Category: Speakers

About Dr Sarah Holmes

Dr Sarah Holmes
Dr Sarah Holmes

Dr Sarah Holmes has worked at Liverpool Hope University since 2015, teaching Early Childhood Studies and researching children’s faith, spirituality and issues surrounding faith nurture.

She’s worked in a variety of kids, youth and family settings, causing her to embark on a PhD to research how Christian faith may be most effectively nurtured in the home context. Following completion of that in 2018, she continues to be passionate about researching and supporting those nurturing children’s faith; in home/family contexts, local church contexts, para-church contexts and beyond.

Sarah is married with four children who are all wonderful but fantastically different to each other, which brings constant challenges – as well as many joys! She lives on the Wirral, enjoys spending time with family and friends, sitting in the sunshine, watching movies and aspires to be a runner. She also volunteers in her local church in various roles.

Deanery Briefing: The Future of the church? Rethinking the framework of ministry amongst families

Professor Sir Sam Everington

Professor Sir Sam Everington MBBS, MRCGP, Barrister, OBE

Sam has been a GP in Tower Hamlets since 1989 in the the Bromley by Bow Partnership. The centre has over 100 projects under its roof supporting the wider determinants of health. The social prescribing delivered at the centre, is now part of a network of thousands across the country. He is Vice-Chair of North East London CCG.

Professor Sir Sam Everington

Sam is a member of BMA Council and Vice President of the BMA. In 1999 he received an OBE for services to inner city primary care in 2006, The International Award of Excellence in Health Care and in 2015 a Knighthood for services to primary care. He is a member of the Ministerial National NHS Infrastructure, NHS Resolution and East London foundation Trust boards and is Fellow and Honorary Professor of Queen Mary University of London and Vice President of the Queen’s Nursing Institute.

He has previously been a member of GMC Council, Cabinet appointed Ambassador for Social Enterprise, Acting Chair of the BMA, adviser to shadow cabinet ministers between 1992 and 1997 and national advisor to NHS England’s New Models of Care project.

He is a trained woodcarver, day skipper, and speaks Norwegian. He trained originally as a cadet pilot in the RAF and lives with his wife and five children in the Tower Hamlets, East End of London.

More on Social Prescribing

The Rt Revd Dr Joanne​ Grenfell: The Bishop of Stepney

Joanne Woolway Grenfell has been Bishop of Stepney since July 2019. Previously, she has been  Archdeacon of Portsdown in the Diocese of Portsmouth, Director of Ordinands and Residentiary Canon in Sheffield, and a parish priest. Joanne’s interests include mission and strategic development, education, particularly school governance, public life, and poetry. She is co-vice chair of the Mission and Public Affairs Council of the Church of England. Her London diocesan responsibilities involve being lead bishop for safeguarding and overseeing the Diocese’s social engagement ministry and racial justice priority work.

Bishop Stephen Cottrell

Stephen Cottrell, the next Archbishop of York, is currently Bishop of Chelmsford and was formerly Bishop of Reading.

He has worked in parishes in London and Chichester, as Canon Pastor of Peterborough Cathedral, as Missioner in the Wakefield diocese and as part of Springboard, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s evangelism team.

He has written widely on evangelism, spirituality and discipleship. Among his most recent books are a series of Lent and Holy Week meditations. He has also written a book of children’s stories, The Adventures of Naughty Nora.

In 1993 he became Diocesan Missioner for the Diocese of Wakefield. It was there that he was part of a group that wrote and developed the Emmaus programme for evangelism, nurture and discipleship which has since been translated into several languages. He began working for Springboard, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s and York’s initiative for evangelism in 1997 and consequently was involved in speaking on evangelism and leading missions and conferences in England and within the Anglican Communion.

Stephen’s passions for ministry have always involved evangelism and teaching and commending the Christian faith. He is a founding member of the College of Evangelists and has served on the Church of England’s Mission, Renewal and Evangelism committee.

Bishop Stephen’s interests include writing, reading, cooking and music. He is a keen Spurs fan, but also supports his local team wherever he lives, so at various points has followed Southend United, Leyton Orient, Portsmouth, Huddersfield, Peterborough and Reading. He is married to Rebecca, who is a potter and they have three sons.

The Rt Revd Martin Seeley: Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich

Bishop Martin Seeley

The Right Reverend Martin Seeley read Geography and then Theology at Jesus College, Cambridge, before a year at Ripon College, Cuddesdon.  He was awarded the English Fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and continued his ministerial training there.

He served his title at the parish of Bottesford with Ashby, Scunthorpe in Lincoln Diocese from 1978 to 1980.

He then returned to New York City where he served as curate at the Church of the Epiphany and Assistant Director of Trinity Institute, Trinity Wall Street, from 1980 to 1985. Then from 1985 to 1990 he was Executive Director of the Thompson Center, an ecumenical lay and clergy education programme in St Louis, Missouri.

He returned to England in 1990, and until 1996 was a Selection Secretary at the Advisory Board of Ministry, and Secretary for Continuing Ministerial Education.

From 1996 to 2006 he was Vicar of the Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets in the Diocese of London.

Since 2006 he was Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge and from 2008, Honorary Canon at Ely Cathedral. He has also served as President of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

He is married to the Reverend Jutta Brueck, Priest in Charge of St Thomas’ Ipswich, and they have two children, Anna, 16 and Luke, 13. He is a keen and able cook, and a keen but less able saxophonist.

Rt Revd Adrian Newman Bishop of Stepney

Adrian Newman became the Bishop of Stepney in July 2011.  He describes himself as a social entrepreneur, committed to human flourishing and the re-enchantment of society.  He was once introduced as the ‘most un-Dean-like Dean in the Church of England’ – a description he quite liked at the time.  He is currently intent on being a most un-Bishop-like Bishop………..

He worked as a management economist before ministerial training at Trinity College Bristol.

He was ordained in 1985 and served as a curate at St Mark’s Forest Gate. In 1989 he was appointed Vicar of Christ Church, Hillsborough, Sheffield.

In 1996, he became Rector of St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, and oversaw a redevelopment of the church site at the same time as its parish was being transformed by the demolition and rebuilding of the surrounding retail district.

He became Dean of Rochester in 2005, leading the second oldest cathedral foundation in the UK through a time of cultural change and major redevelopment.

He was consecrated Bishop of Stepney on 25th July 2011.

The Stepney Episcopal Area spans the three London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington which he describes as “one of the most exciting, vibrant and diverse places in the whole of the country, an area that is challenged and challenging, but authentic and alive.”

His role is to lead the church in Stepney in serving the changing society of East London.  This involves, on the one hand, addressing the challenges of Boroughs with significant rankings in terms of UK child poverty, and on the other engaging with the high-end economy of Canary Wharf, which employs more people than a city the size of Leicester.

He is married to Gill and they have three adult sons.

Andy Broom: Archdeacon of the East Riding

Originally from Norfolk, Andy was ordained in 1992 and worked in parochial roles in Telford and Chesterfield before becoming Director Mission & Ministry in Derby Diocese; four years ago he became Archdeacon of the East Riding in York Diocese. In Derby he led a review which paved the way to significant deanery changes but left before they happened! In York this was spotted on the CV and within a couple of months of arriving he had been asked to lead a similar process. The context is very different and so are the proposals but this time he is delighting in being present to see what actually happens!

Married with two adult children, when Andy is not archdeaconing he enjoys walking up hills and watching his beloved Norwich City . . . both of which can be very hard work!

The Rt Revd Alison White: Bishop of Hull

The Rt Revd Alison White was consecrated as the  Bishop of Hull on 3rd July 2015.

She was ordained in Durham in 1986 and since then has had a variety of roles in the church both locally and nationally. Before moving to Hull she was the Parish Priest of Riding Mill in Northumberland and Adviser in Spirituality and Spiritual Direction for the Diocese of Newcastle.

Bishop Alison is married to Frank who has recently retired as the Assistant Bishop of Newcastle.

She will be speaking at the 2018 conference.