WELCOME

Welcome to The Diocese of Birmingham Readers' Association web pages.

If you are a Reader you will find a lot of information here, and we hope you find what you are looking for.  In Birmingham we are very fortunate in the resources we have.  This site will guide you to those which might be helpful to anyone in Reader ministry.  It is also a place where useful experience can be shared.  For example, there's a lively account, written from experience, of what you might need to do, as a Reader, when your incumbent is on sabbatical.  Please feed back to the Readers' Secretary and Registrar, Mike Lynch, your own ideas, and share your experience too.

If you are not a Reader, but want to know more about Reader ministry, then this may also be a good place to find out more or to make those contacts which will help.   Readers are very happy to share what their ministry is all about, and it is surprisingly varied. So do ask.  Application forms and other information on how to become a Reader can be found on this web site.  There is also information about what it means to be be a Reader.

As the newly appointed Warden of Readers I'm really enthusiastic to let people know what a rich resource Readers are, and what a wide variety of gifts and skills they represent.  There are over 200 active Readers in the Diocese of Birmingham and they bring to that ministry their own unique experiences of industry, commerce, education, health, law, local government and many other fields.

Readers preach, certainly.  In my experience, because Readers are often fully immersed in the world of work, their preaching can have a freshness and a relevance that we clergy may sometimes lack.

Readers also lead worship and they often do this with a vivid idea of what it means to be in the congregation and not 'up front'.  So they know what helps God's people to worship, and what doesn't!

Readers lead study groups and do pastoral work.  Readers also use their other skills in the service of Christ as leading lay people.

Because of all this Readers are, in a very special way, given the opportunity to read the Bible in one hand, and, as it were, to read the newspaper in the other - to 'read the signs of the times', in fact.  And, walking with fellow Christians along this joyful Christian way, they will want to share the good news of God's love in a way that speaks to the hopes and fears of the 21^st Century.

Readers please remember that I'm here for you.  So don't hesitate to contact me by email, mail or by phone.