The following address was delivered by the Rt Revd Neil Warwick, Acting Bishop of Bristol and Bishop of Swindon, to the Diocesan Synod that took place on Saturday 15 November 2025
Firstly, thank you for the trust this Synod has in one another and the trust you have shown in passing the Budget for 2026. We will work hard to honour that trust.
In the Old Testament book of Nehemiah when Nehemiah looked at Jerusalem’s broken walls, he saw possibility. Unlike everyone else, he saw a city that could be rebuilt if everyone brought what they could. If you read that long list in Nehemiah 3, and it is long, it’s full of names and small details. Each person repairs “the bit opposite their house.” Each one takes a section of wall, and the miracle is not that any of them was extraordinary: it’s that they did it together. Different skills. Different strengths. Different sizes of stones - every contribution mattered.
Of course, the rebuilding wasn’t easy. There were mockers. “What are these feeble Jews doing?” they said. There was fear. There were disagreements about how and why to build. Some were discouraged. Some felt left out. Some were angry.
This can sound familiar to any group or community - and is recognisable in the UK at present. We know about building God’s house in Bristol Diocese and where you are you may experience opposition, fatigue, even division. We can also tell 101 stories around this Synod of goodness and breakthrough where lives and communities transformed by Jesus.
Today, across the Church of England, conversations and decisions around human sexuality have brought deep hurt and confusion. For some, there is relief and recognition; for others, grief and alarm. We must name that pain truthfully with the same compassion and patience that you demonstrated at our last Synod. We also notice our work and desire for racial justice and for social justice. This is what faithfulness looks like - holding together when it’s hard.
In Nehemiah’s time, people didn’t rebuild because they agreed on everything. They rebuilt because they belonged to one another. They knew that God had called them to a shared purpose, and that the wall could only stand if each section held. We have discerned a shared call as a Diocese to follow Jesus, serve others and transform communities. In this mission, some can carry heavy stones; others can only bring a handful of mortar. Both are needed.
For us as disciples of Jesus, being together, in good times and in tough times, is not just practical; it is Christlike. Jesus had people follow him who disagreed about many things. They were fishermen, zealots, tax collectors, Samaritan women. Jesus invited them to stay at the table, to love one another as he loved them. As a Diocese, Deanery, local church…to be together through difference is part of our witness. It says to the world: this is what grace looks like: not tidy, not simple, but faithful. And that’s why our work now, in parishes, BMO’s, schools, and communities, is an act of service, each generous prayer is another stone set in the wall.
We can do this - close the deficit, balance our budget and keep on with lively, local ministry right across our Diocese, with empowered and resourced clergy and lay people.
In the early days of the HIV pandemic, I was a fundraiser at World Vision. Raising money in the UK for that cause was tough - children were orphans and innocent, therefore adults were seen - here and overseas - as less deserving. Early Antiretrovirals weren’t given in rural areas as water and nutrition was deemed inadequate. Villages I visited in Uganda were left with grandparents and orphans only. Me and the team needed a paradigm shifting moment. It came when we heard from Princess - herself living with HIV and caring for an eight-year-old daughter. She said - if you provide me with ARV’s and I live four more years; my daughter will be 12 years-old and in a much better place to manage without me.
We then worked with partners to get ARV’s into the hands of people like Princess - an early trial of ARV’s in rural location, World Vision supporters got behind it…lives were transformed.
When I was a parish priest in Reading, making our Parish Share request was always a struggle. In living memory, the parish had been unable to pay its Parish Share and had relied on neighbouring parishes and the common purse to subsidise St Nicolas and keep the doors open. That memory meant the PCC were super committed to always making their share. Some years we’d get near the deadline and be £10k behind a £75,000 ask. We always made it - and in that period was the recession of 2008/9. I had to get better at asking for money; we had to make it obvious how to become a committed giver; we prayed a lot; we could all talk about why St Nicolas was good news for our community - and we were motivated to help other parishes as we had once been helped.
It’s my experience that all things are possible when it comes to giving and generosity. £2 extra a week from everyone who attends our churches will raise £1m.
Back to Nehemiah - the wall is complete. When the people see it finished, they give thanks for what God has done through them. That’s the vision for us too: a Diocese held together by God’s love. A Diocese where each person, each parish, each community adds their piece, and where we keep on building. I believe, and I have seen, that when everyone and every church gives generously and bravely, then all things are possible.
May God strengthen our hands for the work;
may Christ be seen among the builders;
and may the walls we raise, with all our different stones,
become a home for God’s grace, and a sign of Christ’s hope for the world.
Amen.