aim, objectives and statement of commitment; preparation of constitution; planning of Launch Event; chairing of Organising Committee; development of Faith Forum programme; and fundraising; planned, publicized and run, through Faith in London's Economy (FiLE), seminars on Ethics in a Global Economy and Re-negotiating ‘value’, using speakers such as Saif Ahmad, Jay Lakhani, Dr. Edmund Newell, Mannie Sher and Baroness Uddin; undertaking of consultancy work for Faith Regen Foundation; development of the Living with other Faiths Resource pack; involvement in Greater London Presence & Engagement Network (PEN) and Chelmsford Diocese Presence & Engagement Group; development of a local Scriptural Reasoning group and of Seven Kings Sophia Hub. 
• Training i.e. as a trained Trainer I have: taught a module on The Arts, Culture and Christian Ministry and Mission for St Augustine’s College of Theology; delivered the Living God’s Future Now online programme of workshops for HeartEdge; written and delivered ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’ sessions and courses through St Martin’s and HeartEdge; designed and delivered the ‘Living with other faiths’ congregational resource pack for CTC (later revised for Greater London PEN), including delivery of training for individual parishes, as part of the Diocese of Chelmsford’s Lent & Eastertide programme, and as a unit in Stepney Area Reader’s Training; designed and delivered (with others) the Christians in the Workplace resource pack for the Diocese of Chelmsford, including delivery of training using its materials for individual parishes, as part of the Diocese of Chelmsford’s Lent & Eastertide programme, with St Mellitus College students and SSM curates in the Diocese; designed and delivered (with others) ‘The Big Picture’, ‘Living the Story’ and ‘Christian Art – fallacy or fusion?’ series of courses on faith and popular culture for the Diocese of Chelmsford’s Lent & Eastertide programme; delivery of Lent Courses; leadership of home groups; POT Tutor for Two Cities and Stepney Areas; and contributions as a speaker to a wide variety of conferences, seminars and workshops.
• Workplace ministry i.e. Weekly email to work-based email group; Christians in the Workplace courses; development of Christians in the Workplace Parish Resource pack; planned, publicized and run, through FiLE, seminars on Ethics in a Global Economy and Re-negotiating ‘value’; set up 'Start:Stop' at St Stephen Walbrook and 'Contemplative Commuters' in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry.

I have been: Trustee and Chair of Trustees for the Voice of the People Trust; Trustee and Elder of the New Life Church Centre, Dagenham (originally Grieg Hall Evangelical Church); Consultant, then Director of FRF; Consultant for MADE in Europe; Chair of Trustees for Downshall Pre-School Playgroup; Community Governor for Downshall Primary School; Chair of Seven Kings & Newbury Park Resident’s Association; Secretary of commission4mission; and Director of Sophia Hubs Limited. I am currently a Director of FRF and a Local Advisory Board member for Wickford Church of England School. 

Prior to ordination I worked in the Employment Service/Jobcentre Plus for 18 years and held a range of policy and operational posts primarily at management levels including: policy development work on New Deal 50+ and New Deal for Disabled People which included researching US approaches to Welfare to Work and organizing a national consultation event; managing a team of 14 delivering an assessment and rehabilitation service for disabled people; setting up a pilot Personal Adviser service and leading a consortium bidding to deliver a Job Retention service; and managing a project which introduced a Faith Communities Toolkit to three Jobcentre Plus regions and piloted new approaches to Jobcentres working in partnership with their local faith communities. During this time, I trained as a trainer. 

I have BA (Hons) degrees in Modern English Studies and Contextual Theology. In a gap year after Further Education, I led a British Youth for Christ voluntary youth work team which organized a mission, holiday club, Youth Services and took assemblies/lessons in schools. 

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Delirious? - Find Me In The River.

How often should we forgive?

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this evening:  

When I was at St John’s Seven Kings, classes from Newbury Park Primary School visited to use the Easter Activity Stations we prepared. These helped them reflect on the Easter story with one of the stations being on the theme of forgiveness. After thinking about the way in which Jesus said, "Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing," this Station involved the children asked themselves the following questions:

1. Have you ever been hurt by anybody?

2. Do you need to forgive them?

They then wrote a list of who and what they needed to forgive and stuck this to felt boards by the cross on the altar.

How do we feel about our worst enemy? Is there any member of the family, or anybody at work, against whom we’re nursing anger, bitterness or resentment? It is only as we forgive others can we enter fully into the wonderful experience of God’s forgiveness of us. This is not just a nice idea. It’s a condition for our own forgiveness. Jesus warns us that if we don’t forgive, then we in turn shall not be forgiven (Matthew 18.21-35). This teaching alone, if we take it seriously, will completely change our lives.

In his book, Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright says, "Forgiveness is a way of life, God’s way of life, God’s way to life; and if you close your heart to forgiveness, why, then you close your heart to forgiveness. That is the point of the terrifying parable in Matthew 18, about the slave who had been forgiven millions but then dragged a colleague into court to settle a debt of a few pence. If you lock up the piano because you don’t want to play to somebody else, how can God play to you? That is why we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That isn’t a bargain we make with God. It’s a fact of human life. Not to forgive is to shut down a faculty in the innermost person, which happens to be the same faculty that can receive God’s forgiveness.”

Wright notes that Jesus has already taught his followers to pray for forgiveness (6.12), and has specified clearly that if you want forgiveness you've got to be prepared to give it (6.14-15). Now Jesus returns to that same theme. Peter's question and Jesus' answer say it all (verses 21-22). If you're still counting how many times you've forgiven someone, you're not really forgiving them at all, but simply postponing revenge. 'Seventy times seven' is a typical bit of Jesus' teasing. What he means, of course, is 'don't even think about counting, just do it'”

Despite this Desmond Tutu, the founder of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, writes: "I realise how difficult the process of forgiving truly is. Intellectually, I know my father caused pain because he himself was in pain. Spiritually, I know my faith tells me my father deserves to be forgiven as God forgives us all. But it is still difficult. The traumas we have witnessed or experienced live on in our memories. Even years later they can cause us fresh pain each time we recall them ...”

Then, he goes on to say: “When we are willing to let down our defences and look honestly at our actions, we find there is a great freedom in asking for forgiveness and great strength in admitting the wrong. It is how we free ourselves from our past errors. It is how we are able to move forward into our future, unfettered by the mistakes we have made."

"Forgiveness takes practice, honesty, open-mindedness and a willingness (even if it is a weary willingness) to try. It isn't easy. Perhaps you have already tried to forgive someone and just couldn't do it. Perhaps you have forgiven and the person did not show remorse or change his or her behaviour or own up to his or her offences – and you find yourself unforgiving all over again. It is perfectly normal to want to hurt back when you have been hurt. But hurting back rarely satisfies. We think it will, but it doesn't. If I slap you after you slap me, it does not lessen the sting I feel on my own face, nor does it diminish my sadness over the fact that you have struck me. Retaliation gives, at best, only momentary respite from our pain. The only way to experience healing and peace is to forgive. Which is why to forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. Until we can forgive, we remain locked in our pain and locked out of the possibility of experiencing healing and freedom, locked out of the possibility of being at peace."

Forgiving is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. Those emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger. However, when we talk of forgiveness what we mean is the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state only locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on, and you can even help the perpetrator to become a better person too.

Gordon Wilson is an example of this happening in practice. Gordon Wilson was the father of Marie Wilson, one of 12 victims of the Enniskillen Remembrance Day Bombing in 1987. The bombing could have provoked a response of anger and revenge; instead, what emerged was an atmosphere of forgiveness and reconciliation because of Gordon Wilson and the way in which he responded to this tragedy in the spirit of Jesus.

A few hours after the bombing, when interviewed by the BBC, he described his last conversation with his daughter, a nurse, as they both lay buried in rubble. He said: "She held my hand tightly, and gripped me as hard as she could. She said, 'Daddy, I love you very much.' Those were her exact words to me, and those were the last words I ever heard her say." To the astonishment of listeners, Wilson went on to add, "But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. She loved her profession. She was a pet. She's dead. She's in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night." Historian Jonathan Bardon recounts that: "No words in more than twenty-five years of violence in Northern Ireland had such a powerful, emotional impact."

Gordon Wilson forgave the terrorists who had killed his daughter. He said that he would pray for them. He also begged that no-one took revenge for Marie's death as that could not bring her back. His response to atrocity of the Enniskillen bombings was in the spirit of Jesus and helped to overcome divisions between Catholic and Protestant, as throughout the rest of his life he worked hard to bring reconciliation between people in Northern Ireland including becoming patron of the Spirit of Enniskillen Trust which worked to encourage dialogue and greater understanding between all social, cultural and religious traditions.

As Desmond Tutu writes: "The simple truth is, we all make mistakes, and we all need forgiveness. There is no magic wand we can wave to go back in time and change what has happened or undo the harm that has been done, but we can do everything in our power to set right what has been made wrong. We can endeavour to make sure the harm never happens again.

There are times when all of us have been thoughtless, selfish or cruel. But no act is unforgivable; no person is beyond redemption. Yet, it is not easy to admit one's wrongdoing and ask for forgiveness. "I am sorry" are perhaps the three hardest words to say. We can come up with all manner of justifications to excuse what we have done. When we are willing to let down our defences and look honestly at our actions, we find there is a great freedom in asking for forgiveness and great strength in admitting the wrong. It is how we free ourselves from our past errors. It is how we are able to move forward into our future, unfettered by the mistakes we have made."

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U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday.