Steven Croft [00:00:00]
Hello everyone I'm Steven Croft the Bishop of Oxford welcome to this first edition of a new podcast: “My extraordinary family.” For each edition I'm going to be talking with someone I've come to know in my travels across our diocese and occasionally beyond about their faith, about their work and about their story, I'm going to ask people what it means to them to try and be more Christlike, more contemplative, more compassionate, and more courageous. To launch the podcast I'm in Bishopthorpe palace and my guest is none other than the Archbishop of York John Sentamu. Archbishop, thanks so much for joining us.

John Sentamu [00:00:32]
It is my delight and my joy.

Steven Croft [00:00:34]
We've known each other many years and exactly ten years tomorrow you ordained me as a bishop. The night before the consecration, we gathered with all of my children in the chapel at Bishop thorpe and you prayed for me with my family present, which I think was the most moving moment of that process. So Archbishop, can I ask you what does it meant to you over the years to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

John Sentamu [00:00:57]
I really see myself as a beggar telling other beggars where I find bread and that the friendship that Jesus has given us is just so unbelievable. And the greatest miracle he performs in me every day is his constant forgiveness. I have a friend who forgives me daily and that's amazing.

Steven Croft [00:01:25]
Wonderful wonderful I know you've done some extraordinary things in your time as Archbishop of York. You've seemed to me to focus more and more as the years have gone by on the simple things on witnessing to the love of God in Jesus Christ. And you made time some years ago to walk the length and breadth of your whole diocese simply teaching people how to pray and witnessing to Christ. How did that come about and how did it go.

John Sentamu [00:01:55]
Three years before I was on Holy Island and praying and people may not believe this but I had a voice on Cuthbert’s little island, a voice saying “on the road” and I looked around, there was nobody there on the road. So I contemplated and I was going to start the following year this pigrimage I worked what it actually meant but I had prostate cancer. So that stood in the way. And and once that was over I knew for sure I've got to get on the road six months walking staying in every week. Choosing, you know, the community, choosing which widow or widow was one stay and praying with them and walking and every day covering a 10 miles and praying with people all along the way. And it was just the most amazing, amazing experience. On the road was a marvelous message.

Steven Croft [00:02:53]
Yeah yeah yeah. And it's it's something you've commended to other bishops to do. Has anybody followed your example.

John Sentamu [00:02:59]
There are other people that are now hear stories of all of us. I've got my weekend in the deanery, and I'm going to be walking so it's become almost one of those amazing things… there's nothing like being on the road you encounter and see people in places in a car you never see.

Steven Croft [00:03:16]
And that's September I took a week and I walked between every parish church in the City of Oxford not the diocese as you did. But I did I did the city in a week with just 26 churches and it really was a wonderful experience and I rediscovered something about being a bishop. I learned again in a new way. The bishops are really quite tangential to ordinary parish life but when when they turn up they're really really welcome and people were so appreciative.

John Sentamu [00:03:46]
Because what happened on the way because I was walking in winter where there was some flooding in some places and a mother saying can you baptize my baby? It meant I had to travel for June was 40 minutes to get to where she was and then could baptize the baby and decided not to baptize in the water because you don't know how clean the water was. Fortunately I had a bottle of water with me and baptized his baby and the amazing thing. Then the whole family signed up. From that moment.

Steven Croft [00:04:17]
And how did people respond when they saw you as it were coming around the bend and and coming towards them.

John Sentamu [00:04:23]
Some some would actually get excited and some with it because I had people walking with me I wasn't just alone. I picked up a lot of people on the way. Some were so shocked that time being up turned up in one shop where the manager was so shocked that I was in a in her shop. I mean she really was just as you. She wouldn't get it together for quite some time. That was in there but he gave me an opportunity then to witness to people about Jesus. And on the on on the road we prayed for people and actually a lot people were healed. And I look back on that. Six months and they say God gave me an opportunity which is not easy to find again.

Steven Croft [00:05:02]
But one of the other things you've done which I was also going to talk to you about is. I know for a number of years now you've been leading the bishops of the North on mission to different dioceses. Each year you've been to a different diocese. And that's started in Sheffield where you were you were and.

John Sentamu [00:05:17]
Where you are the bishop.

Steven Croft [00:05:18]
I was the bishop in 2015 and we welcomed 20 something bishops I think. And now it's bishops and their teams. How is that whole project going. It has grown.

John Sentamu [00:05:30]
I mean we've seen ourselves and the biggest we had actually to start you know was in Durham where there were 900 missioners with bishops coming with nine hundred nine hundred.

Steven Croft [00:05:42]
Amazing.

John Sentamu [00:05:43]
And then Carlisle was about twice that size because it was ecumenical as well. And I… yours was “Crossroads” mission then Blackburn was the same you took your something… “Crossroads” and then and then Durham decided to take “Talking Jesus.” And that was a very engaging. And then we had Carlisle “Moving Mountains” and then Newcastle “Pathways” and we're going to Liverpool… Liverpool than Nottingham and then York. And I think in all of those missions people have been given confidence, confidence to talk about their faith. And I've been amazed by people who have come into a gathering not expecting to ever commit to anything. I mean there was a guy in Newcastle cathedral who had come there… life wasn't doing well for him. And the lady said oh don't what the Archbishop's coming was just coming in. I started to preach and started crying and comes to me. “I came here to know whether there is a God.” As soon as I saw you in the pulpit I knew this was the sign that he gave his life to Christ. And so all I would say is that. Out there there’s a lot of hunger and your thing ‘come and meet my family’ is a wonderful thing because in the church. We are a family which means our misunderstanding disagreements and we have not actually chosen God has called us into that family just like every child was born the child never chooses to be born in that family. Poor thing! If I a born in that family then they've got to grow up and that's what I think the church is like.

Steven Croft [00:07:25]
And I remember in Sheffield one of the big effects of the Crossroads mission was that it became normal and natural everywhere for people to see that witnessing to our faith was saying that we should do with confidence. I think before then people people heard me and my colleague Bishop Peter talking about it and they thought “well that's just Stephen and Peter doing their thing.” But but when all the bishops of the north turn up and they're all saying in different ways “folks we need to be doing this with confidence and with joy.” Then the diocese catches something in that process that's really I think it's been a great gift that you brought now we are we are pursuing a vision in the Diocese of Oxford of. Seeking to be a more Christlike church for the sake of God's world more contemplative, more compassionate, and more courageous. And I wanted to ask you about one of those words and the word I wanted to ask you about was courageous. Where are the areas that you need to be courageous in your own discipleship and ministry. And what resources do you draw on, for that.

John Sentamu [00:08:33]
If you'd asked me would I be courageous if I'd been picked up on a road or on my way to work as a judge. And they arrest you and they beat you up. Would you be courageous enough to continue being faithful to Christ. I think I wouldv’e said “I don't know.” But once in there when you've been beaten up and there's a guy telling you around he's God. And I challenged major and so I said no you are not God. Do not blaspheme and then you get out of beatings. I suddenly saw my courage growing and the only way you know whether you've got courage is by doing risky things actually sometimes to sit on the margins. You never know. And that's why Jesus tells the disciples we don't know whether they were just on the edges of the lake as they were fishing put it out in the deep… is really by going in those deep places where you at the mercy of the waters, you know we are courage is you stand on the shallows it is easy to control it and manage it is when you are being carried really by the sheer abundance of water you get this actually in Ezeikiel 47 where he begins seeing this living water starting from the altar and then goes through the temple then he says it was ankle deep. And then he says as it went out in the desert. It became my West and so forth and I could not I will not walk anymore but swim. And it became deeper as it went into the desert where he sees visions of trees and fishermen in that temple inside those visions don't come so you go to go out into the desert places trust yourself to the power of the spirit and for me it is those kinds of things like for example spending 24 hours praying about Mugabe and all his trouble knowing I got to cut up my dog collar I thought if I cut up my collar so what’s gone wrong him a bit he's just a bit loose in the head is he. So I think to do courageous things you've got to go into the depth.

Steven Croft [00:10:54]
Stepping out into the deep yeah yeah yeah I remember when I was just started leading the Fresh Expressions team and a very long time ago. And the verse that came to us over and over again was that passage in Luke's Gospel where Jesus is put out into deep water and let down the nets and that again is I think for lots of people in their discipleship and in beginning new churches and starting new ventures it's finding that courage from hearing God isn't it really. And and moving out.

John Sentamu [00:11:24]
Yeah I mean you could just put a bit of a dent. And that's when you find yourself in hot water that's a safe place because keeps you clean.

Steven Croft [00:11:38]
Speaking of water. Yeah. Do you still baptize people in the open air on Easter Saturday?

John Sentamu [00:11:43]
I still do. And not one ionly on release a Easter Day on a week ago. I was baptizing people with totally immersion. Fortunately this time the water was warm as well. So it's cold….

Steven Croft [00:11:56]
People have heard me talk about renewing Catechesis across the diocese and in most of the talks if I've had a chance to show pictures I've shown a picture of you baptizing somebody outside your Minster on Easter Saturday. So that may be a familiar picture to some people listening. What would you say to people to encourage them to seek baptism or the renewal of their baptismal promises?

John Sentamu [00:12:20]
They’ve been prepared by the churches and so they come on on Holy Saturday and we and they're baptized. But I've always given an opportunity for anybody who's never been baptized because I give an evangelist talk and I said to them if you've never found Jesus come and find out. He too was baptized and you too can find the blessings of God. And there was a woman one on one occasion who wanted totally marginalized him up. Madam you did have some clothes to change into. What are you going to do? Anyway so I said I baptize you and I put you you want your head in the water three times so you get a bit of that depth of it and then the same with her son then I have to buy her son some some some clothes from York Minster shop. So yeah there have been people who had not been prepared at all. They're watching this thing with a guy who come from Scotland. He just was a passer by. He heard me talk about this… the baptism began once you've gone into 20 people have been here to set and I say anybody who's never been baptized I haven't I want to follow Jesus so I actually often baptisms are great invitations for people.

Steven Croft [00:13:31]
And one of the remarkable things about baptism services I find is is the outpouring of joy that happens when somebody goes down into the water comes up it is just such a resurrection moment. It's fantastic. Archbishop would you would you pray for us in the Diocese of Oxford as we try and be more courageous and contemplative and compassionate and and pray your blessing to us as we seek to make this journey.

John Sentamu [00:14:01]
Gracious and loving father. We thank you for your love to us in your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for his life his death destruction with thank you. For the gift of the holy spirit that has been abundantly poured out to make us more Christlike Father I pray for the Diocese of Oxford as bishops as priests as clergy. His lay workers his ministers and all those who are seeking to make Christ visible day by day. Give them your joy and above all I assure them that you love them so much and daily you walk that wonderful miracle of forgiveness. May they go from strength to strength. And bless them abundantly with your presence this I ask the name of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Steven Croft [00:14:56]
Amen, amen. Archbishop thank you for all you give to the church for all you've given to me over the years. And thank you for being the first guest on “My extraordinary family.” Thank you.

John Sentamu [00:15:10]
I have been longing for you to include me in your family, so thank you.