In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Cam Roxburgh about his thirty-plus years forming the Neighbourhood Church in greater Vancouver. Cam’s story is one of faithful dwelling—listening to the Spirit and discerning what God is doing in the community. The conversation traces Cam’s journey as a church leader, marking his shift away from what he calls “the era of projects” towards an approach centered on practices rooted in prayer, discernment and local relationships. He challenges forms of church leadership that prioritise strategy, methods, and quick outcomes - the “just add water and stir” view of the world. Instead, Cam advocates for “doing life with neighbours.” His steadfast commitment to place, despite many obstacles, has borne remarkable fruit: deep community trust, transformed lives, and even a measurable impact on the local economy. Al and Jenny explore how God has used Cam’s long, patient journey to bring into being things no one could ever have imagined - a testament to his persistent patience and passionate desire to hear the Spirit even in the midst of real discouragement.

Cam Roxburgh is Team Leader of The Neighbourhood Church in Burnaby, Vancouver. Here, he has been instrumental in transforming church property into a major affordable housing and community amenity development. He also leads Forge Canada and is Vice President of Missional Initiatives for the North American Baptists. Cam is driven by a love for the church and a desire to see people fulfil a Jesus-shaped life as disciples dwelling in their neighbourhoods. Cam is also co-founder and co-leader of the Commons Cooperative, a transatlantic group of pioneers and practitioners across denominations who have come together to “join in with God to form communities of hope” in the places people call home. Cam and his wife Shelley live in Surrey, British Columbia.

For Cam Roxburgh:

http://www.southside.ca/

https://forgeca.wordpress.com/

https://www.thecommonscooperative.com/about

https://churchforvancouver.ca/burnaby-church-plans-45-storey-project-in-partnership-with-bc-builds/

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair speak with Andrew Willard Jones about how to live humanly within the empire of modernity. Andrew traces his journey, from a secular upbringing, to embracing the Catholic tradition and a deep commitment to family and community. An exceptional thinker among a new generation of Catholic theologians, he explores how modernity and its liberalisms have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the world and what it means to be human. But this is no retreat into religious or academic abstraction. Andrew lives and works daily in a growing community embodying a shared Christian life—an “other kingdom” that echoes Augustine in our age of unravelling. This conversation reveals a cosmic dimension to everyday life: a way of living shaped by the love of God has the potential to transform all of society. It also raises urgent questions for churches, parishes, and Christian communities in this post-liberal moment. If what’s at stake is humanity itself, then our response must be rooted in love and friendship, not power or control.

Andrew Willard Jones is a political theologian whose work is primarily concerned with historical political theology and with the reconciliation of the post-modern with the pre-modern. He is currently Professor of History and Political Theory and Academic Dean at The College of St. Joseph the Worker in Ohio, a new college teaching students the Catholic intellectual tradition while training them in skilled and dignified labour. A founding editor of the journal New Polity, his writing is recognised as having broken new ground in Catholic political thought, and he lectures widely, in both academic and ecclesial contexts. The author of many books, Andrew holds a PhD in Medieval History from Saint Louis University with a focus on the Church of the High Middle Ages. He and his wife Sara are busy raising their eleven children in Steubenville, Ohio.

Links

For Andrew Willard Jones:

https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/academic-faculty

https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/church-against-state

https://newpolity.com/podcasts-hub/meet-andrew-willard-jones

https://newpolity.com/blog?author=5bbdf5b7e4966bea2acb7dee

Books:

The Church Against the State: On Subsidiarity and Sovereignty (New Polity, 2025)

The Two Cities: A History of Christian Politics (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2021)

Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX, (Emmaus Academic, 2017)

Evidence of Things Unseen: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology (Emmaus Road, 2019)

The Word Became Flesh: An Introduction to Christology (Emmaus Road, 2019)

This Is My Body: An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Emmaus Road, 2019)

Catholic Topical Index (Verbum, 2013)

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unravelling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair bring together two former guests, Harvey Kwiyani (episode 20) and Jide Ehizele (episode 49), for a fascinating conversation about identity, migration, and spirituality. Jide, a second-generation British Nigerian from South London, brings grounded experience and deep reflection as a writer, thinker, and youth leader, offering unique insight into the UK’s cultural and spiritual landscape. Harvey, a Malawian missionary now based in Liverpool, works across the UK, Europe, and North America, and writes on African theology and God’s mission in the West. They sense that the Enlightenment’s legacy has weakened the West’s ability to comprehend the nature of the Spirit—while for much of African Christianity this is still instinctive. As we undergo this change of era, they see the UK wrestling with identity and a growing spiritual yearning presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for church leaders. Together with Al and Jenny, they discuss how the migration of African Christians to the UK may be the Spirit’s way of catalysing a sacramental spirituality that British culture has lost. Examining how guest and host can practice hospitality to each other, they explore how cultural barriers can be bridged to foster both a sense of belonging and an openness to encounter the Spirit in everyday life.

Harvey Kwiyani works for the Church Mission Society (CMS) in Oxford, UK, where he leads a study centre for global witness and human migration and a Masters programme in African Christianity. Harvey is also the CEO of Global Connections, a UK-based mission network, and a director of Missio Africanus, a think tank exploring the rise and role of the African missionary movement in world missions. Harvey has published several books and holds a Ph.D. in Missions and Leadership.

Jide Ehizele is a Christian thinker and writer focusing on faith, identity and cultural renewal. In his Substack, Southeast London Psalms, Jide wrestles with faith, politics and community from the perspective of a Black British Christian living in modern Britain. He also writes for The New Statesman and Unherd. Jide is an active member of St Peter’s Church, Brockley, leading theology workshops and volunteering with children’s ministry. The son of Nigerian parents, Jide was born and bred in Lewisham, Southeast London, and his day job is as a specialist consultant in the economics and planning of railway operations.

Links

For Jide Ehizele:

https://x.com/OBEhizele

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jide-ehizele-ab28785b/

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2025/07/the-new-racism-of-the-british-right

https://substack.com/home/post/p-168224782

For Harvey Kwiyani:

Substack

Global Connections: www.globalconnections.org.uk

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-kwiyani-ph-d-039ab745/?originalSubdomain=uk

Twitter: https://x.com/missioafricanus?lang=en

Books:

Decolonising Mission (2024)

Wash and Pray: African Theological Discourse on COVID-19 (2023)

Multicultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church (2020)

Our Children Need Roots and Wings: Equipping and Empowering Young Diaspora Africans for Life and Mission (2019)

Mission-Shaped Church in a Multicultural World (2017)

Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West (2014)

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

https://x.com/T4CG

https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Anne Snyder about the anxieties—and unexpected possibilities—of our volatile moment. Anne doesn’t stop at lament or analysis. As she wrestles with the tensions between plurality and unity in a fractured age, her desire to articulate truth in the written word is matched by an instinct for hospitality and the conviction of God’s grace underlying our daily lives. Inspired by the integrated witness of Dorothy Day, Anne not only writes and encourages other writers, but organises spaces where people of different perspectives can meet—and, through mutual vulnerability, encounter grace. In conversation with Al and Jenny, Anne reimagines Christian humanism as an “understory” beneath the surface of our divides: a story of local, hidden movements where building, healing, reckoning, and reconciling are the components essential for the common good.

Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment, a magazine of public theology for the common good and a developing ecosystem of conversation and community. Rooted in the Christian humanist tradition, Comment now encompasses a growing podcast network, gatherings that span grassroots to institutional settings across North America and the UK, and a three-day festival at the Washington National Cathedral. Anne also hosts The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-edited Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (2022). The author of The Fabric of Character (2019), she writes widely and delights in weaving worlds together—in print, around the table, and across different sectors and ways of knowing.

Links:

For Anne Snyder:

Comment Magazine

https://comment.org/contributors/anne-snyder/

The Whole Person Revolution podcast

https://annesnyder.org/about/

Breaking Ground

Books

The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape (2019)

Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year (Co-edited with Susannah Black, 2022)

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/editorials and https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

X/Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with John Clifton about his experiences as a Salvation Army leader among people in the margins. In a sense, this is what you would expect from a Salvation Army officer. But give this a careful listen: John is also a deeply informed thinker and theologian with vital insights for the church today. In Christian circles lately there is much being said and written about two contrasting conversations: the quiet revival of young adults coming to certain kinds of churches, and the confusion and fear surrounding the recent conversions of controversial figures like Tommy Robinson and others at the margins—people who have had little to do with church and Christian life. John has important things to say about what is happening here and about why we should listen to what the Spirit is saying from the culture to the churches. John calls the church to return to its working-class roots, for relational spaces where Christ is encountered in the powerless, for the fostering of solidarity, and for local economic renewal.

Captain John Clifton is a Salvation Army officer, ordained minister, and theologian based in North Shields, North East England. He serves as the Divisional Commander for The Salvation Army’s North East Division, overseeing operations across the region, focusing on spiritual guidance, community outreach, and social services. His work emphasizes the Church’s engagement in public life and society, particularly supporting communities affected by debt, hunger, homelessness, and unemployment. He collaborates on initiatives for justice, reconciliation, and empowering local leadership through broad-based community organizing. Academically, John researches systematic theology, exploring the transformative power of compassionate acts and social encounters. His doctoral thesis was titled “Producing Christ in the World: a study of Christian action in terms of the Homeless Man as a Christological paradigm of powerlessness.” He writes on faith, theology, and faithful action via his Substack, Christ in the Margins, and has previously led Salvation Army corps in places like Ilford (East London) and Blackpool (North West England). The youngest son of General Shaw Clifton, John has made a lifelong commitment to the Salvation Army and lives in North Shields near Newcastle with his wife Naomi and their young family. His writing can be found on his Substack, With Christ in the Margins

For John Clifton:

https://www.instagram.com/drjohnclifton/

https://x.com/DrJohnClifton

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjohnclifton/?originalSubdomain=uk

https://www.salvationarmy.org/news/shaped-conviction-crafted-care-and-offered-army-he-loved

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Substack https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://x.com/T4CG

In a departure from previous episodes, Al Roxburgh interviews his Leaving Egypt co-host, Jenny Sinclair. Jenny shares something of her early life: from growing up in the milieu of a significant church leader, to years of rebellion, to the awakening that came through a dark night of the soul, and finally to finding her home in the Catholic Church. Later, sensing signs of coming social instability, she was drawn by the Holy Spirit to follow a trail. Through her curiosity to understand what Christian witness in the midst of this unravelling means for the churches, there emerged for Jenny a new vocation in the form of Together for the Common Good. Amidst the animating energy of the Spirit, Jenny finds herself at the heart of an unfolding work, with many others involved. Seeking a constructive response to the social crises of our time she encourages Christians to participate in the common good - the heart of God’s work of reweaving a broken world.

Jenny Sinclair is Founder and Director of Together for the Common Good, a UK charity. From its beginnings in 2011, T4CG works with Christians across the churches to cultivate an “outward-facing” posture that listens to both God and neighbour. Engaging leaders, churches, charities and schools, T4CG draws on the Catholic Social Thought tradition as the key theological imagination for addressing the social, spiritual, moral, economic and political crises of this moment. Jenny speaks and writes, and convenes gatherings of leaders to engage the key questions of our time. Alongside this work, Jenny is the director and co-founder of Leaving Egypt with co-host Alan Roxburgh. Formerly a graphic designer, charity worker and serial volunteer, Jenny is the daughter of the Anglican Bishop David Sheppard. She is mother to two adult sons and currently lives in Liverpool.

For Jenny Sinclair:

https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair

https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/about/our-founder-director

https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/podcast

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

https://x.com/T4CG

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Tim Dickau about the ways he has lived out his work as a Christian leader in the city. Tim is one of those thoroughly urbanized people whose roots are in rural Alberta, Canada. Shaped by the rhythms of farming and the practice of hospitality, Tim’s unique blend of prairie populism shows up in his theology of place. Rather than starting with a plan or a project, he begins by asking, “What could grow here?” Deeply attentive to how God is already at work in people’s lives, he tills the ground in faith, trusting that something will emerge. His journey wasn’t straightforward. After leading a large church for many years, a season of burnout revealed for him a new way of being a leader. Sharing life across socio-economic divides reshaped his understanding of justice. This brought forth acts of resistance—addressing food insecurity and homelessness—and expressions of hope, such as repurposing church buildings for affordable housing. In the midst of all this, Tim is that detective of divinity, listening to what it is the Spirit wants to weave in the city, creating spaces where others can join with God in the restoration of the whole of life.

Tim Dickau is the Director of City Gate Vancouver, a charity that works with churches and social organizations across the city addressing social problems like displacement of refugees, food insecurity, poverty, and in particular affordable housing and the use of church buildings. He’s also a trainer in the Certificate in Missional Leadership, a one-year congregational cohort based program, at St Andrew’s Hall, the Presbyterian Church college at the University of British Columbia. For more than twenty years, Tim was the pastor of Grandview Calvary Baptist Church in the downtown east side of Vancouver. He lives in community as part of an extended family. 

For Tim Dickau

https://citygatevancouver.org/our-work/

https://www.standrews.edu/cml/certificate-in-missional-leadership/

https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-Promise-of-New-Monasticism-in-a-Secular-Age-Tim-Dickau.pdf

https://reimagineclc.ca/

Books

Forming Christian Communities in a Secular Age: Recovering Humility and Hope - A Guide to Success in Adult Faith Today 

Plunging into the Kingdom Way: Practicing the Shared Strokes of Community, Hospitality, Justice, and Confession

Also referred to in this episode:

Patrick Condon Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality, and Urban Crisis

Mark Elsdon Gone for Good?: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Sarah Small about living incarnationally in some of the UK’s most forgotten communities. It can take a church leader many years to discover what it means to “be with”, to love the other as a person, just for who they are, rather than as a “project” or as an object of training. “Incarnational ministry” can sound clinical and strategic, yet reflects a deep truth. Sarah, who is not ordained, has a naturally internalized desire to give her life to the people of her community. Sarah’s wisdom is beautiful in its humility; she and her family have been living it out for real in South Manchester. Bringing honesty with little romanticism, she acknowledges the hard edges of this calling, but also the deep joy in the ways God is present. Sarah’s community, like others in the Eden Network, are confronting the economic realities of their neighbours, and in the midst of poverty are discovering how to be the healers of walls and lovers of the broken. In this conversation, we begin to appreciate how Christ is working through the prayers and presence of ordinary Christian families seeking the shalom of the places to which God has sent them.

Sarah Small co-leads the Eden Network with her husband Steve. Eden is a movement of urban missionaries who live in some of the UK’s most deprived communities. She and Steve live with their three boys on a council estate (housing project) in South Manchester which has been home for 13 years. Eden is one part of the wider mission activity of The Message Trust, a global Christian charity sharing the good news of Jesus with the hardest-to-reach people and communities. Sarah read Religions and Theology at the University of Manchester. She also holds Masters degrees in International Politics and Theology.

For Sarah Small: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-small-73276340/?originalSubdomain=uk

https://joineden.org/

https://www.message.org.uk/

For Alan J Roxburgh: http://alanroxburgh.com/about Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson) Joining God in the Great Unraveling Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

X.com/Twitter: https://x.com/home

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In a change-up from previous episodes, Jenny Sinclair interviews her Leaving Egypt co-host Al Roxburgh. Al shares about his journey, first, as a Baptist minister who knew how to renew and grow churches and, later, as a consultant on making churches “missional”. He talks about the significance of Lesslie Newbigin in launching a change in his thinking thirty years ago, a prompt that set him on a journey of reframing his understanding of God’s agency in the context of modernity. Changes in Al’s thinking and practice have continued over the last ten years—with an emerging clarity that we are living through a change of era. Amid signs of unravelling across the West, he has been drawn to engage with conversation partners around the relationship between church and society. This led him to revisit Catholic thinkers who examine political economy through the lens of the gospel, especially as the impact of economic systems on human flourishing became increasingly serious. Al describes how the Spirit has pushed him outward—away from a church-centric posture and toward a deeper awareness of God at work in the world, particularly in the local. His advice now for church leaders is not to focus on what makes the church work, but on what is going on among people in the places where they live. Through practices of discerning, dwelling, and listening, he urges us all to ask: What does it mean to be God’s people here, in this neighbourhood?

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Practices for the Refounding of God’s People: The Missional Challenge of the West (with Martin Robinson)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

Also mentioned in this episode:

Paul Weston Humble Confidence: Lesslie Newbigin and the Logic of Mission

Tim Rogan The Moral Economists: R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism

Alan Seligman Modernity’s Wager: Authority, the Self, and Transcendence

Also referred to were these Catholic thinkers:

Augusto Del Noce The Crisis of Modernity

Luigino Bruni Civil Economy

William T Cavanaugh Field Hospital and The Uses of Idolatory

Rocco Buttiglioni Modernity’s Alternative

For Jenny Sinclair:

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/

In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Bishop Philip North about cultivating communities of God’s people in Blackburn in the North West of England. We encounter a leader responsible for shaping the life of the institutional church with a remarkable incarnational imagination. Bishop Philip’s journey has taught him the fundamental importance of listening to poor and working class communities and the imperative of going deeply local. He knows that this is how Christian life is lived vividly as a sign of love and justice on the ground. His passion for people and place is striking, as is his clear sense of calling to servant leadership. His simple desire is to form a people who are deeply invested in their local communities and liberated through being in love with Jesus. Rather than leading with strategies from the top, he understands that power must be shared and delights in empowering unlikely local people to lead. This is an encouraging witness to the ways in which the church can shine forth the wonder of Christ.

Philip North is the Bishop of Blackburn in the Anglican Diocese which serves most of the county of Lancashire in the UK. He began ministry in the Diocese of Durham, serving outer estates Parishes in Sunderland and Hartlepool, and then spent six years ministering to pilgrims to the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham as Priest Administrator. He returned to parochial ministry as Team Rector of the Parish of Old St Pancras, serving a large area of North-west London around Camden Town. He was consecrated Bishop of Burnley in February 2015 and translated to the See of Blackburn in 2023. He has a strong interest in issues around poverty and social justice and in the vitality of the urban church. He is a member of the Company of Mission Priests, a dispersed community who live to a rule in order to focus their lives on the mission of the church, especially amongst the poor.

Links

For Bishop Philip:

https://www.blackburn.anglican.org/bishop-philip

https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/uncategorised/no-repentance-no-renewal

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04cffq1

For Alan J Roxburgh:

http://alanroxburgh.com/about

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork

Books

Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unraveling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)

Joining God in the Great Unraveling

Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions

Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time

For Jenny Sinclair:

Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/