The Church Times Podcast

For the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick travelled to York to talk to the Canon Precenter of York Minster, the Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, and the director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), Hugh Morris, about the importance of church music. The Church Times and the RSCM have together launched a new event, the Festival of Faith and Music, which takes place in York Minster from 26 to 28 April (News, 8 December). Full programme and ticketing information can be found at https://faithandmusic.hymnsam.co.uk. Through a programme of music and worship, talks and workshops, the festival is designed for clergy and church musicians, and seeks to celebrate church music in all its glory and to send delegates home encouraged, inspired, and equipped with new ideas for using music in worship. Canon Johnson will be speaking at the event about her book, On Voice: Speech, song, silence: human and divine, which will be published in March by Darton, Longman & Todd (Features, 5 January). On the podcast, she talks about some of the themes in the book, including why she is inspired by the singing of football crowds and how silence also figures in her thinking about sung worship. The keynote speaker at the Festival of Faith and Preaching will be the Archbishop of York, in a session called “Tuning forks and orchestras: Music and the mission of God”. Other speakers include Roxana Panufnik, composer of one of the works sung at the Coronation; and Andy Thomas, the author of Resounding Body: Building Christlike church communities through music. Two internationally renowned singers, James Gilchrist and Andrea Haines, both of whom started singing in parish church choirs, will talk about how it all began, and will perform some reflective music in the quire of York Minster. Find out more about the RSCM at www.rscm.org.uk. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, is seeking to draw attention to the impact that the privatisation of the care system is having on vulnerable children. In his diocese, he writes in the Church Times, the number of care homes has risen significantly in recent years, “not because there is a disproportionate increase in demand for children’s care places in Lancashire. It is because these are towns where housing is cheap and where labour costs are low.” He continues: “Almost unseen, the children’s care sector has been taken over by private suppliers. Now, of course, there is nothing wrong with profit in and of itself, and I have no doubt that many individual staff members are skilled and dedicated. But I, for one, feel deeply uncomfortable about the rapacious way many of these companies are operating. . . “Instead of putting the vulnerable child in the place of honour, in the UK that child has been monetised. It is hard to imagine a greater trauma than the collapse of one’s home life and being taken into care. Yet that misery is being exploited. Desperate children have become a tradable commodity.” On the podcast this week, Bishop North talks about his concerns, and considers how churches can help children who are in care. Read his article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/12-january/comment/opinion/children-in-care-should-not-be-monetised Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Charlotte by David Foenkinos is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Emily Rhodes, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Charlotte, translated into English by Sam Taylor, retells the tragic story of a Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon, who died with her unborn baby in Auschwitz at the age of 26. Fleeing Berlin to escape Hitler’s reign of terror, the young artist found refuge in the south of France before her final transportation to the concentration camp. It was during this time that she created most of her work, a series of autobiographical paintings imbued with a sense of urgency and foreboding. The book is written in verse form. Each sentence is separated by a single line of spacing. Its lyrical style, while not sentimental in tone, adds poignancy and pace to the short story. David Foenkinos is an award-winning French novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of 18 novels, all of which have been translated into more than 40 languages. Charlotte won both the Prix Renaudot and the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens in 2014. Charlotte by David Foenkinos is published by Canongate at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78211-796-4. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781782117964/charlotte?vc=CT506 Read Emily's essay here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/5-january/books-arts/book-club/book-club-charlotte-by-david-foenkinos Emily Rhodes is a writer and journalist, whose features and reviews have appeared in publications including the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, and the TLS. Find out about Emily’s Walking Book Club at https://emilyswalkingbookclub.substack.com The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclu

This week’s podcast brings a talk by Claire Gilbert given at the recent event “Fired in the heart: An online Advent retreat with Julian of Norwich”, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Her talk includes a reading from her latest book, 'I Julian', a fictional autobiography of Julian of Norwich, which is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. Claire Gilbert is the founding director of the Westminster Abbey Institute. She is a visiting fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and has been a member of numerous public and advisory bodies. Find out about forthcoming Church Times events, including the Festival of Faith and Music, at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Akenfield by Ronald Blythe is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Malcolm Doney, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The rural classic Akenfield was published in 1969. During the mid-1960s, Blythe interviewed 50 people in the two East Suffolk villages close to where he lived, and asked them about everyday life in the countryside. He gave the pair of villages the fictional name Akenfield. Capturing authentic voices, ranging from blacksmith to doctor, Akenfield is an extraordinary oral history of a way of life which now, in many ways, has disappeared. Issues covered in this portrait of village life include farming, education, welfare, class, war, and religion. Ronald Blythe (1922-2023) was a writer, an essayist, and a Reader. In the Church Times obituary in January 2023 (Gazette, 20 January), he was described by Malcolm Doney as “a man of letters, a man of the Church, and a man of the countryside”. For the last 45 years of his life, he lived in Bottengoms Farm, on the Essex-Suffolk border — an Elizabethan yeoman’s house that he inherited from the artist John Nash. It was the beauty of the Stour Valley which inspired his writing, and it became the subject of his long-running weekly column in the Church Times, “Word from Wormingford”. Akenfield by Ronald Blythe is published by Penguin Books at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-0-14-118792-1. The Revd Malcolm Doney is a writer, broadcaster, and Anglican priest, who lives in Suffolk. His book, co-written with Martin Wroe, Hold On, Let Go: How to find your life, is published by Wild Goose Publications. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Picture credit: © CHURCH TIMES/NICK SPURLING Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week, Sam Wells talks about his new book, How to Preach: Times, seasons, texts, and contexts. The interview with Christine Smith, publishing director of Canterbury Press, which published the book, was recorded at the How to Preach training day, organised by the Festival of Preaching, on 24 October at St Martin in the Fields, in London, where Dr Wells is the Vicar. In a review of the book for the Church Times, Andrew Nunn writes that Dr Wells “reflects on how he preaches, how he prepares, what he has learnt after over three decades of preaching in a variety of circumstances and situations. . . What this book encourages us to do . . . is to think again about what we are doing and why we do it." How to Preach is published by Canterbury Press and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk; 978-1-78622-521-4. The next Festival of Preaching event will take place in Cambridge from 15 to 17 September. Details will be announced shortly. To be the first to receive details, sign up to our newsletter at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup or follow the handle the Festival of Preaching on Twitter https://twitter.com/FofPreaching https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The General Synod voted this week — by a narrow margin — to allow stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples to go ahead in trial form. Church Times reporter Francis Martin sat through the marathon debate at Church House, Westminster, and has reported on what went on and the reaction to it. On the podcast this week, he talks to the editor of the Church Times, Paul Handley, about the significance of the vote and what might happen next. Read reports about the Synod meeting in this week's Church Times, in print and online. There will be more indepth coverage in next week's issue (24 November). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Photo: Geoff Crawford/Church Times

On Friday 26 May this year, James Macintyre was advised to go to Accident & Emergency, after experiencing stomach pains. He was sent immediately to ICU, where he was diagnosed with acute or “severe” pancreatitis. He would spend the next four months in hospital, which included two months in the ICU and five weeks in a coma. Doctors thought that he might not survive. On the podcast this week, James talks about how the experience has shaped his faith, and given him renewed appreciation of family, friends, medical staff, and parish priests. As he wrote in the Church Times last month (Comment, 27 October): “There was no hiding from the notion that I’d been given a second chance, an opportunity, to repent of past sins, to keep away from bad habits, and to head in a different direction.” James Macintyre is a journalist who has worked for publications including The Independent, The New Statesman, and Christian Today. He is a co-author of Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour leader (Biteback Publishing, 2012). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Richard Lamey, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Two Storm Wood is set immediately after the First World War, when special battalions were given the grim task of retrieving the dead from the battlefields of northern France. A bold young woman, Amy Vanneck, sets out across the Channel to find out what became of her fiancé, who was listed as “missing, presumed dead”. Her search uncovers some unsettling truths, not only about her fiancé, a former teacher and choirmaster, but the other young soldiers traumatised by the hell of trench warfare. The novel picks up pace and tension as a gruesome discovery is made by Captain Mackenzie, and, together with Amy, a hunt begins to track down the psychopath responsible for this atrocious war crime. Canon Richard Lamey is the Rector of St Paul’s, Wokingham, and Area Dean of Sonning, in the diocese of Oxford. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

Dr Andrew Rumsey is known to many of our readers as the Bishop of Ramsbury in Salisbury diocese, and the author of the highly praised books Parish: An Anglican theology of place (Books, 21 July 2017) and English Grounds: A pastoral journal (Books, 11 March 2022). He is also a musician and poet, who last month released an album, Evensongs, on Gare du Norde Records. The eight folk songs were recorded live on a single summer day in All Saints, Ham, a remote 12th century church in Wiltshire. Dr Rumsey says he set out to capture something of the magic of a country church in August — complete with bees, birdsong, and a whisper of wheezy organ. At the end of the interview, you can hear a track from Evensongs, “It’ll Come To Me.” Evensongs is available on Spotify, and digital, vinyl, and compact-disc formats can be bought at: andrewrumseymusic.bandcamp.com Picture credit: KT Bruce Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader