There’s been much in the media recently about women bishops and the General Synod’s failure earlier in the week to agree plans. Since then I’ve been asked by quite a few people what my views are, and what that means for us at The Belfrey. Christian Selvaratnam and I wrote a letter each to the York Press and this morning Christian’s was published. Christian heads our G2 congregation, is a Synod Member, and voted in the debate last Tuesday. His letter should be online later today – read it by clicking here.
Below is what I wrote.
I was a General Synod (GS) member for Sheffield in 2006 when we affirmed that ordaining women bishops should happen. I had to come off GS when I moved to York in 2009 but I have watched things develop with interest. Since then the debate has been more to do with how, rather than whether it should happen. The motion before Synod this week involved a significant change to the Church and so required a two-thirds majority in all three houses – the Houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity. It achieved these in the first two, but not amongst the laity, failing by just six votes. The failure to receive sufficient votes shows that despite a strong lead from the bishops and vicars, not enough non-clergy representatives were satisfied – either with the process set out in the legislation or with the idea of women bishops altogether. In any event the issue can’t now come before GS again until the end of this five-year period (ie. at least 2015).
At St Michael le Belfrey we encourage and support women leaders. At present we have one woman on the clergy team and many women on our wider Staff Team. Whilst there are a variety of views on this subject, the majority of The Belfrey – including most of the clergy – support the idea of women bishops on both biblical and missional grounds and so we are disappointed at this week’s news. Nevertheless this will not stop us getting on with doing what we’ve always done, which is share the fantastic news of Jesus Christ through word and action. We will continue to reach out to York and the North, helping people discover the transforming power of Christ and, despite the negative press that the church sometimes gets, we will be pleased to serve Jesus and his church in this generation.
Discipleship Blog 
Thank you Matthew. Great encouragement from both yourself and Christian. We are very fortunate to have been and to continue to be blessed by some marvelous and very talented women leaders in our fellowship and please God one day they will have more public recognition and authority.
Following the synod decision I was reminded of a talk by one such lady earlier this year. She was re-affirming something David Watson had said some years ago. It was in regard to leadership and servanthood and their importance :How within the church the clergy and the PCC are the bottom of an upturned triangle, the next tier is the congregation and the top tier is the community we are there to serve. I found this immensely comforting and encouraging as this suggests that as disappointing as it was then perhaps the laity being the stumbling block was entirely appropriate. It suggests to me that with prayer and more love and compassion we will get there but in the interim we can focus on those who don’t yet know Jesus as you have said
Jesus spent quite some time leaving us with an understanding of unity and supporting each other; my prayer is that we choose to do as he advises firstly because he advised it but also because it will be a valuable witness – we are family, we love each other above and beyond our differences and imperfections. Quite conceivably our reaction will have more impact than the decision.
Hi Matthew, thanks for this! I was thinking, I know that St Mikes supports women in ministry – there have been many wonderful women stand in the pulpit over the years, Alyson Lamb a notable recent lady – but do we actually have any paid members of St Mikes staff that are ladies at the moment? I’m struggling to think of anyone that isn’t working voluntarily? Thanks! 🙂
Hi Kate. Thanks for the comment. We have both men and women who volunteer on staff, some working virtually full-time. We are grateful for this and aim to honour them as we would paid staff. We have paid female staff at our G2 congregation but not at present in any wider role, although we have in the past, and we hope to have more in the future. So when earlier in the year we short-listed for Head of Youth & Children’s Work we interviewed two women even though we ended up appointing a man (Lee Kirkby). There is also a female staff member who has chosen not to take her salary and so she’s technically a volunteer but if she wasn’t we would pay her! We have a good gender mix amongst the Parish Assistants and also some great women ordinands coming through. Please do pray that in time we would get a broader mix amongst our clergy and staff, as we don’t want people to think we’re against women in leadership. I can assure you that we’re not! Thanks and God bless. Matthew