General Synod Election Candidates 2026

General Synod Elections 2026: Background Information for Bishop
Eleanor Sanderson
I joined the Church of England in September 2022, from the Province of
Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia where I served as Assistant Bishop
in the Diocese of Wellington since 2017 and previously in many different
ministry roles since the year 2000 (ordained deacon in 2005 and priest in
2006). I was baptised in the Church of England at age 19, coming to faith
in Christ at University. I was encouraged to discern ordination fairly soon
and served as a youth worker in a rural village context in Derbyshire
before leaving England to take up a, previously awarded, scholarship in
New Zealand at age 22 in the year 2000. It had been my intention to continue ministry
discernment within the context of the Church of England, but God clearly called me to remain
within Aotearoa New Zealand. The first expression of that call was to partner with a university
chaplain to plant a student congregation in Wellington, which I did in a self-supporting capacity.
There were many times over those 22 years where we kept re-discerning if there was a call back to
England and to the Church of England, but the call kept being renewed for fresh missional, and
often highly sacrificial (as well as joyful!), ministry in the Anglican Province where I was ordained.
On returning to England, serving the communities for which I have principal pastoral and
leadership responsibility was always my first priority. After four years, many of those critical
leadership realities have now developed. It is also true to say that the family and resource
commitment required to participate in the synodical life in the Church of England is
disproportionally prohibitive compared to other provinces within our Communion that I have
known. This is therefore the first time that I have felt God’s prompt to ask me to seriously pray and
discern standing for election to General Synod in England.
As I have prayed over this summer, I have been most compelled by the responsibility for
communicating and cultivating alignment within our own church and our global Anglican
Communion. I currently serve as one of the 5 core members of the Anglican Communion
Commission for Evangelism and Discipleship. This Commission was created in 2022 and brought
together the previous Jesus Shaped Life Co-ordinating Group created by the Anglican
Consultative Council 19 in 2016 (which I was asked to join as an Oceania representative in 2018),
whose role was to support and lead the Decade of Intentional Discipleship in our Communion. In
the recent ACC in Belfast of this year, I was asked by the core group to present our global multi-
cultural response to the concluding of this Decade of Intentional Discipleship by offering Vision
36 to ACC. Vision 36 represents a wholistic vision for embedded discipleship and church renewal
and planting for the coming decade. It is a culmination of work across a range cultural and
theological contexts and which has also been expressly developed with the Safe Church network
within the Anglican Communion. Vision 36 was adopted and celebrated at ACC. I also currently
serve as one of the Champion Bishops for missionary discipleship here in the Church of England.
In the Diocese of York, I hold the episcopal leadership for discipleship and evangelism. I have
particular episcopal oversight of Mustard Seed, which is a York grown missionary discipleship
ministry and community specifically developed in, with and for areas of high deprivation.
I am conscious that I hold a breadth of experience in the different ways that I have seen, and see,
Christ ‘strengthen, guide, warn and revive’ his church (to speak in relation to part of one of the
Eucharistic prayers of thanksgiving: ANZPB). My own missional life experience, my current
contextual priority and my cross-cultural work across many provinces in our Anglican
Communion, means that I often bring different assumptions and perspectives to critical

conversations around church sustainability and renewal. Those conversations appear
increasingly critical within the Church of England, and I believe that a global consciousness
combined with local grassroots practical experience makes those conversations healthier and
richer. I feel a responsibility to the Commission and communities I serve to therefore offer to be
part of the way that these conversations occur in the context of our General Synod.
I have also reflected on the prophetic calling and witness of our church in this land. I previously
served as the Fellow for Public Theology at the Centre for Anglican Communion Studies at Virginia
Theological Seminary and continue to engage in research and advocacy in areas of public
theology. During my shared episcopal leadership in Wellington, NZ, we had a clear intentional
focus on reshaping the priorities of our church to better reflect the biblical priority towards the
‘last, the lost and the least’. This involved significant culture change and proactive leadership in
areas of poverty injustice, refugee integration, climate change, modern-day slavery, reconciliation
in a colonial context and addressing the housing crisis in practice as well as advocacy. Many of
these same strands of practical leadership have also emerged and continued here in England. In
2024 I began to support Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani in her work as lead bishop for Housing. I
now chair the Church Housing Foundation and I chair the Project Oversight Group which supports
parishes and diocese across our church to develop local creative responses to community and
housing needs through the creative use of church land and buildings. I work to support the
Wilberforce Institute, based at the University of Hull, in the ongoing work around modern-day
slavery. I have life-long belonging within the Melanesian communities in Fiji, who continue to
experience the economic and cultural consequences of historic enslavement. I drew on this deep
identity in the recent publication A Voice in the Wilderness Why should we listen to the Church of
England (SCM Press 2026), a publication which grew out of a symposium on the public legitimacy
of the Church of England. I partnered with our Local High Sherrif and Hull HMP to develop a
touring artwork supporting the White Ribbon Campaign to end violence against women and girls.
More recently I have supported the families affected by the Legacy Funeral Home case to work
towards the regulation of our funeral industry. I am concerned that whatever civic and prophetic
voice the Church of England may have, it is used in the service of those with the greatest need,
but also simultaneously embedded in our own practical actions.
A significant part of my recent life has been given to the raising up of a new generation of
vocations supported to give their best for the Kingdom of God. Prior to coming to England, our
family initiated and lived within an intentional missional community for young adults based
around the secular university. This became a fruitful catalyst for both vocations and mission, in a
predominantly self-supporting capacity. An intentional young adult community, modelled on the
learning of this experience, has just begun in one of our local coastal communities. There is a
significant disproportional absence of vocations from the high deprivation areas that I
predominantly serve in Yorkshire. I therefore recently accepted the invitation to chair the Cranmer
Committee and be a member of St John’s College at Durham University, which I have done since
December 2025. I also serve on the Advisory Council for Religious Communities. I am concerned
to bring my varied experiences and contextual concerns into the current and future conversations
in our national church.
It grieves me deeply that people do not necessarily experience the synodical life of our church as
a spiritually enhancing and life affirming experience. Having served in two iterations of the
working groups for LLF, I am committed to supporting collaborative ways of seeking to build up
and not devour one another. For me, that is firstly a work of servant hearted prayer. To pray and to
love is my first and most important commitment in the context of our synodical life together.

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