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Dear Friends,

1. First things, first.

I am very excited at the prospect of becoming your next Parish Priest as I feel a strong affinity to the tradition and ethos of St. Paul’s and a strong sense of calling to serve the people of Deptford.

I have known about the long-standing and fine anglo-catholic traditions of St. Paul’s, namely the celebration of the Sacraments and engagement in community ministry, from my student days in Sheffield. Way back then I was inspired by hearing about the ministry of Fr. Diamond and the life of St. Paul’s amidst its joys and struggles. The Bellingham Festival Mass, which I introduced at St. Dunstan’s in 1997 at the first Bellingham Festival, was inspired by my knowledge of the Deptford Festival Mass. I find it both wonderful and humbling that I am to be the next Rector of Deptford, following the outstanding ministries of my most recent predecessors Father’s Brown, Diamond and Fellows.

And before I get any further, let me reassure you, everything will be much the same as it has been with a few differences here and there. I am bringing my gifts and skills, and energies, my strengths and weaknesses and will be adding them to the mix.

I have never found a better summary of leadership than the following:

Go to the People;

Live among them;

Love them;

Learn from them;

Start from where they are;

Work with them;

Build on what they have.

But of the best leaders,

When the task is accomplished,

The work completed,

The people all remark:

"We have done it ourselves"

These words are by Lao Tsu, an influential Chinese Philosopher, writing around the same time as the Eighth Century BCE Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah. I will strive to lead in this way.

My family origins are in Nottingham where I was born in 1967 and spent the first years of my life. I am still an avid and optimistic Notts County FC supporter, which is not always an easy task. I am looking forward to the new Season. I have a warm and close family. My parents are a great support and you will recognise them by their singing whenever they visit, if you haven’t already met them. I have one younger sister, Helen, who is married with two children, and they like my mum and dad live in Devon. We were brought up in the Baptist Church where I began my love of the Scriptures. I was baptised by full immersion at the age of fifteen. My mum and dad are very involved in their local Church and also more globally with the Baptist Missionary Society. My sister and family are now Anglicans who worship with the Methodists.

I’ve lived for many years in Sheffield, as a teenager, and then a student at Sheffield University where I graduated with a II:I (Hons) in Biblical Studies. I served my Title Parish in Sheffield Diocese following my Ordination to the Diaconate in 1992 in the Parish of St. James, Woodhouse with Woodhouse Mill on the edge of South-East Sheffield. I trained for the Sacred Ministry at Lincoln Theological College, now sadly closed. I have also lived with my family in a small village in Lincolnshire during my primary school years, and in Derbyshire during my sixth-form and University years.

My wife is Lindsey Barker who comes from Sheffield. She works in the North West London Hospitals Trust as a Consultant General Surgeon and is a specialist in Colo-rectal surgery. You will almost certainly meet her mother who is a faithful Anglican, a local Councillor and former Lord Mayor of Sheffield.

I am an incarnational, sacramental anglo-catholic, influenced by the theology and praxis of Christian socialism from the late Nineteenth Century to the present, including the Guild of St. Matthew, the Catholic Crusade, the Jubilee Group and following it’s dissolution, the Society of Sacramental Socialists, founded in 2005, and of which I am a Co-Chair. http://www.sacramentalsocialists.org.uk (Please also see Ted Mellor’s marvellous website: http://www.anglocatholicsocialism.org).

I believe that human flourishing reveals the Kingdom of God and hence I place a strong emphasis on community ministry, working in partnership with all faith traditions and all people of goodwill. I see the Mass as a foretaste of the new age, in which we encounter both the suffering and the transformation of the local and global community. The Mass connects us to the masses and matter, and Holy Communion to the hope of a holy community.

Therefore I believe strongly that the Parish Church must be at the heart of the local community and be a welcoming, hopeful and empowering place for all ages, genders and ethnicities. I have always followed the most inclusive open policies to the Occasional Offices, and offered pastoral care and support to all parishioners, whether or not they are regulars at Mass.

I love joyful and grand catholic liturgy and am influenced by the Sarum Rite tradition. My personal pattern of prayer includes the Daily Office and Daily Mass and I have a devotion to St. Francis and the Franciscan tradition.

I really enjoy singing and listening to good music being performed be it in church or at a concert. I know that we have a fine musical tradition at St. Paul’s and look forward to working with Mr. Warrell and the magnificent Organ, St. Paul’s Sinfonia, and the enthusiastic singers and musicians of gospel, traditional and contemporary traditions.

I love to get as many people taking part as possible in the Liturgy and hope that we can have a special emphasis on involvement with our children and youth.

I keep abreast of contemporary theology and related disciplines, especially, New Testament Studies and Historical Jesus Research, liberation and contextual theology and urban studies. I am especially enthused by the renaissance in Biblical studies on St. Paul. Two of the most important books, "In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom", by the scholars John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed, (US Edition HarperCollins, 2004; UK Edition SPCK, 2005) and Paul: Fresh Perspectives by N.T. Wright, (Bishop Tom Wright of Durham), SPCK, 2005, would be ideal for some of us study together at St. Paul’s.

Some of the major influences on my thinking include: Kenneth Leech, Thomas Merton, Alan Ecclestone, Conrad Noel, Stewart Headlam, John Milbank, Leonardo Boff, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Paulo Freire, Antonio Gramsci, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Marcella Althaus-Reid and the recent work of Robert Beckford.

I’ve been the Vicar of St. Dunstan, Bellingham since 1996, (www.stdunstansbellingham.org.uk), and until I resigned prior to moving to Deptford was the Area Dean of East Lewisham from 1999-2006.

Bellingham is a 1920’s, predominantly low-rise, red-brick urban Council Estate in South Lewisham, with a population of just over 8,000 and identified in the DETLR "Index of Deprivation" 2004 as in the highest 20% of Wards in multiple deprivation in England. It is the highest-ranking ward for income deprivation in the Borough of Lewisham. It is a community with a strong spirit despite the difficulties that people have to face.

St. Dunstan’s Church is situated right in the middle of the Estate and like St. Paul’s is also has a long-standing anglo-catholic tradition with full catholic privileges. There is now a very diverse congregation that reflects the radically changing social and ethnic mix on the Estate, and our average age has dropped significantly.

I have recently trained a Stipendiary Assistant-Curate who moved on in March to teach Doctrine at St. Stephen’s House Seminary, Oxford. I have also overseen and supported the training of an Ordained Local Minister in the Parish.

During my time here Bellingham has been transformed from what it was like ten years ago. I am proud that I have played a key role during this time of social progress for the community.

I was one of the organisers of the campaign that led to the total transformation of the local community park, Bellingham Green, which was opened in 2001, at a cost of £500,000. I have also been the Chair of the Bellingham Surestart Partnership, Lewisham's first Surestart Programme, since its inception in 1999, and am well known in the wider Surestart world in the Borough and further afield. Surestart in Bellingham is still the only regeneration Programme in the neighbourhood and it has had a massive impact upon the wider community by enabling families to flourish by improving their health and well being through better access to health care, early years education and childcare, specialist services and family support.

I am also fully involved in our Neighbourhood Management Project, had a hand in initiating the first Community Learning Centre in Bellingham, and played a significant role on the Bellingham Community Recreation Project Community Sub-Board, which building and opening of the Bellingham Leisure and Lifestyle Centre, (£5.5 Million). I am also the Convenor of the Bellingham Against Racism Campaign (BARC); a founder Member of Bellingham Festival Foundation; and a School Governor of Elfrida Primary School, Bellingham.

I have ensured that St. Dunstan’s has been fully involved in the regeneration of Bellingham. I’ve led St. Dunstan’s through a major building project (total cost £500,000), which has resulted in a new Church and Community Centre and the completion of the East Wall of the Church with the addition of new windows, which had been unfinished since the General Strike eighty years ago. We have worked with our key partners, the Council, Surestart, the Church Urban Fund, Big Lottery, and the Diocese. I have guided the PCC through this major development from its inception. The project has also included the building of nineteen Social Housing flats and houses around the Vicarage and behind the church in partnership with a Housing Trust. There have also been improvements to the Vicarage. One could say that I am used to living amongst building works! We are having a Mass of Thanksgiving for the Building Project on my final weekend at St. Dunstan’s.

As well as being fully engaged in the community regeneration of Bellingham, I’ve also been very involved in the life of the Borough of Lewisham. I will not be a complete stranger to some of the key movers and shakers in Deptford. I have been the Faith Adviser to the Mayor and Council of Lewisham since 2002. I was elected by the Bellingham Interagency Group to the Lewisham Local Strategic Partnership. I am also currently an Executive Member of Lewisham Community Empowerment Network.

I will of course be giving up all my Bellingham related responsibilities when I move to Deptford but will be continuing with my role as Mayor’s Faith Adviser. My intention for the first year or so at St. Paul’s is not to take on any extra responsibilities, but instead to take the time to really get to know the people and communities that make up Deptford. I hope to do lots of meeting, listening and offering hospitality, whilst we seek a common vision at St. Paul’s for the next ten years and more.

I get fairly involved with local and national politics, I read The Guardian every day and anything else I get time to read, The Tablet, Church Times etc, and Radio 4 is always on at home.

I love the arts, and am a great fan of Tate Modern. I always have a novel and some poetry on the go, currently Saul Bellow’s, ‘Herzog’ and Leonard Cohen’s new collection of poetry, ‘Book of Longing’. I also love films, especially art house, and a wide variety of theatre and dance.

I love all sorts of music from the sacred sounds of Gregorian Chant and English Church music; through the great Mass settings especially Mozart to the secular sounds of contemporary music, especially independent, experimental, electronic, hip-hop, folk, alt-country, rock n’roll. John Peel, RIP, has been a great influence on my musical tastes. There are currently over 3,000 songs on my Ipod, an ever-present companion on my journeys.

I am fairly computer literate and I recently changed to a Mac, which I have found to be a radical improvement on my old PC. I am an avid user of email but always prefer a face-to-face meeting and conversation if possible.

I love football and will always ensure that I know how Notts are getting on. I usually get to see a few games every Season and make an occasional pilgrimage to Nottingham to see the ’Pies (short for, ‘The Magpies’, as they play in Black and white striped shirts).

I also enjoy cycling, walking, nature and the countryside. Umbria, in Central Italy, is my favourite holiday destination. We had a post-Easter break this year in Rome and I was able to visit the wonderful Basilica of St. Paul’s-outside-the-Walls the traditional place of St. Paul’s burial.

I’m a reasonable cook, (most of my favourite recipes include mushrooms and hot fresh chilli’s), and I enjoy socialising, spending time with friends and family. I love to chat and debate. I came across this wonderful quotation the other day from Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, who was until recently the Master of the Dominican Order. Writing of Dominican debates he said:

"We do have a tradition of dialogue, of disputation. And, as you can see from St. Thomas, this is not founded on hammering your opponent into the ground, but arguing with him or her so as to learn from him or her. Central to our tradition is the belief that you might argue with someone precisely because you dare to hope that he or she might teach you something." (I highly recommend his recent book: "What is the point of being a Christian?", Burns and Oates: a Continuum Imprint, 2005)

I look forward to our many conversations and debates in such a good religious spirit as we work together for the kingdom of God in this corner of the Lord’s vineyard.

With my love and prayers.

Pax et bonum,

Fr. Paul

Finally, here are a few of my favourite quotations.

Antonio Gramsci

the point however is to change it."

Karl Marx, final point of his "Theses on Feuerbach", 1845

Slogan of the ‘Industrial Worker’s of the World’ (IWW) Union, (known as the ‘Wobblies’), 1910.

Words sung at the end of the Monty Python Film, ‘The Life of Brian’

Rubem Alves, from his book "Tomorrow’s Child: Imagination, creativity and the rebirth of culture", (1972),

Attributed to Emma Goldman

Jarvis Cocker

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

St. Francis of Assisi

(I generally add these Latin words to my correspondence. It is a traditional Franciscan greeting and it means, ‘Peace and Goodwill’ (or ‘all good’).

St. Paul the Apostle, Letter to the Galatians, 6: 2

Our Lord Jesus Christ, Gospel of St. Matthew 6: 33