I have a ‘joyful sense’ Church vision is being revived, says Archbishop in final address to members

The Church in Wales is on track to be more inclusive, better organised and equipped and more focused on outreach, Archbishop John has said in his final address to members.

While acknowledging there was still much to be done, the Archbishop, who retires on May 2, gave thanks for progress that has been made.

In his Presidential Address to the Church’s Governing Body, Archbishop John said he has been “immensely grateful” and “privileged” to have served in the Church for most of his life and on the Governing Body for more than 40 years - as a layman, a deacon, a priest, a bishop and, for the past four years, as Archbishop.

Referring to a vision for the Church set out at the time of its disestablishment more than 100 years ago by Lord Justice Bankes who helped frame its first Constitution, Archbishop John said that, while there had been failures, there was also a “joyful sense” of the vision being revived.

He said: “None of us ever knows whether our words, our actions, our images have encouraged or awakened a single soul let alone a whole church. But as I now come to the end of this address at this, my final meeting of the Governing Body, I give thanks for so much that is beginning to seem more possible, even more probable, as set out in John Bankes’s vision for our part of Christ’s church here in Wales.”

His hope, says Archbishop John, is that the Church “might grow in an ever-deepening, radically inclusive love for each other and for those not yet a part of us”.