Bishop visits to study social motion
THE Bishop of Kagera, within the diocese of Tanzania, the Rt Revd Darlington Bendankeha, visited the diocese of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich last month, and frolicked learning about social motion projects. Chris and Anji Dawkins, Kagera Link Co-ordinators in Suffolk, said that the visits (a delegation from Suffolk went to Kagera earlier this 12 months) “helps us all put our own challenges into perspective”. Both dioceses were rural, they said. In Kagera, 70 per cent of the population were subsistence farmers living off their land for food to eat. The Bishop of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Martin Seeley, said that the Kagera delegation had been seeing “what might be adapted and utilized in their context to enhance lives in Kagera. These visits are at all times mutual: we learn as much from their reflections on our life here as they do from the visits they make.”
Commissioners plan more houses in Lincolnshire
THE Church Commissioners have submitted a planning application to construct to 150 homes within the village of Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, of which 25 per cent will probably be “reasonably priced”. It follows plans for a development of 1087 homes in Bracebridge Heath, one other area near Lincoln (News, 30 June). The Central Lincolnshire Local Plan seeks to increased housing in the broader area by greater than 30,000. In 2021, the report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community called on the Church to make use of its land assets — it held 6000 acres with “development potential” — to “promote more truly reasonably priced homes” (News, 26 February 2021).
Strategic funding for church-growth programme
THE Strategic Ministry and Mission Investment Board (SMMIB) has awarded £755,100 to Leading your Church into Growth “to extend its provision of coaching for parishes in mission, attracting and nurturing latest congregants”, Church House announced last week. Over the following three years, it’ll support 1000 parishes, while funding more courses for church leaders, in partnership with Youthscape.
Dean of Southwell to retire
THE Dean of Southwell, the Very Revd Nicola Sullivan, will retire this 12 months, after eight years within the post. Her last day on the cathedral will probably be Sunday 29 September, when a service of festal evensong will probably be held at 3.30 p.m. She will then take a period of leave, to permit for recovery from scheduled eye surgery in November. “Cathedral ministry is hugely rewarding,” she told the congregation on Sunday. “It can also be immensely demanding and requires significant reserves of energy and stamina, and I even have come to the conclusion that I not have sufficient of those to present the cathedral and diocese the whole lot it needs from its Dean.” Dean Sullivan, who will probably be 65 this 12 months, was ordained in 1995, after working as a midwife.
