archbishop,archbishop of york,environment,equality,farm,farming,finances,generosity,gospel,mental health,mission,ordination,war

The Revd Dr Emma Loveridge
[email protected]
General Synod Election Statement 2026
Diocese of Exeter House of Clergy

Dear Elector,

We have the wonderful privilege of a vote, and I hope that my thoughts below
resonate with something that matters to you.

Why am I standing?
The Church of England is both local and national. I love the local. I love the parish
church, the place people walk past every day, the place where people come through
the door at moments of joy, grief, uncertainty or simply because they need
somewhere to find shelter. The parish church belongs to its community.

But loving the local does not mean thinking only about the local. The Church of
England has a national responsibility. It has helped shape our understanding of
compassionate human rights and equality before the law, as well as in the eyes of
God. I hope to bring both perspectives to Synod.

The parishes are the heartlands, which I hope we can watch over, with finances
funnelled in the right way, so that Christian inclusivity, compassion and generosity
for our neighbours can flourish. I believe I have a capacity to be foresighted, looking
at the detail, while keeping sight of the bigger picture

My own story
I live with my two teenage children, and we farm amidst the Devon hillsides and
across to the, at times, unstable cliffs. Alongside farming, I run a family mental health
clinic, employing approximately 25 staff working with families who struggle, where
mental or physical health has upended their lives. I am always aware how close any
of us can come to the cliff edge, but also how easy it can be to judge another from
afar.

For the first 20 years of my adult life I worked with the Bedouin Tribes in the
Mountains and Deserts of the Sinai, Egypt. My company, and the NGOs with which
we partnered, took a wide range of people to work with the Bedu families and the
challenges they faced, brought about by their complex environment. The non-
Western world shocked me to the core the first time I met a woman who had lost
8 children from ‘frailty’. I later headed up teams working in areas of natural and
war-torn disasters.

I returned home to become the first female CEO of one of our National Church
Institutions (NCI’s) and Principal Advisor to the then Archbishop of York, Sentamu. 27
years on from my ordination, with my experience of working on the ground, to

staffing Synod and now pastoring in the rural parishes, I hope I have something to
offer as a member of General Synod. And if you think so too, please do vote for me.

An incarnational faith
At the heart of my faith is the Incarnation. God does not remain distant but walks
among us in our ordinary, complicated, beautiful and troubled lives. God is with us.
This has profound consequences for the Church of England. No person can be written
off as inconvenient, unimportant, difficult, insufficiently religious, or outside the
boundaries of who we are prepared to serve. Inclusion is not simply a policy or a
modern courtesy. It flows from the nature of God and from the Incarnation itself.
The Church of England's task is therefore to make the presence of God accessible to
people in every corner in every parish.

Christianity tells us that God is not confined to a particular building. The New
Jerusalem is not a tribal possession. The Gospel belongs to everyone. And yet
Christianity is, rightly, profoundly concerned with place as well.

The spires, towers and church centres are there to remind us of the
living presence of God’s love every day. ‘Together’, whom I support
whole-heartedly, seek inclusion of all in our church life. We exist for
everyone.

Let’s remember how radical we are
I think sometimes, because we have had a theology of Christian
kindness in this country for so long, and often embedded in our laws,
we forget how radical a message we offer - and how easy it could be
to lose this foundation. It is a perspective that needs to live and flourish in the
everyday in order to survive.

General Synod: God is in the detail – as well as the big picture
General Synod can sometimes seem remote from ordinary parish life, but the
decisions made at Synod affect us all. I am interested in asking ‘Where will this take
us in the future and How does this affect the few, the many, and the well-being of
clergy under pressure in both rural and urban settings?’.

I hope to see the Church of England continue to speak for a society in which people
can think for themselves, ask difficult questions, disagree honestly, live with one
another despite difference, and un-marginalise the marginalised.

Proposer: The Revd Paul Filmer, Exeter Diocese Bishop’s Officer, Honiton Deanery
“Emma, from a Devon farming family, combines community spirit, business acumen
and top-level church governance – the perfect mix.”
;
Seconder: The Revd Timothy Collins, Rector, Netherexe Mission Community
“All welcome, all encouraged to flourish.”