General Synod Election Candidates 2026

S TA N D I N G F O R G E N E R A L S Y N O D
Jonny
Minshull-Beech
Who Am I?
My journey as a Christian started at the age
of 15 in York and for the last nine years, I've
attended St Simon Zelotes in London. For six
of those years I worked in the City of London
as a currency broker and investment writer.
Prior to this, I was an intern at Christians
Against Poverty.
In 2022 I left my job to work in horse racing
as an Assistant Trainer. This provided
something of a catalyst for my decision to
stand for Synod. Racing attracts a wide
variety of people, but in practice the traits
which make one keen to ride horses at speeds
of up to 40mph with no seat belt often go
hand in hand with other risk-taking
behaviour. The industry has major issues with
substance abuse, poor mental health and a
high rate of suicide. Sad to say, the church
was almost entirely absent from the lives of
people in the industry and local parishes
struggled to meet the needs of their
community. Services rotated across three or
more villages which made them hard to
attend for anyone without a car or who
worked shifts. Parishes often had no full-time
clergy, and were strapped for funds, despite
the often heroic efforts of their
congregations. The church was unable to
meet with, let alone preach to, those who
most needed the Gospel.
I hope to use my experience in the finance
sector and in racing to advocate for structural
change within the church, concentrating its
effort, time and money on reaching those
it was set up to serve: people up and down
our country.
Save the Parish
I firmly believe that the parish structure
enables the Anglican Church to fulfil its
historic mission. A visible presence in every
community, it makes the task of spreading
the Gospel and ministering to our
neighbourhood much easier.
I've seen how the parish can allow for a
church to be revitalised in a short space of
time. In 2011, we had a small congregation
desperately hoping for revival. By providing
our new vicar with accommodation, a
stipend, a building, and an income to
maintain the buildings, the parish structure
allowed him to focus on preaching and
ministering to the parish.
We have been blessed by many new people
coming to Christian faith and we now have a
flourishing Sunday school. We have been able
to be a training post for curates and some
parishioners have discerned a call to
ordination and now lead churches elsewhere.
As the parish has flourished so our resources
and ability to be generous in mission and
ministry has increased. This task would have
been nigh on impossible without the parish
itself, which removed so many practical and
logistical hurdles that other denominations
struggle with when seeking to revitalise
a church.
Too often, the parish is not resourced to
function in this way. I believe the situation is
critical and have chosen to stand as part of
the Save the Parish movement and pledge to
focus my energies on these pledges, so that
the Gospel can be preached and the church be
salt and light in its community.

J O N N Y M I N S H U L L- B E E C H — S AV E T H E PA R I S H
PA G E T W O
The full manifesto can be read here: www.savetheparish.com, but in the main it seeks:
01
To support the archbishops in keeping their pledge to support the parish as the best means
of evangelism.
02 To put the “frontline first”, ensuring that resources that properly belong to and are
generated by the parishes remain at parish level, freeing up laity and clergy for mission.
03 To ensure that law and projects which initiate from the centre all support and enhance the
parochial system by integrating the Strategic Development Fund into the parish and
opposing the revision to the Mission & Pastoral Measure which would make it easier and
quicker for the dioceses to close churches, make priests redundant, and evict them from
their homes.
04 We believe that effective mission requires the prioritisation of spending on good theological
education as a crucial investment.
05 We will call for a Church-State commission to agree a national plan to protect and preserve
historic parish buildings.
Standing on the faith received
I support ministry within the whole parish
being exercised with care and compassion.
But that compassion must be informed by the
faith we have inherited.
The Church of England has in my opinion
rightly been clear in its opposition to assisted
suicide, and I uphold this position. Although
motivated by a form of compassion for the
terminally ill, doctor-assisted suicide would
(as seen in other countries where it has been
introduced) start to undermine the culture of
the sanctity of life, and lead to many
vulnerable elderly people choosing death
in order to avoid ‘being a burden’ on
their families.
Likewise, I hold to the Church's inherited
teaching on marriage. I support pastoral care
to all the parish and believe the invitation of
the gospel to be one which is gracious,
humbling and inclusive.
Mutual Flourishing
I support the current settled position of the
Church of England, as articulated in the Five
Guiding Principles, whilst recognising more
work needs to be done to improve its
implementation, in both directions.
The Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer has been an
unexpected joy to me. It was alien to the
tradition I grew up in, but over time I've
come to love its lucid theology and soaring
prose, which are one of the Anglican
Church's greatest inheritances. Not everyone
will want to use the BCP, but it is important
that provision is made so that it is still
regularly used in worship, so that others may
continue to be surprised by joy in a liturgy
that they never thought would bring them
closer to God.
Please can I invite you to give me your first preference vote, or as high a preference as possible.
C O N TA C T
Jonny Minshull-Beech
[email protected]
Telephone: 07557349136
Proposer: Mark Gilmore, St Simon Zelotes and member of Deanery
Synod.
Seconder: Richard Miller, St Simon Zelotes, member of Diocesan
Synod.

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