WELCOME to the latest edition of InReview, featuring news from the National Church Institutions.

Our aim is to keep people in touch with the activities of the Archbishops’ Council,

Church Commissioners, the Pensions Board and other bodies who serve the Church at national level.

Do check out In Focus, our sister publication designed to be a centrespread for A5 parish magazines.

The National Church Institutions working for you

May 2015

Government announces additional £40 million for church building repairs

inreviewwww.churchofengland.org

New round of grants for urgent Cathedral repairs also awarded - page two

Lichfield Cathedral, who received £800k in grant

fundingCredit: Barnyz via Flickr

Two new study guides ahead of the General election - page three

washday15 - a picture feature page four

Page two | The National Church Institutions working for you

The Church of England’s weekly podcast is available now on Soundcloud and on the iTunes podcasts - featuring interviews and features from around the Church.All of the audio on Soundcloud is available at:

www.soundcloud.com/the-church-of-england

Other ways to engage with us online include:

Follow us on Twitter:www.twitter.com/c_of_e

Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thechurchofengland

Watch us on Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/ArchbishopsCouncilFollow our Pinterest boards: www.pinterest.com/

Cathedrals and Churches get urgent repair fundingNearly 400 Church of England parishes are

to receive grants for urgent repairs to their church roofs in the first round of awards from the Listed Places of Worship Roof Repair Fund.

ChurchCare, the Cathedral and Church Buildings division of the Church of England, welcomed the grants announced for 372 parish churches and said that this would make an “immeasurable” difference to local communities.

All of the churches benefiting in the announcement will receive grants of between £10,000 and £100,000 towards the urgent repair of roofs, gut-ters and drains.

In a separate announce-ment, £6.9 million of grants for urgent repairs were announced for 24 Church of England and seven Cath-olic cathedrals in the final phase of the First World War Centenary Cathedral Repairs Fund.

The cathedrals are being provided with grants of between £12,000 and £800,000 for essential and urgent repairs ranging from repairs to roofs and stonework through to complete re-wiring.

The Bishop of Worcester, Rt Revd Dr John Inge, lead bishop for cathedrals and church buildings said:

“We are enormously grateful to the Chancel-lor for the generous promise of more funding following the heavily oversubscribed Listed Places of Worship Roof Repair Fund and First World War Centenary Cathedral Repair Fund. The nation’s churches and cathedrals are irre-placeable historic buildings which are important

both to worshippers and the wider communi-ties. This new funding will mean that many more parishes will be able to complete essential repairs to their churches to continue to serve their communities well into the future.

Lichfield Cathedral, containing treasures such as the St Chad’s Gospel and the Saxon ‘Lichfield Angel’ sculpture, receives the largest grant, of £800,000, for work to replace wiring and lighting systems in the medieval building.

The cathedral was facing the possibility of closure without funds for the essential work. The Dean of Lichfield, the Very Revd Adrian Dorber, welcomed the “timely and generous” grant.

“The possibility of closure was heart-breaking. Cathedral buildings offer so much to so many – at Lichfield we are run-ning a Citizen’s Parliament to discuss the upcoming election, opening up new parts of the church to visitors via our tower and rooftop tours, and cel-ebrating our fine musical tradi-

tion. Without this timely and generous grant all of this would have been under threat.”

Other cathedrals to receive grants include Durham (pictured), which has been allocated £568,000 for repair and conservation work on its central tower; and Birmingham, where £500,000 has been awarded to replace failed wiring and lighting with a new scheme to showcase its Baroque architecture and Edward Burne-Jones stained glass windows.

Full details of both grant awards are available at www.churchcare.co.uk

98% vote for climate change resolution at BP AGM

Archbishop of York commissions Sports Ambassador

A Bishop who once played hockey for England Schoolboys has been commissioned by the Archbishop of York to take on a new national sporting role in the Church of England.

Bishop Tony Porter, from the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, has become the Archbishops’ Sport Ambassa-dor, working to strengthen links between the Church and sport at all levels.

“My main work will be to encourage parish churches to be involved in the world of sport and for the world of sport to receive Christian min-istry in a culture and language they understand,” said Bishop Tony, who won an Oxford Blue as well as playing for England Schoolboys.

“I want the Church to be available pastorally and to take appropriate opportunities to share the good news of Jesus.”

The Archbishop, Dr John

Sentamu, said: ‘We are all fear-fully and wonderfully made. Through hard work, practice and the support of teammates we also discover that we are capable of more than we ever thought possible.

“It is no accident that St Paul uses the metaphor of running a race to describe the Christian life, where discipline and the support of others help us to see God doing more than we ever thought possible. I am delighted that Bishop Tony will be working to highlight that link between faith and sport some 2000 years after St Paul!”

Bishop Tony was the club chaplain at Manchester City - in the late 1990s and into the next decade - while based at a church in Moss Side, working with managers Joe Royle, Kevin Keegan and Stuart Pearce (pic-tured above, with Bishop Tony and Archbishop Sentamu).

Shareholders at BP have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution on climate change put forward by the Aiming for A coalition which includes all three of the Church of England National Investing Bodies.

It called for the company to have a greater commitment to moving to a low carbon economy.

Edward Mason, Head of Responsible Investment at the Church Commissioners says BP’s commitment to being more open about its climate change strategy is a significant development in the relationship between shareholders like the Commissioners and the oil and gas industry on sustainability.

“The ‘Aiming for A’ coali-tion’s engagement with BP has prompted an unprecedented response by an oil and gas major and its institutional investors. BP’s commitment to increased

disclosure on its climate change strategy will set a new standard and is a significant develop-ment in the relationship between institutional shareholders and the oil and gas industry on sus-tainability.”

The Church of England’s National Investing Bodies are part of the £170bn ‘Aiming for A’ investor coalition, led by char-ity fund manager CCLA.

The coalition was launched in

2012 as a new investor initiative to engage on climate risk wit the ten largest extractives and utili-ties companies in the FTSE 100. The Aiming for A coalition will continue to attend AGMs this year to ask questions of the fur-ther companies they are engag-ing with on climate risk.

More details about the announcement can be found at:bit.ly/bp2015agm

Credit: Mick_Gallagher_1959 via

Flickr

InReview | Page three

@OurCofe extended for second year

Two study guides released ahead of General election

Two study guides have been released to promote discus-sion and reflection on a range of topics including the Gen-eral Election.

An online study guide has been designed to promote dis-cussion on Who is My Neighbour?, the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Letter for the General Election. The document is aimed at indi-vidual and group study, includes a short summary of each section of the Pastoral Letter and offers

questions for consideration and conversation.

The guide also suggest pas-sages from the Bible for study included in the Letter and prayers for the General Election.

Who is My Neighbour? was issued at the start of Lent and is addressed to the People and Par-ishes of the Church of England.

A study guide has also been released to accompany On Rock or Sand?, edited by John Sen-tamu, Archbishop of York.

The guide includes summa-ries of each chapter, key Bible passages and questions for per-sonal reflection or group discus-sion. The aim of the resource is to further engage the reader in their reading and understand-ing of the arguments raised in the book.

The guides can be found at:bit.ly/whoismyneighbourstudybit.ly/onrockorsandstudy

New blog on the importance of Chaplaincy in further education

A report released this month on Chaplaincy in the UK points out that chaplaincy has long been associated with Christianity, covering a small range of traditional sectors: education, health, the military and prisons. Nowadays that is no longer the case. Chaplains are everywhere, from all faiths and none, operating in every conceivable sector. So where does this leave school and college chaplaincy rooted in the Christian faith? Is it outdated, or in demand in 21st Century multi-cultural Britain - for both staff and pupils alike? Our report last year on chaplaincy in schools met the expected criticism (from certain quarters) that this was simply the Church of England’s latest plan to evangelise children

and young people. Ask one of the many staff and pupils, of all faiths and none, who have benefited from chaplaincy in church schools and FE colleges and I think you would find a very different answer. In fact it is worth considering that in the past 10 years why we have gone from around 200 to more than 400 chaplains in schools alone, as well as those in FE colleges, with the numbers still growing. Why is it that some of our new schools or academies often have a chaplain on their senior staff team, and invest in chaplains as a full time role? It is certainly as much for the staff as for the pupils.

Revd Garry Neave FE adviser for Church of England (and lead on Chaplaincy)

Church Urban Fund promotes “frugal lunches” for Poverty Sunday

In a blog for the Church of England, Further Education adviser Revd Garry Neave has written about the importance of Chaplaincy to further education,

for pupils and staff, following a report on Chaplaincy in the UK. An extract from the blog is below and can be read at:bit.ly/FEchaplaincy

The Church of England’s social media project, @OurCofE has been extended for a further year. The project sees members of the church taking over the @OurCofE twitter account to give an insight into all the work that goes on into the day to day running of a church community from schools to chaplaincies to cathedrals

The extension of the account will give further opportunities for volunteers to spend a week tweeting about their lives in the Church of England, following

participants includ-ing Nun Elizabeth Pio (below left), from The Society of the Sisters of Bethany in Portsmouth.

She said:“@OurCofE reminds us that

we’re part of a huge, diverse family in the Church of England - we need to know that. From one source we can discover who people are, learn what they do and how they do it - it’s been so informative, encouraging and inspiring.”

Her comments feature in a Church of England communica-tions blog which reflects on the success of the first year.The blog is available at:bit.ly/ourcofesecondyear

For further information including how to apply to volunteer:bit.ly/ourcofe

The Church Urban Fund (CUF) is encour-aging parishes to take part in activities for Pov-erty Sunday.

Local churches are being invited to hold a Poverty Sunday Service followed by a “frugal lunch” on June 21, or on another date that suits, to raise funds for CUF.

Church Urban Fund, a charity within the Church of England, helps churches respond to poverty and supports local initiatives to trans-form deprived communities.

Poverty Sunday is being marked after a report pub-lished earlier this year showed the overwhelming commitment of Church of England parishes to social action.

The vast majority of churches, more than 90%, address at least one social issue in their commu-nity, either through organised activities, or informal support, according to the online study by CUF and the Church of England.

On average churches are addressing seven social issues in their area and a third are tackling nine or more, the study found.

The proportion of churches involved in running food banks has doubled over the last three years from 33% to 66% the report showed.

Paul Hackwood, CUF Execu-tive Chair, said: “We believe this is an important time for churches to get involved. Great work is already being done but the need

is immense. The more we can raise money, the more lives are going to be transformed.”

The Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester, and a trustee of CUF, urged churches to take part in Poverty Sunday.

“Poverty Sunday is an oppor-tunity for you and me to sup-port church-backed responses in places like my former parishes. Please join in.”Find out more at:www.povertysunday.org.uk

Credit: Alpha via Flickr

Past participants include Arts Chaplain Jim Craig, Amy Powis and Jules Middleton (pictured left to right)

Page four | The National Church Institutions working for you | InReview

Dying Awareness weekMay 18th-24th

The Church of England and other members of the Dying Matters coalition are marking the annual Dying Awareness Week in May to get parishes and people talking about dying, death and bereavement.

The Revd Canon Dr Sandra Millar, Head of Projects and Development for the Archbish-ops’ Council said:

“The Church of England is the biggest single provider of funerals in England, with around 3,300 funerals held each week in churches, crematoria, cemeteries and green burial sites all being led by Church of England minis-

ters – clergy and readers. “We have been helping

people to think about the big questions of life and death for generations. Our local clergy and lay people are a valuable source of support and help at every stage. Whether it is thinking about what hymns and readings you might want in your funeral service, or finding someone to listen during the painful journey of grief, a local church can play a big part in getting people talking about death and dying.”Further information is available at: www.dyingmatters.org

washday 2015

This Easter, the Church of England backed the campaign Wash Day, encouraging people to wash something to make a difference in their communities during Lent.

Above are some of the pictures from the campaign.Sarah Meyrick, Director of Communications for Oxford Diocese who co-ordinated the project said:“We’re really pleased with how it went, especially as #washday15 was new this year. The photos show all sorts of people of getting involved, lay and ordained, from schoolchildren to bishops. People used their imaginations and got stuck in to make a difference in their local community.”

To find out more visit: www.washday.org