Faith

Faith has been the most constant thread running through my life, woven through a range of traditions and expressions. Christened Baptist, baptised Methodist, confirmed Anglican, and having worshipped in charismatic, Anglo-Catholic and ecumenical contexts, my faith is broad-rooted and appreciative in its outlook. It is not my place to enforce or define the faith of others, but I hope to create spaces in which people can encounter the spiritual on their own terms.

Though formed in the Methodist tradition, I have found my spiritual home in the Anglican church; drawn initially by the music whilst at university through my parish church and my Saturday job at York Minster, and held there by the breadth and depth of its liturgical life. Anglicanism's broad church has been generous to me, with room enough for my affection for Wesleyan hymnody alongside my commitment to ecumenical partnership.

From an early age opportunies have found me allowing me to move from participant to leader in every church context I have found myself in. At eighteen I became one of the youngest leaders to run an age group at Bishop's Storford's Churches Together summer club; at university I founded AngSoc, the Anglican society, building partnerships across faith societies on campus and leading retreats at local monasteries and friaries. That same impulse now finds expression in church governance where I currently serve as Lay Chair of Ivybridge Deanery Synod, Diocesan Representative, and Archidiaconal Representative on the Bishop's Diocesan Council. My focus currently is on enabling the mission and fellowship of the church rather than the machinery of its administration. To that end, I have designed and built a full deanery management system; automating away the administrative machinery so that the focus of the synod can remain where it belongs, on mission and fellowship. It is a project where I strive to apply the same rigour to church governance that I apply to my professional coding practice.

Music has always been my primary offering to the church and I thoroughly enjoy my work as an organist, conductor and composer for my local parish. I also help lead walks for my local church, which is a lovely chance to bring together my faith and my love of the natural world. Still only part way through a lifelong journey of faith, I have come to recognise that supporting worshipping communities; both my own and others, is some of the most important work I can do. It is a duty I relish.