Saturday, 16 March 2013

Meeting the Archbishop



On Thursday evening I was one of a small group of church leaders who spent about 25 minutes with the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd. Justin Welby.  The Archbishop is spending the week prior to his enthronement next Thursday on a prayer pilgrimage, spending each day in a different diocese.  The pilgrimage began in East Anglia, in Norfolk, and Bishop Graham James, the Bishop of Norwich, invited the leaders of the different denominations to spend this brief time with the Archbishop.  And so I sat there with my Methodist, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Salvation Army and Quaker colleagues and Bishop Graham invited us each to briefly share what we considered to be the main issues in our particular denominations at the moment and indeed to say anything we might wish to the Archbishop.  It is always interesting to think what is the one thing or the couple of things that we would say, if we had the chance, to some particular person.  What would you say to the Prime Minister, or a business leader, like Richard Branson, or a great leader, like Nelson Mandela.
It reminds me of the fact that Jesus so often says to us: what can I do for you? - or something akin to that.  What do we want to say to Jesus when he asks that of us?  

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