#GodBeyondGender #InclusiveLiturgy book launch in Canterbury on Monday 13th October.

Our Chair, Rev Martine Oborne, on Bishop Sarah’s appointment as #ArchbishopofCanterbury www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The #ArchbishopofCanterbury’s appointment is the most on wonderful, encouraging news! Please now join in our call for requiring genuine equality, for men + women to have full right to minister side by side on equal terms, across the @churchofengland.org See our website, as below:

For the first time, we expose the subset of @churchofengland.org churches that limit women’s roles & opportunities: www.womenandthechurch.org/transparency

BREAKING: The next Archbishop of Canterbury is to be the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London since 2018, Downing Street has announced. She is to be the first woman to hold the post #archbishopofcanterbury #nextABC #Archbishop106 www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Another bit of joyful news to remember from earlier in the year: rcc.ac.uk/news/revd-dr...

Our sister & brothers globally rejoice at the appointment of +Sarah to be the next #ArchbishopofCanterbury, & they look forward to the day when there’ll be complete openness about the opportunities for women in the @churchofengland.org. @churchtimes.bsky.social

Interesting interview with author Selina Stone about her book ‘A Heavy Yoke’, on theology, power & abuse. www.womanalive.co.uk/book-club-a-...

Afters years of requests & now pressure from us & others, some @churchofengland.org churches are being more open & honest with clergy applicants & churchgoers over their PCC’s policy of excluding women from ministry: From @churchtimes.bsky.social 5.9.25. #TransparencyAboutPCCResolutions #NotEqualYet

We are looking for trustees at WATCH. Go to our website (www.womenandthechurch.org) to for the link to our pack for information and process (you need to be a member but can do that quickly if you are keen to help us bring about change in the church).

5. All the things listed in 4. were things clergy agreed to abide by, as part of the 2014 Settlement on #womenbishops. It was agreed that trust would play a big part in how arrangements would work. @churchofengland.org clergy were trusted by Parliament to ensure these things. That trust is destroyed

4. When was their PCC Resolution to exclude women from various roles passed? When has it been reviewed? Was the wider church community consulted before each meeting about it? Has the PCC accurately ‘signalled the wish of the parish’ on this (not their own wish), as required?

3.Here’s an example for this week of no #TransparencyAboutPCCResolutions: see the website of Holy Cross #Felsted. Do you see any indication of their policy on women? Yet they’re listed as a parish overseen by the #BishopofEbbsfleet. www.felstedchurch.org.uk @watch-notequalyet.bsky.social

@churchofengland.org bishops were asked what they were doing to ‘ensure’, not what they were doing to ‘hope’ or ‘encourage’. @watch-notequalyet.bsky.social members & others have been asking, hoping & encouraging for a decade, but the clergy behaviour on lack of transparency carries on unchecked.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit just takes me by surprise with the wonder and joy of this priestly life. Today, standing at the altar, singing: Such love, stilling my restlessness, Such love, filling my emptiness, Such love, showing me holiness, O Jesus, such love. #TinyJoys

Martin Poole, speaking re injustice to protected groups in the @churchofengland.org ‘s General #Synod today quotes: ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand…[Look at] what people submit to, & you’ve found out the exact measure of injustice & wrong that will be imposed upon them.’ Time to demand.

One day maybe they will publish the stats for breakdowns of clergy marriages, and maybe people will take notice. It's over 40%, we think share.google/iuk4B7mXBKOX...

Hot Fuzz problems at #Synod

'It is hard to increase vocations when people see we haven’t got money for stipends... Accessing grant money is enormously time-consuming & appointments have to be time-limited The Holy Spirit cannot be forced to move within our time-scales' Bishop Guli #synod #GeneralSynod

Encouraging that the @churchofengland.org has finally started re-publishing its #MinistryStatistics. Such statistics are obviously essential for monitoring equality of opportunity: www.churchofengland.org/sites/defaul... Broadly speaking, still only one third of clergy are women.

Voting for the next Chancellor of Cambridge University opens tomorrow. See my video here to find out why I'm standing for this position.

Is the plan that these people are going to minister within the @churchofengland.org ? Will they be allowed to? Will leaders here do anything about it? @synod #AlternativeOrdinations Interesting to read here of their attitude to & treatment of women. viamedia.news/2025/06/26/a...

"I am honoured to be called to this role, this is a beautiful diocese, with truly lovely people, and a grounded Suffolk sense of service and humility." The Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, will be the next Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. 📰 cofe.io/BishopStEdmundsbury.

In 2018 a WATCH clergy trustee & General Synod member argued in a meeting that @churchofengland.org bishops simply don’t care about lay women. Since then, ignoring requests, bishops have not ensured laity get #TransparencyAboutPCCResolutions. So now, what should lay women’s attitudes be to bishops?

There’s no record in the parish profile, website, etc, that St Johns Felbridge has had a resolution to exclude women e.g. from oversight. But this move does just that, when @ceecuk website says there’re 4 women ‘overseers’ available. So was the vicar a secret #MaleHeadship supporter when appointed?

Our next Liturgy Writing Workshop, via Zoom: please do join us.

womenandthechurch.org/blog/79axsdvhl… Churches in @churchofengland are now seeking alternative episcopal oversight because of PLF and are being given bishops who don't ordain women without having to pass Resolutions, and without consulting parishes. This is the end of the 2014 Settlement.

This is an important point. All…are equal. But some Chichester archdeacons more equal than others? #NotEqualYet

Who's also a parish priest so not full time AD

Observation: No WATCH trustee, committee member, or - one imagines - member or supporter, wants to have to spend any more of their precious time advocating for women simply to be treated fairly. But @churchofengland.org leadership is not making it happen. So. Onwards. #AnglicanWomen #NotEqualYet

Correction: there is one female archdeacon.

Correction- there is one female archdeacon.

1. Re-🧵 Latest news from Chichester diocese is something you couldn’t make up. They’ve appointed: - a male, FT, stipendiary, Archdeacon & - a female, already FT priest/Rural Dean, (unremunerated for this?), ‘Associate Archdeacon’ (wait for it, wait for it…) for Diversity & Inclusion #NotEqualYet

1. 🧵Latest news from Chichester diocese is something you couldn’t make up. They’ve appointed: - a male, FT, stipendiary, Archdeacon & - a female, already FT priest/Rural Dean, unremunerated-for-this, ‘Associate Archdeacon’ (wait for it, wait for it…) for Diversity & Inclusion

The @churchofengland.org hasn’t produced/funded #MinistryStatistics post 2022. Why? So the Church provides no current information on our progress to gender balance in ministry. The latest data shows Chichester’s gender imbalance. Not #MutualFlourishing but #OneSidedFlourishing #NotEqualYet

CofE bishops are again saying they’ll commission some work to seek improvements to how the #WomenBishops settlement works. We’ve had 10 yrs of meetings/pieces of work: the recommendations haven’t been implemented & concerns not resolved.There’s no confidence left. #NotEqualYet @churchofengland.org

p. 44: “Throughout our interviews, we saw repeated evidence of lack of transparency, with lay worshippers having no way to discern their church’s position before, or even once they had begun attending.” “Some…noticed they were subtly discouraged from pursuing opportunities.“ @churchofengland.org

Moving @southwarkcathedral.bsky.social podcast: Bishop Sarah Mullally talking with Mark Oakley @deansouthwark.bsky.social about her chosen poem & her life, including the effect of being treated badly simply for being a women bishop. #NotEqualYet cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/about-us/new...

“There has been a lot of commentary in the media by those in favour of keeping legal discrimination against women." WE MUST END MISOGYNY IN OUR CHURCH AND UPLIFT WOMEN! @watch-notequalyet.bsky.social #ChurchofEngland #NotEqualYet www.womenandthechurch.org/blog/a-clari...

Here again is our research on lack of #TransparencyAboutPCCResolutions It also details other problems with @churchofengland.org #MaleHeadship / #MaleOnlyPriesthood ministry - cases of women’s priestly vocations being blocked, manipulative use of language, etc. blog.yorksj.ac.uk/cris/rock-th...

Charlie @charliebelllive.bsky.social pointed this out (over on the dark side):

This could be relevant for #AnglicanWomen. #NotEqualYet

Absolutely stonking piece from WATCH Chair, Mtr Martine. I recommend reading in full

'There used to be a time when all ppl in @churchofengland were in communion and people just had to get on with the bishops they were allocated. We need to start working our way back to this.' www.womenandthechurch.org/blog/a-clari...

Some clarification on the Five Guiding Principles & the @churchofengland.org ‘s #womenbishops arrangements: #NotEqualYet www.womenandthechurch.org/blog/a-clari...

Check out the #PinkSmoke that was put out above the #Vatican. #AWomensPlaceisintheConclave The new #Pope is reported not to be likely to initiate #womensordination /equality for women generally. Disappointing. This is discussed on BBC Woman’s Hour today. t.co/ooIfnVtk8O

If you missed our #NotEqualYet Conference you can now catch up and listen to the talks here: www.womenandthechurch.org/not-equal-yet (scroll down to access them)

Is it time, as one senior church leaders has suggested, for the @churchofengland.org to appoint only women as bishops for a period - perhaps 5 years? - so as to move the CofE forward, catch it up & achieve at least some degree of gender balance? #WomenBishops still #NotEqualYet

1. We’re having an encouraging Trustees’ meeting this morning. We are overwhelmed by the positive response to our March conference, to media coverage, WATCH blog, articles, etc. Thank you to everyone who has responded, offered to help, etc. #NotEqualYet