A follow-up to my piece yesterday on the new Bishop of Chelmsford:

The blogging bishop Alan Wilson has given his ringing endorsement to Bishop Stephen Cottrell, who is currently his colleague as an area bishop in the Diocese of Oxford. Bishop Alan writes of the soon to be bishop of Chelmsford:

Well, like the Church of England is supposed to, he runs Gospel (or Evangelical) software on Catholic hardware. He is clearly focussed on the kingdom, and has a real knack for drawing people into Bible passages reflectively at a level you can take away and think about. He is an Evangelism nut. He’s shrewd, but far more interested in holiness than politics. …

This looks like a great match. Stephen’s proud of Essex and coming from Essex … O people of Essex (and the bits of East London that some people think are Essex really), you are blessed. You have got yourselves the right man.

Thank you, Bishop Alan. We need a man like this (at the moment it has to be a man). So we look forward to welcoming Bishop Stephen to this diocese.