General Synod Election Candidates 2026

Peter ADAMS, seeking to represent St Albans on General Synod

Dear Reader, whether you are a voter or just interested!

I love the Church of England. I love the often-chaotic variety of life and
ministry of St Mary’s Luton where I have worshipped and served for 23
years. I love the village church in deepest rural Sussex, where I grew up,
where my family like so many others remain deeply committed to its
ministry, and to which I return occasionally. I love the tin tabernacle on the
Exmoor coast I visited a week ago, much loved by locals it seems for all the
costliness of its maintenance, and who I should love to have joined in
worship. And I love the sense of the sacredness of worship in our
Cathedral in St Albans and the cross spectrum of people gathered there.
Ours is truly a church for our whole nation and the very diverse
communities it reaches out to. It is a privilege to serve God through its
ministry. You as deanery synod members show that same commitment.

Yet after 11 years on General Synod, I often sense a disconnect between
the churches I have described and the business we labour over. I know
many in our parishes feel this much more strongly than me. It is especially
felt in the way the national church allocates and spends money. The way
abuses exposed in the church have been handled has shocked us. So too
the racism that has remained unchallenged over decades. Many of your
fellow parishioners labour tirelessly to make the church welcome and
inclusive whatever your or my sexuality, while others, equally passionately,
seek to preserve the received teaching of the church. All the while so many
others just want to get on with life, to repair the roof, pay the bills and make
that family that attended for the first time last week feel there is a place for
them if they return. And when you, maybe unusually, have reason to
contact diocesan office you want to know you have been heard.

The report on ‘Renewing Trust’ we received at Synod this July seeks to
address the challenges of Trustworthiness in the church and its structures.
In doing so it identifies issues just like these, and especially the apparent
or real distance between our local church and the diocese and national
church, and the disconnects. Trust in your church and vicar is relational
and often high, and yet trust in the distant institution is low, often due to
broken trust or simply because it feels like the church is not listening.

In standing again to represent you on General Synod, my pitch is that as a
member I would seek to understand how you feel about the issues I have
touched on above and then how they can be addressed. I will seek to
represent that voice in synod’s business. I believe I have done that over
the past two terms but this new work on Trust has brought a focus to my
standing again. I will do that in my membership of Luton deanery synod,
and whichever other synods I have the privilege to attend as a GS member.
I have much valued my relationship to date with Dunstable, and especially
their deep concern at the conduct of lay officers, which I have been able to
represent in my membership of a national working group seeking to
develop a code of conduct for lay people involved in church governance.

I hope this and the details overleaf will give you an idea of what I stand for
and encourage you to use that FIRST OPTION vote for me.
Sincerely

Church member and PCC
member, St Mary’s Luton
since 2003, work based at
church since 2007

Over 20 years in
missions, principally
training in intercultural
relations.

Working now as a
community conflict
mediator specialising in
intercultural and
interfaith relations.

Lay Chair Luton Deanery.

St Albans Diocesan
Synod since 2012, along
with various boards.

Churches Together in
Luton executive.

Chair of Governors
Wenlock CofE school,
2012 - 2018

Diocesan Lay Chair and
member of Bishop’s
Council, 2018-2026.

Lay Canon of St Albans
Cathedral since 2014

Diocesan Racial Justice
Action Group.

General Synod 2015 –
2026, serving on a
number of task & finish
working groups focused
on safeguarding.

Married to Anne, with
three grown up children &
seven grandchildren.

Proposed by:
Janet Bird,
Hertford Deanery

Kerry Smith, Lay Chair,
Dunstable Deanery

My own faith!!
My faith came alive aged 14 and I take joy in the variety of influences it now represents. In my teens it
was nurtured in the village church my extended family had worshipped in for generations, as well as in
the charismatic Catholic and CofE churches and the Pentecostal church of our nearest big town
where I attended school. Serving internationally for over 20 years in missions training I have
worshipped in many nations, and long for churches that embraces that diversity! I have spent a
lifetime asking questions and engaging with contexts outside my own. I much prefer not to use labels
but if pressed would describe myself as an open inclusive charismatic evangelical with a deep heart
connection with the eastern orthodox church! Or perhaps more briefly a Jesus follower.

Things I especially care about.

I have a passion to see flourishing churches in multi-ethnic inner-city areas of our nation,
congregations equipped to be God’s people to the community around them. That passion has been
expressed over the last 19 years I have worked based at St Mary’s, the town centre Parish Church of
Luton and in my role as director of St Marys Centre for Peace and Reconciliation. I believe our
churches can be community builders, agents of peace and justice in our often conflicted cities.

Much of my work in peace-building can be summed up simply with the question, “How can we be
good neighbours?” That has always been the deepest expression of my faith. I love and am
committed to helping others embrace and find joy in the diversity of our world. I have spent most of
my working life in cross cultural relations, conflict mediation and peace-building. My work in Luton
has focused on Christian-Muslim relations in the context of the threats to the town from both Islamic
and far right extremism. It has involved me in considerable work with the “white British” community as
well as other faith communities, and hearing their stories has given me a critical understanding of the
challenges we face in forging a truly integrated and just intercultural church and society.

I am deeply committed to a church that can serve the whole nation. The urban community in
Luton where I live, worship and work is very different to villages in deaneries like Sharnbrook or
Buntingford with their own challenges. I am connected with rural England through extended family
who farm, and I have a deep love of the countryside, rural life and traditions. This helps me
understand the anxieties felt by many towards the changing face of our nation, and the discrepancies
between multicultural urban Britain and dominantly white rural/market town Britain. My ability to face
in both directions challenges me to contribute to the CofE being a voice for unity in our national life.

I love the Church of England and long to see its parishes thriving. Whether we live in a small village
or diverse multicultural city I believe our age-old Anglican commitment to the cure of all the souls of
our parish, and for there to be a presence of the church in every community in our nation. We need to
move beyond the very understandable but unrealistic thinking that this involves a church as it always
has been, and work together to ensure we have strong parishes equipped for mission in today’s world.

I cherish the opportunity to engage across the breadth of our beliefs on sexuality. The painful
stories of gay people in our church deeply challenge me. While the Living in Love and Faith process
has now concluded, I believe members of this new synod must commit to walking forward together,
respecting our differences and uniting in working to ensure our churches are a safe place for all.

And finally.
Jesus prayed on the night before he died that we might be one. I regularly well-up when I reflect on
this as the ‘unanswered prayer of Jesus.’ I will continue to work hard to make our synod once again a
place of growing trust and real unity in the often amazing diversity that can make us a church for the
whole nation!

Do please vote for me! If it would help you, I would love to get your questions at
[email protected] You are also welcome to take a look at my website and blog;
www.ReconciliationTalk.org . You will see I don’t post regularly but it’ll give you a window into some of
my thinking. I do hope to post a few things there over the next weeks and hopefully going forward.

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