Articles

A Christian Festival for Sheffield

I spent 3 days last week in Stuttgart in Germany as a guest of the something called the Kirchentag. It's a great gathering of Protestant Christians from all across Germany.  There were 30,000 active participants and over 100,000 visitors to…

Grave Talk

Some of the hardest conversations we will ever have are about death.  How do you begin even to raise the subject with those you love?  How do you talk about your deepest hopes and fears, your dreams for your life, your pain and anxiety, your…

The Top Ten Proverbs for Twitter and Facebook

People in Britain spend more time online than they do sleeping: 8 hours 41 minutes a day according to an Ofcom survey in 2014.  That’s twice as much time as the average person spends watching television.  The same “average” person…

Christ is Risen!

The Cathedral held a dawn service on Easter Day this year.  I set the alarm for 4.30 in the morning for a 5.30 start. The service began in darkness: readings and prayers from the Old Testament looking back to creation, to the Exodus, to…

Humility

On Thursday of this week, I will be taking part in two profound symbolic actions in the Cathedral which have humility at their very heart. The first is the Royal Maundy.  Her Majesty the Queen will distribute gifts to eighty-nine men and…

The Crossroads Mission

Twenty-one bishops from across the north of England are visiting the Diocese of Sheffield in September for four days of mission together, led by the Archbishop of York.  We’ve called the mission “Crossroads”. As far as I know, it’s…

Who is my neighbour?

Less than two thirds of the population cast their vote in the last General Election in 2010.  Less than half of under 25’s turned out to vote.  People feel detached from politics. Our society needs fresh vision.  We face different threats…

The Good Samaritan and Climate Change

How should a Christian think and speak about climate change? Climate change is a present reality not a future threat.  It’s a present reality for millions of the poorest people in the world who are affected today by rising sea levels,…

Leading Well: a new beginning

We begin a new course in the Diocese of Sheffield tomorrow called Leading Well.  It's a new three year rolling programme for incumbents across the Diocese.  The first cohort of around twenty are mainly in their first three years of their first…