baptism,diocesan board,evangelism,finance,good news,gospel,pcc,prayer,witness

David Gascoigne
[email protected] 07768 303462
Lay candidate for General Synod 2026

5th September 2026
Dear Elector,
I’d very much like to represent the Blackburn Diocese at the national church level, and if you’d
like to support me in doing that, then I’d be grateful to receive your first preference vote in
the forthcoming General Synod election. So please let me tell you about myself.
Personal
• I was born and brought up in Blackpool and now live in Poulton. I’ve been married to
Lee, my wife, for 41 years and we have three daughters and two granddaughters.
• I’m a Chartered Accountant and in 2022 I retired from KPMG. KPMG is an international
firm of accountants and management consultants and I was a partner there for 26 years
advising large complex clients on business improvement, financial management and
controls, governance and mergers & acquisitions.
Christian testimony
• I was brought up in a Christian home (my father was a vicar) and at seven years of age
I had a simple faith and wanted to trust Jesus as my Saviour. By fourteen I’d understood
that Jesus wanted to be my Lord, as well as my Saviour, and that the whole of my life
was to be under his Lordship. At university I learned to share and defend my faith over
late-night coffees. At KPMG I led the Christians in KPMG workplace fellowship. Now as
a retiree with more free time, I love to talk to people about who Jesus is, what he has
done for us and what it means to follow him as both Saviour and Lord.
Church of England experience
• I have been a PCC member for perhaps 40 years and was a Church of England primary
school governor for 12 years and a Sixth Form governor for 3 years.
• I am a member of Poulton Deanery Synod and an elected member of Blackburn
Diocesan Synod.
• I am a director and trustee of Blackburn Diocesan Board of Finance Limited (“The DBF”)
and a member of the DBF Finance Committee.

• I am a director and trustee of Blackburn Cathedral (a “Chapter member”) and the Chair
of the Cathedral’s Finance, Audit & Risk Committee and the acting-Chair of the
Cathedral Nominations Committee.
• I am a Lay-Canon of Blackburn Cathedral.
Ministry experience
• I have been a Reader/LLM in the Blackburn Diocese for over 30 years and currently
serve as an LLM and a Churchwarden at St Chad’s Church, Poulton-Le-Fylde where I
preach once a month, lead a fortnightly bible study group and a monthly church prayer
meeting.
• Lee and I are “baptism visitors” at St Chad’s and we also regularly lead Christianity
Explored courses in our home for those wanting to explore the Christian faith further.
Two years ago, working together with others, we helped to start a new Sunday
afternoon monthly all-age service (StChad’s@4) which is now attended by families and
others for whom Sunday mornings is not always convenient.
Why General Synod?
• I believe that we have been given God’s word the Bible as our guide and the Holy Spirit
as our teacher and so I’d like to see the church be increasingly clear about the gospel
and not change it, dilute it or disguise it, but rather proclaim it confidently in both the
pulpit and the public square. We need to remind each other of this, including at
General Synod.
• I believe that my experiences of parish life, education, diocesan and cathedral matters,
personal evangelism and workplace witness, as well as of financial management and
governance processes, equips me to make a valuable contribution to national church
debates and decisions about the allocation of resources, the process of change and the
importance of keeping the main thing the main thing ie enabling the sharing of the
good news about Jesus in parishes up and down the land, by clergy and laity alike.

If having read a little about me you think I could perhaps represent the Blackburn Diocese
well and make a valuable contribution to the thinking and debates at General Synod, then I’d
be very grateful for your first preference vote. If before deciding you’d like to have a chat or
meet for a coffee, then please send me an email or text message and I’d be glad to connect.