Steven Croft

The Bishop’s Charge to new deacons and priests

Newly ordained priests take a selfie with Bishop Steven

Petertide 2025

Thank you so much for being willing to undertake this ministry of a deacon and priest within and for the Church of God. Thank you for all this has meant already in terms of the long road of discernment and vocation. Thank you for bearing with the imperfections and uncertainties of the Church. Thank you for all your families and those close to you have undertaken in sharing this journey with you. Thank you for the ministry you are offering and will offer across this diocese in the coming years.

In this final charge before your ordination as priest I very much want to offer you St Paul’s words rather than my own. Probably I should say Luke’s distillation of Paul’s words in Acts 20, the address to the Ephesian elders. Those who have studied the speeches in Acts tell us that this is the place in all of Paul’s speeches in Acts where the Paul of the epistles is closest to the Paul of Acts. The speech is a distillation of Paul’s reflections on ministry – a solemn charge. I want to suggest that you set try to set this text at the very heart of your ministry not just for the coming year but in all the years to come, in this very long friendship and offering of yourself.

Luke deliberately chooses to use the three New Testament words which are emerging as ways to describe those who hold office for life in the Church of God in this passage and its framing. These are the words which will carry the understanding of the church in relation to ministry down through the centuries. I think this is the only passage in the New Testament in which each occurs.

An act of service and commission

The speech is addressed of course to the presbyters of the Church in Ephesus (Acts 20:17), who are summoned to gather on the beach at Miletus. Paul refers in the speech to his own ministry as a diakonia: both an act of service and as a commission:

But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the diakonia that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.

Acts 20:24

The presbyters likewise are being given a commission, a diakonia. In the following paragraph they are also described very clearly as episcopoi, overseers, the word from which we derive the English word and title bishops:

Keep watch over yourselves and the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you episkopoi, overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.

Acts 20:28

We have three orders of ministry but also three interwoven dimensions of ministry embracing the commission to be servant-evangelists – deacons; the commission to be ministers of word and sacrament – priests or presbyters; the commission to be exercise oversight and leadership across Church and society, whether our particular role or license is to be a curate, a vicar, a chaplain, a scholar, or a bishop.

Treasure these words

Acts 19 has exercised a seminal influence over the Christian church’s understanding of what it means to be ordained to these ministries: you will find echoes of this text in every ordinal and in many of the classical reflections on ministry including Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule, the Rule of Benedict, George Herbert’s Priest to the Temple and Richard Baxter’s Reformed Pastor. There is so much here about the life of the minister relevant to every generation. Take these words and treasure them.

Treasure first the core principle with which the speech begins and ends: the principle that Christian ministry is incarnational. This is about who we are before it is about what we do.

Look carefully at the way Paul begins his address. Looking back at his ministry he does not say: You know how skilfully I preached. He does not say: You will remember the amazing vision to which I called you. He does not even say first: Remember the gospel I taught you, though he does absolutely go there next.

You know how I lived

Instead Paul simply says this: You know how I lived. Literally: you know how I was among you. Even better if less elegant: You know how I was becoming among you. The Greek word is egenomen.

How long did Paul stay in Ephesus? Three years, Acts will tell us (31) – about the length of a curacy. Amazing things happened in terms of the growth of the church and great miracles. Yet Paul does not say: remember the conversions, the riots, the book burning, the healings. He says this:

You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews.

People will remember who we are when they have forgotten everything we may have said or done. Paul returns to the same theme at the end of his speech in a wonderful final section:

You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus for he himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Acts 20:34-35

Paul goes on then to describe both what he did and what he said. It is not that these things are unimportant. But they are secondary in ministry to the whole person we seek to be, the whole person we are becoming, the humility, tears and endurance we bring to the lifelong commission to which we have been called. Paul describes the care he takes over his teaching ministry, both the methods he follows and the content of that ministry.

Paul’s gospel has a clear core: repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus. His gospel also has the widest possible horizons of the kingdom of God. References to the kingdom are quite rare in Acts but here we are clear of the breadth of this message: not personal salvation only but the coming reign of God of justice and of peace for the whole of creation:

And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will ever see my face again.

Acts 20:25

Watch over yourselves

You will know and understand that this diaconal, priestly, episcopal ministry in communities is difficult. You will know it is about the whole of who we are before God, both what we do and what we say. You will know the seriousness of the responsibility now to be committed to you.

And for that reason Paul would have all of us hear this very, very clearly. Because this ministry is so demanding – and hear this from someone who has been ordained for over 40 years – because this ministry is so demanding, watch over yourselves and then over all the flock.

Take responsibility for your own wellbeing. You are a precious child of God. You are called to flourish in ministry year after year, decade after decade, not to burn out in the first five years. Pace yourself. Husband your resources. Grow sustainable disciplines. Challenge unfair expectations and systems. Take good time off. Guard your family time. Befriend your inner drivers that cause you to overwork. Hold yourself accountable and look for that accountability in others. Watch over yourselves and then you will be able to watch over the flock. This is the scriptural, biblical order for your ministry and the pattern you need to teach to others.

With tears

There is more on hardship and difficulty in the passage, good places to return when things get tough. But let me end on the tears as a sign of the depth of your calling.

The passage is remarkable for no fewer than three references to tears. The first is in verse 19: serving the Lord with all humility and with tears. Paul describes the hardships of persecution, difficulty, perhaps frustration at the way the world is, at the way people treat each other. The tears of a prophet.

The second is in verse 31: Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears. These are the tears of the pastor, the evangelist living with and among God’s people and seeking to see them formed into the likeness of Christ.

The third reference is in verse 37: There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, grieving especially because of what he had said that they would not see him again.

One of the extraordinary gifts and graces of ministry is the capacity to love an ever widening, ever changing group of people, to share in the love of Christ for his church. At the heart of ever call to ministry as deacon or priest is very simply a call to love. Remember Jesus’ threefold question to Peter:

Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Feed my lambs.
Simon, son of John, do you love me? Tend my sheep.
Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep.

The threefold reference to tears is the inverse of of the cost of love. The call to be a deacon or priest is primarily a call to love Jesus by loving God’s world and a call to love Jesus by loving God’s church, the Body of Christ. God’s world and God’s church are manifestly imperfect and hard to love. That loving will involve grief and tears and many new beginnings.

It is this love which is at the heart of our ministry. And it is knowing we are loved by God and by others which gives us the strength to dare to undertake this ministry.

May God bless you richly in all you seek to be and to do in God’s name now and in the years to come.

Amen.

/by
Steven Croft

Digital Discipleship

Bishop Steven gave the presidential address to Diocesan Synod on Saturday 14 June at Holy Trinity, Hazlemere.

“And Jesus said to them, Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”

Matthew 13.52

A month ago on 14 May we welcomed around 100 young people into our conference of 280 clergy in Swanwick. The young people aged 15-17 came from four secondary schools across our diocese: Ranelagh, the Oxford Academy, Waddesdon and Churchmead. We wanted to listen together to their hopes and fears. I’m very grateful to the young people themselves and those who wrestled with the logistical challenges to enable them to be with us.

Students from the four schools helped to lead our Eucharist that day. The young people were inspiring. Then in the afternoon we spent ninety minutes in groups of around eight young people and around 15-20 clergy mainly listening to the hopes and fears of these amazing young people for their lives and for the church. Some of the young people were Christian; some were of other faiths; some were of no faith. The whole experience was immensely energising and enriching for the conference.

But my biggest takeaway and my starting point this morning was what came first on the list for the young people in terms of concerns for the future. It wasn’t the economy or the climate or war. For person after person as we went around the groups we heard the words artificial intelligence; technology; social media; AI.

Wrestling for a future

To expand a little: AI will do the jobs we are training to do. We don’t want our lives to be shaped by technology companies. What’s the point of school if the teacher cribs from ChatGPT? How do we know what is true? We feel helpless against deepfakes.

What do we have to say to those young people and millions like them as they wrestle with how to live their lives in a world dominated by technology and social media? What wisdom old and new can we bring out of the treasure house llike good scribes in schools and local churches? What should shape our approach to new technology as the Church?

The young people are mirroring the concerns in the rest of society. We might almost say Black Mirroring. Nine years ago when I began to explore the world of AI, that world felt like science fiction. Whenever I spoke on the subject I had to spend most of the time explaining what artificial intelligence is. As the technology has expanded, so has public awareness. According to a government survey published in December of last year, awareness of AI is now almost universal. But public trust in AI by many measures is falling.

Word cloud on terms to do with AI - the words are largely negative, with robot, scary and worried as the largest.

In this word cloud found in the same report the predominant words used are all negative: scary, worried; robot; unsure, echoing the insights and fears of our young people.

A rapidly rising trend

The greater public awareness of AI is of course driven by a combination of greater investment, some technological advances, a certain amount of hype and greater deployment of AI across many professions and in familiar software and search engines. We all encounter AI tools each time we use a search engine or a hold a meeting over Zoom. Some of us will be learning to use large language models like ChatGPT in work or study.

Over the course of 2025 we will become increasingly aware of AI Agents embedded in the software tools we use which are able to respond to simple instructions and carry out complex tasks.

A few weeks ago, I chaired a Westminster public policy forum looking at tackling disinformation and deepfakes in the United Kingdom. The different sessions explored the prevalence of deepfakes; sexually explicit deepfake images and synthetic sexual content, which is a rapidly rising trend; disinformation threats to the UK posed by hostile actors as well as strategies to combat all of this.

And there are news stories most days. According to a single edition of the Times on Wednesday: Westminster must prepare for the era of superintelligence (a column claiming the Turing test has now been passed). M&S take online orders again after attack (referencing the recent cyber attack). Period tracker app puts women’s safety at risk (a story about the harvesting of personal data which can be sold at scale). On the same day the BBC South featured the new Reading FC manager talking about the impact of AI on football. All of this and I’ve not yet mentioned social media, smartphones and mental health.

The Church at this moment

So how are we to seek to be the Church in this moment? What should we do and how should we respond and what wisdom old and new can we mine from our deep, deep treasure chambers of scripture and the tradition and the vast resources of good counsel held by our church members? What can we say to the young people who came to Swanwick; to the 60,000 young people who are part our schools across the diocese; to the tens of thousands of Christians who will be sharing in worship in our churches and chaplaincies this week? There are I think three messages I want to share with the church as we seek to live well with this new technology and at the heart of our response.

The first is to turn towards the human and the personal: to be rooted in the contemplative. The second is to develop wisdom and patterns for digital discipleship which are grounded in compassion for our selves and for others. The third is to find and use our voice to shape society: to engage; to be courageous. Allow me to explore each of these in turn.

Contemplative

The first turn then, the overarching priority in a world dominated by technology is for the Church of Jesus Christ to turn always towards the human, towards the personal, towards the relational, to be a face to face church.

Most questions around technology and artificial intelligence sooner or later raise questions about what it means to be human: about agency and imperfection and identity and mortality; about flourishing and relationships and love. As our world becomes more and more shaped by technology, it is a temptation for the church to be shaped more and more by technology in our common life, to be seduced by the spirit of the age.

A new humanity

But remember the doctrines at the core of our Christian faith and identity. We dare to believe that humankind is not a random accident or a step on a journey of evolution which will end with a disembodied universal consciousness. We dare to believe that humankind, men and women are made in the very image of God. That despite and because of our frailty and flaws each person is unique; deserving of dignity and respect; infinitely precious and loved and worthy of eternity and understanding and significance. We have been reflecting as the Church on what it means to be human in the Judaeo Christian tradition for over three thousand years in our stories and art and our liturgy. We have a major contribution to make.

We further dare to believe that Almighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, of the entire universe, became a human person in Jesus Christ and modelled for us what it means to love and to live well. Jesus’ life was shaped not by aggrandisement nor power,  nor seeking wealth but sacrifice. Jesus laid down his life for us on the cross. God raised him from the dead. Jesus gave to us the precious gift of the Holy Spirit to infuse our fallen humanity with Christ’s spirit and divinity and to prepare us for an eternal destiny. And Jesus calls together a new humanity spanning every nation across the earth called to live as Jesus lives as a sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom.

In this moment the Church needs to become deeply confident again in in this story; in our understanding of what it means to be human and what makes for human flourishing: love; relationship; forgiveness; service; purposeful work; good rhythms of life; welcoming intergenerational communities; inspiring worship.

How do we turn towards the human?

This means I think that all local churches and church schools will need to be circumspect and careful about the embracing of technology. In every decision this should be the question: how do we turn towards the human; to the relational; to the small; to the local. In this particular age the features of our church life which we can think of as weaknesses are actually turned into strengths: the small and the local and the relational and the countercultural are most likely to thrive in a decade when those around us are seeking truth and authenticity and community and love. We need to be a more confident, contemplative Church in the face of new technology; a more still and silent Church in the clamour of addictive technologies; a more authentic church in a climate of digital fakery.

Compassionate

The second turn is for the Church of Jesus Christ is to develop wisdom and patterns for digital discipleship which are grounded in compassion for others and for ourselves. There is a new dimension for all of our lives: the digital. We need to apply both new and ancient wisdom to our living in this new dimension for we are to be disciples in the whole of our living and the whole of ourselves: online and offline. It was apparent to me long before I came off all social media that many, many Christians express themselves online in ways they would not dream of speaking in person.

Ecological discipleship

Pope Francis coined the term ecological discipleship in his great encyclical Laudato Si’ on the environment: the whole way we live in such a way as to restore and repair the earth. In a different way we need to learn ourselves how to live well and wisely and compassionately  with technology; with the continual flows of information; with the ways in which we communicate; with the 24/7 society.

Digital discipleship will include learning and teaching good digital hygene and care of our data. It will include honesty and accountability about where our attention roams online. It will include recognising patterns of temptation and addiction in the private online spaces. It will mean guarding our integrity. It may mean recognising new temptations such as gambling or pornography or rekindling old relationships. Digital discipleship might mean developing patterns of digital sabbaths; weaning ourselves away from social media. Digital discipleship will mean reflecting carefully on the access we enable for our children and young people to screens and devices.

Communities of resistance

Is it possible for local churches to be become communities of resistance and reflection in relation to new technology: places where parents learn how to be good parents in the digital age; where young people learn the risks for the soul of hook ups and abusive sex replacing relationships; where those in mid life make real friendships in the real world as the antidote to isolation; where the shallow dopamine rewards of likes on Instagram are replaced by the inspiration of a worship service; where the listlessness and misery created by doom-scrolling can be transformed by hope, by self discipline and by joy.

Can churches be places where people learn the deep wisdom of being able to recognise truth and authenticity and reality in a world dominated by deep fakes and kindness and gentleness and mercy replace the harsh judgements of our cancel culture? Will we have the vision to apply the lessons in our sermons to the online world as well as the offline world? To invite our parishes and our schools into the profound adventure which is authentic Christian discipleship?

Courageous

And the third turn for the Church is to find and use our voice to shape society; to engage; to be courageous.

There is no doubt that AI and technology are shaping our society in the present and will be a shaping force in the future. There will be benefits in medicine; in research; in automation; perhaps in productivity. But there will be many areas where protest and guidance and counter movements are needed to resist the entire shaping of society in the interests of the big technology companies.

Parliament has seen a significant battle this week between on the one hand the creative industries and on the other the interests of Big Tech in the attempts to amend the new Data Use and Access Bill to introduce greater transparency in the training of AI models on others original work. That is just once instance of where the battle lines are being drawn.

Vigilance on AI

The final document issued by Pope Francis in January Antiqua et Nova takes Matthew 13.52 as a guiding text and lists no less than ten areas where Church and Society will need to be vigilant about the effects and benefits of AI:

  1. Society
  2. Human relationships
  3. The economy and labour
  4. Healthcare
  5. Education
  6. Misinformation, deepfakes and abuse
  7. Privacy and surveillance
  8. The protection of our common home
  9. Warfare
  10. Our relationship with God

The bigger picture

Each of these areas needs investment, reflection, a critique and resistance. The last nine years have taught me that there are very few voices in society able to step back and look at the larger picture of what technology is doing to society. The Churches and the faith communities can and should be one of those voices engaged in this reflection and engaged in campaigning at every level. Over the past year we have seen the power of parental engagement in campaigns on online safety, on children’s mental health and on banning mobile phones from the classroom. As churches we need to be speaking out and also nurturing this careful critique, reflection and resistance.

To return to again to the young people who came to the clergy conference. I don’t think they were wrong to be anxious about the impact of technology on their lives. The Church needs to be watchful and careful in the coming years. I hope these three key turns will provide a framework and a reference point for three turns we need to make.

The first is to turn towards the human and the personal: to be rooted in the contemplative. The second is to develop wisdom and patterns for digital discipleship which are grounded in compassion for our selves and for others. The third is to find and fuse our voice to shape society: to engage; to be courageous.

/by
Steven Croft

Treasure in clay jars – Synod address

Word Cloud for AI terms

Bishop Steven gave the presidential address to Diocesan Synod on Saturday 8 March at Didcot Civic Hall.

Back to Christ

In a well known and loved passage in 2 Corinthians, Paul reflects on the transforming power and wonder of the gospel: “the light of the gospel of glory of Christ who is the image of God” (4.4).

“For”, he goes on, “we do not proclaim ourselves” – a temptation for every Church in every generation – “we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (5).

The Church in Corinth is facing multiple crises: of disorder; of immorality; of ethics; of confidence in leadership and ministry; of reputation; of finance. In the midst of this crisis Paul draws their attention again and again away from themselves and back to Christ:

“For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (6).

Our own Church and our Diocese need to hear those words afresh again this morning as we gather for this Synod bearing the wounds and scars of a fractured Church. Our first calling, our first prayer, our first love, our salvation is to remember God’s glory revealed in Jesus Christ in our worship and contemplation.

Then Paul reminds us in a powerful metaphor how we are to imagine ourselves in relation to the glory of God and the inestimable treasure of the gospel:

“But we… but we… have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us”.

Paul goes on to describe just how ordinary and earth bound these clay jars can become: “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh”. So that the life of Jesus may be made visible.

Who is Paul describing in this metaphor of clay jars: not the highly decorated ornaments we find in museums but the ordinary clay pots for everyday use found in every home. He describes himself and his companions, certainly, underlining their struggles and elsewhere in the letter, their past failings and their present imperfection. He is describing the experience of every minister, lay and ordained, who has ever struggled to write a sermon; to give comfort to the dying; to reconcile the factions on a church council; to preach to a congregation of unbelievers at a wedding or a funeral.

Treasure in jars of clay

But Paul is also intentionally describing here the Church in every time and place, not only the ministers. The Corinthians and the Anglicans and everyone else are meant to turn the metaphor around and rediscover who they are: we are small and ordinary and weak and barely know how to be the people of God; we have this treasure in jars of clay.

We will all have experienced a range of emotions over the last four months following the publication of the Makin review: immense grief and compassion for survivors of church related abuse and mistreatment; deep anger at the failings of the Church; concern for those caught at the heart of multiple storms in the media; shame and contrition at our own shortcomings or blindness and also for the failings of others. All of us will need to give ourselves and each other permission to grieve and to question and to be angry and to long for something better. As one writer has said, in this season, part of taking up our cross and the painful cost of our discipleship is to be identified with the failings of the institutional church and then to commit ourselves to the task of rebuilding and repair.

We will want to take from all of this grief and anger a renewed sense of the fallibility of the church and of all human institutions. Clay jars. Cracked pots. You will no doubt have been reflecting as I have in this season on the perpetual imperfection of the Church. In 1 Corinthians Paul describes the Church in Corinth in a different metaphor as God’s field (1 Cor 3.9).

Wheat and the weeds

According to Matthew, Jesus tells a powerful parable about a field: about someone who sowed good seed “but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away”. Weeds and fruitful plants grow together. The Church is a mixed community and will always be a mixed community. According to the interpretation of the parable in Matthew, the devil has a strategy to disrupt and corrupt the Church. Ultimately God’s kingdom will prevail. But the Church will always be a mixture of good and bad together, locally and in dioceses and in Provinces.

There are multiple temptations here. Our first calling is to be watchful. In the parable, the enemy sows tares while everyone is asleep. Our structures, resources and attitudes need to lead to greater watchfulness, deeper curiosity, greater alertness to risk as the keys to a safer church. We should grieve wherever we go wrong and wherever we see evil in the life of the Church but we should not be surprised or deflected from our purpose of proclaiming Christ as Lord.

Our Church must learn deep and lasting lessons from this crisis. We have already heard about the decisions taken by the General Synod and the national church to reform scrutiny of safeguarding; to attend to survivors in every sense; to reform our disciplinary processes and culture. We will hear later in this meeting about safeguarding in our own diocese, for which we each carry responsibility. It is right that this Synod has the time it needs for scrutiny of this part of our common life. It was good to note this week that in the context of a challenging debate on Church of England safeguarding in the House of Commons, the excellent practice in our own Diocese was singled out by Sean Woodcock, one of our local MPs.

Come and See

This essential, vital work of safeguarding, mending the cracked pots, must support a greater purpose: the seeing and proclaiming of the gospel of the glory of Christ. We are meeting today in the first few days of Lent. This year I am inviting the whole Diocese to explore again the meaning of our baptism. Our baptism helps us to understand our humanity: who we are and how we are to live. Come and See will explore baptism through the four fundamental biblical images of earth, water, wind and fire. We are made from earth, from dust, as we were reminded on Ash Wednesday. Frail children of dust and feeble as frail as the hymn puts it. We are part of the creation. We need to be washed outwardly and inwardly in baptism. We need the wind, the breath of God to dwell within us and transform us. We need the fire of God afresh in our discipleship in this generation to fill our hearts with love for God and for God’s world. If you have not yet signed up for Come and See it’s not too late to join the journey together in the coming days.

Shepherds of Christ’s flock

It is very good at this Synod to welcome Bishops Dave and Mary and to rejoice in their new ministries. Many of us were present in Canterbury Cathedral ten days ago or will have watched the service online. We will have been reminded that the ministry entrusted to them will be a demanding and sacrificial ministry. But we will have been reminded also that this ministry is part of the wider purposes of God for the world:

“Bishops are ordained to be shepherds of Christ’s flock and guardians of the faith of the apostles, proclaiming the gospel of God’s kingdom and leading his people in mission”

Watchfulness in prayer is a sign of God’s calling but its centre will be to see and proclaim the light of the glory of the gospel of Christ who is the image of God.

A holistic mission to children and young people

And finally in this Synod we will focus again on our ministry to children, young people and families. Our world faces many challenges and crises and all of them bear acutely on the well being of children, young people and families in our communities. The crisis in mental health; the multiple crises in the environment; the crisis of war in Europe; the crisis in the economy will all bear down on the children and young people of our own diocese.

Our ministry and mission to those children and young people is a holistic mission, caring for the whole person and their environment but centred on helping them to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God and calling them to a lifetime of following Jesus.

A year ago in this Synod I called on every parish and every deanery to develop plans for the renewal of our work with children and young people in the remainder of this decade. That call resonated widely across the diocese. I’m grateful for all the work which has been done. We will receive an update on progress later this morning. If your own parish and deanery has not fully engaged with this priority then please would you find time and energy to set our mission to the young at the heart of the life of the church again in this coming year. If you have made a good beginning, then please continue to deepen that work. The foundation of what we are seeking to do is hearing the voices of children and young people.

Conviction and determination

We heard earlier this week that our bid for national funding to support this work has not been been successful in this round of applications. This was not because of the quality of the bid but because of the demands on the Church Commissioners funds and the prioritising of bids from dioceses with less resources. This news will be very disappointing to the deaneries which invested a huge amount of work in the bid, to the team which worked so hard to put the bid together and to many others.

However our central calling and conviction that together we need to prioritise ministry to children, young people and families remains and indeed I hope our determination to invest here as a diocese will grow.

We are still aiming overall to see the number of children and young people engaging with our churches to double over the next five years. This means every church and church school, every priest, every church officer, every lay minister, every PCC needs to be engaged with this part of God’s mission. The grant funding would have been and could still be extremely helpful. But the resources we need to do this are mainly in the grace of God and the gifts of all God’s people in this diocese. But God’s mission depends most of all on our prayers and on the support of the people of God. Together we will see God do miracles in this area of our life together.

“But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us”.

Celebrating the flaws

I made my first and probably my only visit to Japan last year and discovered a way of mending cracked and broken pots: the Japanese art of Kintsugi: the craft of mending broken glazed pottery with gold, crafting something new and even more beautiful from what is broken. In Kintsugi the breaks and flaws are not hidden but highlighted and draw the eye. Kintsugi is the art of embracing imperfection, of celebrating the flaws and missteps of life, of rejoicing in hope and grace, forming something which is stronger and more beautiful out of weakness.

This vision of Kintsugi is my own vision for the Church of England and our Diocese at this time. We have this treasure in clay jars. But God is the maker and mender, restoring the Church, the bride of Christ, in still greater glory in which the cracks and scars will show, like the wounds of the cross on the Body of Christ in the day of resurrection. This is the only way a fallen, broken church is able to bear witness in this world in crisis to the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

/by
Steven Croft

A big, warm invitation… Come and See!

Bishop Steven extends a warm invitation for you to Come and See what baptism is all about this Lent.

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/by
Steven Croft

Breaking the fourth wall – A Christmas sermon

Bishop Steven leads Communion at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

Bishop Steven delivered a sermon on Christmas morning at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Watch on YouTube or read below.

Breaking the fourth wall

A very happy Christmas to you and to your families.

The angel’s words to the shepherds: “…to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord”

There is a convention in theatre, film and television called breaking the fourth wall. In the middle of the drama, one of the characters turns aside and speaks directly to the audience.

The fourth wall takes its name from the theatre. A stage is normally surrounded by three physical walls at the back and sides. There is an imaginary fourth wall across the front of the stage which separates the audience from the drama.

Occasionally, a character will break this convention and offer a commentary or a joke. In pantomime this happens all the time (and this is where you call out together: Oh no it doesn’t). Miranda breaks the fourth wall in her sitcom often with just a raised eyebrow or a look to camera. So does David Brent in The Office. Steve Martin in Father of the Bride. See how many you can think of over Christmas lunch.

But I think there is a moment like this in our gospel reading. One of the characters breaks the fourth wall and speaks from the page of the gospel directly to all of us as we gather in worship this morning. The character I have in mind is the angel of the Lord.

A different message

This is the third time the angel appears in Luke’s story bringing messages from God. The first time is to Zecheriah to announce the birth of John the Baptist. The second is to Mary, to announce the birth of Jesus. Each time we listen to the angel’s words about the child who is to come.

But the angel’s message to the shepherds on the hillside is different.

“Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people”. And then, I think, the angel breaks the fourth wall and speaks not only to the shepherds but through the shepherds to all of us and each of us:

“…to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord”

And then message becomes one mainly for the shepherds again. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger”.

But just for a moment the angel is speaking to all of us and each of us. ‘To you is born this day’. The fourth wall is broken. Then the angel’s message is underscored by the multitude of the heavenly host:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours”.

A universal truth

This child is born to you, the angel says. It’s striking language. The angel does not say: the child is born to Mary. The angel does not say: the child is born to God’s people, Israel. The angel does not say: the child is born to all who will believe. The shepherds stand in the story for the poor, the night shift workers, the ordinary, the representatives of all the earth, of every generation. They stand in our place in the nativity story. That is why the angel says: this child is born to you.

This is an extraordinary, universal message: glad tidings of great joy for all the people – not only all the people of Israel but to all the people of the earth; all the generations who will follow. Everywhere and for all time. This is the child who will bring peace, well-being, healing and wholeness to all the earth.

Messiah

This is the child who will be the Saviour. The name Jesus given by the same angel means Saviour. He will be the Messiah or Christ. The promised king who would come though born in a stable and announced to shepherds. He is and will be the Lord not of an earthly empire but of all creation for all time and all eternity.

Luke begins his story of the nativity with the Emperor Augustus, the greatest Emperor the world had ever seen. Augustus controlled more territory; more armies; more wealth; more power than anyone in history to date. Augustus is already known throughout the Empire as Saviour of his people; as the anointed king; even as Lord and God.

Yet the angel claims each of these remarkable titles for Mary’s son, born into poverty, a refugee and stranger. And the same angel turns aside, as it were and speaks across the generations. This child is born to you: entrusted to you; for your blessing; for your healing and salvation; for your peace. To reveal the very nature of God. In the words of Titus, in Jesus the goodness and loving kindness of God has appeared. For you.

What will you do with this most wonderful gift, this most precious gift in history, this Christmas Day? To you is born this day…

Rekindle faith, hope and love

This gift is given to rekindle in each of us today the gifts of faith and hope and love. These three great Christian virtues are set in the pavement of the sanctuary of this Cathedral; they are commemorated in the Edward Burns window at the rear of the south aisle. You might want to make a little pilgrimage to both at the end of the service. I like to think they also form part of the original crest of the Diocese of Oxford as three crowned women – but this may be St Frideswide and her patron saints.

Allow this gift – this child born to you – to rekindle faith. Faith that God is, and that God is kind and merciful and wills the best for this beautiful world. Faith that God saves and rescues us in mercy and love through the water of rebirth. Faith not in the Church – for the Church is fallible and fallen and sinful, as we have seen in recent weeks. But faith and trust in God’s own Son, Jesus, who comes to us gently and as a gift.

Allow this gift to rekindle hope. Each year we see the darkness in the world more clearly: wars and atrocities on every side; poverty and inequality; the degradation of the earth; the threat of technology; the cruelty and pain we inflict on one another; the reality of death and our mortality. All of us who see this darkness need to hear these words afresh. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. A Saviour who brings healing; and justice; and a kingdom of peace; and the defeat of death and life eternal.

And above all allow this gift to rekindle love. To you is born this day this Christ child who calls us back to love of God and love of neighbour as the purpose for our living. Who calls us back to forgiveness as a way of life, for we have been forgiven and lives and families and churches and nations will not work without forgiveness. Who calls us back to love as the very centre of our living and through that love to bring light to this dark world.

Receive this gift

There is no fourth wall in this Eucharist. This Christ Mass is not a performance but an act of worship by the whole congregation. We all sing. We all pray. We all listen to the scriptures. We all are invited to receive bread and wine or a prayer of blessing. We all remember Jesus words: this is my body which is given for you. This is my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

We all receive this gift today, promised by the angel, and leading us again to set faith and hope and love in the very centre of our lives; in the very centre of our world.

To you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

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Steven Croft

AI and our spiritual and cultural lives

Bishop Steven preaches at a church service

Bishop Steven was one of five speakers at the AI All-Party Parliamentary Group which discussed AI and our spiritual and cultural lives, on 2 December.

It’s an honour to give evidence in this forum and on this question. I’m seeking in this evidence to address the spiritual dimensions of the question. I take as a given that AI is a broad and non-specific collective term for the revolution in technology we are living through globally and embraces social media; narrow AI; generative AI and the more speculative general AI which might be said to imitate human intelligence

As Bishop of Oxford, it’s my role to oversee the Church of England across the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. We are a community of over 800 parish churches; around 300 schools and over 120 chaplaincies to every sector of society. I try and lead for the Bishops in the Lords on technology, AI and online safety. I am also co-chair of the Anglican Communion’s science commission which aims to help the Anglican church across the world engage more confidently with science.

On 14 June this year Pope Francis addressed the G7 in Puglia in Italy. The theme of his address is the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of humanity. It’s interesting that the Pope chose this topic above all other topics for an address to the most powerful politicians in the world.

The burden of what I want to say this afternoon is captured by a combination of the text of the address and the video of the Pope’s arrival at the G7. The address is balanced. The address highlights the benefits of AI and stresses that AI is itself a product of human ingenuity and God given talents. AI is a powerful tool with huge potential benefits but also significant risks and dangers.

But what Pope Francis said needs to be understood in the light of what Pope Francis did. He came in person to Puglia despite ill health. He enters the conference room and moves in turn around the G7 leaders. He greets each one in turn with love and respect and affection. He embraces several. There is deep humanity and understanding in each encounter, deep compassion and appreciation of the burdens carried by those in leadership. The G7 leaders are not encountering an algorithm nor a set of ideas nor just some useful advice. The G7 are meeting a person – and a model of how faith communities can engage well with questions of technology.

The Church like all faith communities needs to engage with an everchanging world of technology. The Church needs humility and help to navigate this change well. But there is no doubt in my own mind about character of our engagement. In our engagement with technology when faced with a choice the Church needs always to turn towards human interaction, personal encounter and face to face community.

Christianity is a deeply personal and humane faith. Yesterday was Advent Sunday. We are approaching the great festival of Christmas. At the centre of Christmas is the believe that Almighty God, make of heaven and earth, became a child, born to raise the sons of earth in the words of the carol. There is no greater sign of the worth of the individual person in all of human culture.

The Christian faith is and must be deeply personal, mediated through personal interaction not through technology. Technology for the church can be an excellent servant but a poor master to communicate love and care for all the world. We need to be present with each other.  Digital encounters are better than no encounters but there is no substitute for human contact.

Technology has driven significant spiritual change in past centuries. The invention of the printing press in the 16th Century changed the way the population interacted with texts and especially the texts of scripture and the liturgy. This led to a more literate population, a more democratised, less hierarchical spirituality, more willing to challenge authority. According to Tom Holland in Dominion, this shift at the Reformation provides a central driver for the evolution of Western culture.

Technology and AI are currently providing an even greater shift in the way the population access information which brings both opportunities and pitfalls. The Churches and Christians will need time to navigate this well. This could be the work of several generations involving improvisation and experiment and change. During the pandemic we saw a rapid rise in online services. By and large these have fallen away in favour of the local and the personal. Reflections on personal and family responses to AI – digital fasts and sabbaths are slowly beginning to emerge.

The Church needs to navigate technology in terms of its own life and offering guidance to Christians but also has a wider public role.

Faith communities are a vital dialogue partner with civil society in the larger conversation about AI and society. At present this is largely a two way conversation symbolised by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s conversation with Elon Musk. But that two way conversation needs to widen to include the interests of citizens, of people. Faith has a key role to play in that widening conversation about what kind of society we need for human flourishing. The Church can be a convenor and contributor to that conversation.  The Rome Call on AI Ethics signed in 2020 is one fruit of that dialogue.

The Church and other world faiths bring a global, international perspective and especially a global south perspective to debates on technology. I was present two weeks ago at a global gathering of lead science bishops from 22 Provinces of the Anglican Communion – the majority from the global South. The Church brings a passionate concern for justice – for the fruits of new technologies to be shared and accountable. The Church brings a concern for human purpose and the role of work in human flourishing not simply as a means to earn money. The Church brings an honest appraisal of human weakness, error and tendency to wickedness to inform the work of regulators and developers which contrasts with the naïve libertarianism of some technology companies. The Church can help create and sustain communities of resistance in terms of critical use of technology.

All of the faith communities have wisdom and insight to share on what makes for a good life and death, on confronting suffering, on a good society and on the role of technology. My request to government and Parliament is to give due regard to these insights, be aware of where our society’s values have come from and engage fruitfully with this vital area for human flourishing and for society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Steven Croft

‘The time is fulfilled’ – Presidential Address

Hands hold a small candle

Bishop Steven’s Diocesan Synod address reflects on how we strengthen our commitments to keep safeguarding at the heart of Church culture.

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Emma Thompson

How to pray for the General Election

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With the UK General Election on the horizon, Bishop Steven urged Diocesan Synod to pray for the nation.

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Steven Croft

Presidential address March 2024: Amplifying children and young people’s voices

I hope this finds you well and this letter comes with thanksgiving and appreciation for your ministry especially during this season of Lent and Passiontide.

Our Diocesan Synod last Saturday spent time addressing our mission and ministry with children and young people. Can I encourage you to take time to listen to or read the transcript of my Presidential Address which details why this is so important at this time.

Following widespread consultation, I have taken the unusual step of asking every parish and deanery to give greater priority to this ministry, to pray and plan next steps between now and September. At the conclusion of the afternoon’s debate, the need for urgency was recognised by our Synod and I am hugely encouraged by their unanimous support and endorsement of the following motion:

“That this Synod endorses the need to significantly increase our engagement with children, young people, families and schools, building on Disciples Together and to share the good news of Jesus Christ, and calls on every deanery and benefice in 2024 to develop plans and partnerships for growth.”

I’ve been a bishop long enough now to know that bishops need to be sparing in directives and appeals of this kind. All too easily they can produce guilt and weariness rather than fresh energy and initiative. However, it does seem to me that this is a moment to make an exception. Over the last year, the Discipleship Enablers have spent a lot of time listening to children and young people and those who work with them; to parishes and to deaneries. We know there is energy around this agenda. We know there is consensus to make this a priority. We know that churches are already committing resources. We are confident that people understand that this will mean many different things in many different places.

Over half a million children and young people live in the Diocese of Oxford – between a fifth and a quarter of our population of 2.4 million people are under 20. We are all aware that the post-lockdown regathering and restoring of our work with children and young people has been much slower than for adults. We need to face the reality that although we are engaging with tens of thousands of children and families through our schools, our engagement with children and young people through our parish churches is no longer as confident and strong.

This reality should not lead us to despair, but it should be a spur to reset our youth and children’s work with urgency as a vital part of our service to our communities and of sharing in God’s mission to God’s world.

The process for developing deanery plans will be led by your Area Teams working through their Area Deans, Lay Chairs and relevant local deanery structures. The process of developing parish plans is the responsibility of every PCC. I would be grateful if you could pass this letter and the appropriate links onto the PCC and create space on an agenda in the near future for a full discussion to follow.

Parishes and deaneries will be supported by the team of Discipleship Enablers who are producing resources, parish mapping templates and supportive statistical data available through your deanery. Listening to the voice of children and young people themselves will be vital to our planning. Can I commend to you our exciting new resource ‘Amplify: from a whisper to a waves‘ which will provide the ideas and approaches you need. The focus is not on grand plans but on discerning the ‘one next step’ which can make a difference in your context.

These plans are not for the sake of the church but for the sake of God’s Kingdom and for the sake of the tens of thousands of children and young people and families we will serve through this vision: children who need a foundation; who need purpose; who need love and support; families who need community and practical help and guidance; young people who need investment and friendship and confidence; young adults who need models for living.

We want children and young people to come to know Jesus and love Jesus and follow Jesus. We want to make disciples. We want to bless families and young adults and see them access the immense treasure of the gospel.

With thanks in anticipation for all you are able to do to raise the profile of this ministry.

Watch Bishop Steven’s presidential address or download the transcript.

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Steven Croft

A New Year’s Day message

Welcome to another new year. I hope it’s a good one for you and for your family and for our all our communities across Oxfordshire and beyond.

This is the time of year when we package our hopes into new year resolutions. If I may, I want to suggest a couple to you to think about in the next few days and to build into your own life.

Lots of people will be wondering about taking more exercise or joining a gym. Personal trainers talk about doing exercise to strengthen your core: the centre of the body which can help and support everything we do. That’s great but we are not just physical bodies: we have a different inner core – a spiritual heart – which needs to be mended and strengthened.

So here are two resolutions to strengthen your inner core.

The first is a resolution to go deeper in prayer and worship. The last few years for many people have been challenging and difficult. We need to draw more deeply on God’s strength. The best way to do that is to take time at the beginning of each week, Sunday by Sunday to worship God and draw on God’s strength and grace. Reconnect with your local church. Get back into the habit of worship. You’ll find a warm welcome, friendship and a time for rest and renewal.  Try to take some time each day to pray. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Pray for your loved ones. Pray for the world. Build up that inner core. It may feel a bit daunting to cross the threshold – but for many people it’s more than worth it for the strength and hope and joy you’ll find in Jesus and in Christian faith.

The second is to reset your priorities once again at the beginning of the year. Remember what’s important. One of the stories I will be reflecting on this year is when someone came to Jesus and asked him which is the most important commandment. Jesus replied like this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Remember in this year that you are deeply loved by God and God calls you to this way of love.

Lent begins this year on Valentine’s Day, 14 January. All across the Diocese of Oxford we will be reflecting on this way of love, the two greatest commandments. I’m praying that many people from the wider community will join us this year as we explore this way of love. You can find details on our website, Come and See.

My God bless you and our city and our county in this brand new year and take us deeper in that way of love.

 

Almighty God

We thank you that you have made the world in love

And that you call us into love for you and for our neighbour

We dedicate this new year to you whatever it may bring

Strengthen us in our inner being to know your love more fully

To know you better and to live this way of love

Through Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen

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