baptist,disciples,mission,next generation,prayer,safeguarding,vocations,young people,youth,youth group,youth ministry

Doreen Tang
Head of Children and Youth Ministry, St John's
Hoxton — Stepney Area
Tel: 07733 977 263
Email: [email protected]
WHAT I WOULD PUSH FOR

Children and young people treated as core part of our

mission and ministry, not an optional extra
Allocation of resources: The Church says the next generation
is a priority. In practice, children's and youth ministry is often
a fixed-term post, a stretched volunteer rota, or the line item
that disappears in a deficit budget.
I would press for national funding decisions to be tested
against a simple question: does this reach a child or young
person who is not yet here?

Support for families where Christian faith is not held in

common
I was baptised at twenty-one. I had believed for years before
that, but I waited, because my mother wanted us to come to
the water together. When she did, she was baptised alongside
my brother and me. Years later I married a man who was not a
Christian. It took thirteen years of prayer before God brought
him to the Cross. In that time I raised our three children in the
faith within the boundaries he set, because he did not want
them pressed into a decision before they were old enough to
make it themselves. Twice I have been the Christian in a
household that had not arrived yet. Both times, waiting was
the faithful thing to do and both times, waiting was lonely.
Nurturing young disciples: I see it again every week. Several of
our young people come to church alone, with parents who do
not believe or do not come. Nobody at home asks them how it
went. They are doing at fifteen what I did at twenty-one, and
the Church has almost nothing to say to them or to their
families about how to hold that well.
ABOUT ME
I am 51, married, and a mother of three, of two adults son, and my youngest doing her final year in ‘A’ levels.
Outside church I love cooking, and enthusiastically, and I am slowly working my way through the cuisines of the
world. I love to walk and in a city this loud, being still in a green space is where I hear God most clearly.
I am committed to the full five years of Synod, and attending in person both the London and York sessions and
any additional induction meetings in the first year, and my parish supports me in this.
CHILDREN IN HOXTON SHOUT
MY NAME ACROSS THE STREET
These young people will remember what they
told me last week, and that I will pray for them.
As Head of Children and Youth at St John's
Hoxton and chaplain at St John’s The Baptist
Primary School in Hoxton, that recognition is
the greatest joy of my work.
I pray, worship and teach about God’s word to
160 primary school children every week and it
is such a privilege that the student council
suggest that I am present during playground
time to walk around and be ready to pray for
anyone who needs a prayer or just a friend
they can sit with.
By God's grace our church weekly youth group
has grown from 12 to around 22, and a good
number of them come on their own, without a
parent behind them. I have heard stories
about how they would meet each other in
coffee shops and do bible study together!
It is also the Church of England at its best and
it is built almost entirely by lay people, on the
budgets that are cut first when money is tight.
I am standing because the people who do this
work are rarely in the room when decisions
about it are made. I want to change that.
General Synod Election Address 2026
Candidate for the House of Laity, Diocese of London

Doreen Tang
General Synod Election Address 2026
Candidate for the House of Laity, Diocese of London
WHAT I WOULD BRING
Frontline experience, not theory. I work with
children, young people and their families
every week in one of the most diverse parts of
the country.
Schools and safeguarding. As a chaplain and
Kids
&
Youth
Lead,
I
operate
inside
safeguarding practice daily. I want processes
that genuinely protect children and that
unpaid volunteers can actually follow.
Willingness to listen first. You will not agree
with everything I have written here, and I will
not agree with every candidate’s statement
you read. I look to win people rather than an
argument!
Commitment to the “today” church. I believe
the faith we have received is held in trust and
our duty to pass on to those coming after us,
through our schools, our young people, and
those we encourage towards ministry.
Commitment to intercultural mission and
ministry. In my parish, intercultural ministry
is not an initiative but it is Sunday morning.
What I have learned is that there is a diverse
congregation can still be led by the same few
people who led it. Yet real intercultural
ministry means letting that diversity shape
worship, leadership and vocations, and I
would press Synod to hold itself to the
standard it asks of parishes.
Encouraging parents: There are many across London in the
same position, often mothers who quietly believe they are
failing at something the Church assumes is straightforward.
I would bring all of this lived and ministry experience to Synod:
as a large and largely invisible part of our church that deserves
practical support and honest recognition.

A voice for people who assume they do not have one

Those who feel disempowered: I grew up in Brunei
Darussalam, where Christians are a small minority. I was
educated at a Christian mission school, a real blessing, and
one I do not take for granted. But I also learned early to talk
less, stay in line, and not question the rules. I have been in the
UK for over twenty-three years, and I still know exactly how it
feels to sit in a room and assume the decisions have already
been made by someone else.
Deanery synod members, parish volunteers, mothers, young
people, and congregations from minority backgrounds often
feel the same about General Synod. My commitment to you: I
would use my seat to ask the plain questions that busy
volunteers actually want asked, and to report back in
language that does not require a glossary.
WHY I AM
ASKING FOR
YOUR VOTE
My mother waited until she could come to the water with me. I waited thirteen years for my husband. On
Wednesday nights, I stand in a playground in Hoxton and pray for young people whose families have not arrived
yet, and may never.
I have been on every side of that waiting. It taught me that the Church's job in every parish is not to hurry people,
but to be there, funded, staffed and unembarrassed, for as long as it takes.
Someone needs to be in the room for the next five years arguing that those young people are worth the money, the
training and the patience. I am asking to be one of those people.
Please, give me your first, or highest preference vote to help me make a difference at General Synod.
With heart full gratitude and every blessing in Christ,
Doreen Tang
Proposed: Jedidah Johnson of Hounslow Deanery
Seconded: Noah Kelly of Harrow Deanery