addiction,catholic,discernment,gospel,prayer,tradition

My name is Lee Bolger. I live in Edenbridge with my wife and our 18-month-old daughter, we
worship at St John’s Sevenoaks, and I am standing for one of Rochester’s four places in the
House of Laity.

In short, I am asking for your vote because I think I can bring a useful combination of experience
to General Synod: as a working professional in the technology industry, husband and father,
teacher and leader, volunteer, and someone actively involved in the life of the Church. I am in
my early forties and spend most of my week in the same world as many of the people our
parishes are trying to reach: balancing work, family, faith and everything else that comes with
ordinary life.

I currently worship in the catholic tradition of the Church of England, but my experience of the
Church has been broader than that. Before moving with my family to the Sevenoaks area, I
worshipped at Croydon Minster and Holy Trinity Clapham, and those different settings have
helped shape how I understand the Church. I have learnt that theology is formed through
prayer, study and encounter with other Christians. I believe the Holy Spirit can work through that
process of listening and discernment. That is one of the reasons the synodical life of the Church
appeals to me.

Professionally, as mentioned earlier, I work in the technology industry, as an Enablement Lead,
essentially a teacher and learning leader. I lead an 18-person team responsible for programmes
supporting the development of more than 4,000 employees across different countries, cultures
and markets. Much of my work involves making complicated subjects clear, listening to people
with different priorities, and helping groups reach practical outcomes.

That experience seems relevant to General Synod. Synod has to deal with difficult questions,
large amounts of information and, quite often, strongly held disagreement. I am comfortable
asking questions, testing assumptions and making a case for what I believe. I am also willing
(and often do) to change my mind when evidence, experience or the wisdom of others gives me
good reason to do so.

My life outside work has also brought me into very different parts of our society. I volunteer with
St John Ambulance as National Secretary of the Fellowship, which has a particular focus on
fellowship, service and supporting older members of the St John community. I am an IT Coach
with the Nehemiah Project, a residential project supporting men rebuilding their lives after
addiction and offending. These are very different environments, but both have reinforced for me
that institutions ultimately have to work for real people. Policies, structures and good intentions
matter very little if they do not translate into something useful in people's lives. That is one of the
reasons I want to serve on General Synod.

I want to see a Church confident in the Gospel and serious about its responsibility to reach
people beyond those who already come through our doors. I want us to think harder about how
we communicate, particularly digitally, and how we make the considerable resources of the
national Church genuinely useful to parishes. I want clergy and lay people to feel supported and

equipped rather than continually being asked to absorb another initiative. I also think Synod has
an important responsibility to scrutinise how the Church uses its money, people and structures,
and to be prepared to ask whether what we are doing is actually working.

If elected, I would therefore begin by listening. I would want to hear from our parishes, clergy
and lay people across Rochester about the issues they think deserve attention nationally. I
would also want to listen carefully within Synod itself. Representation, as I understand it, is more
than carrying a fixed list of positions into a debating chamber. It involves bringing the experience
of the Diocese into conversation with the experience of the wider Church, and being willing to
discern where those conversations might lead.

General Synod will make decisions over the next five years which will shape the Church of
England for considerably longer. I would be grateful for the opportunity to represent Rochester
in those discussions, and for your vote.

Yours in Faith,
Lee