York Railway Station is one of those great places to arrive, the vast scale of the place, trains arriving and departing from and to all over the country. Today, among the thousands of tourists arriving in lovely summer sunshine to see the delights of this Viking and medieval city, are the members of the General Synod of the Church of England. You can spot us getting off the trains – some in dog collars, others looking like clerics trying not to look like clerics but some how missing it, others carrying huge files of papers they have been trying to read on the journey up, and those who travel lightly through life, a small bag, minimal luggage, their papers downloaded onto a device, nothing to encumber them.
The Central Hall at York University – our home for the next five days
The queue for the taxis is always long and when you spot someone you know there is that conversation, ‘Shall we share a cab?’ and off you head for the University campus where the Synod is held. With a huge bag and bulging backpack I arrived early, caught the 66 bus that drops you at the campus and waited for my first meeting.
As a member of the Panel of Chairs we always have a briefing meeting with the officers of the Synod, the administrators and the lawyers. A full brief has been prepared and we work our way through that, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and then Tuesday. Then we can head back home. The briefing helps us understand where debates might be more difficult, where slippage in the timetable might occur, where we might catch up time, what traps might be awaiting us as chairs.
This is my 14th York Synod. I think I have said in previous years that the meetings up here have a very different feel and when I first starting attending and didn’t have any responsibilities it did feel a bit like a nice holiday ‘up north’. Depending on the weather people don shorts and t-shirts, bishops abandon purple shirts for something more jazzy, and ‘floaty’ skirts (as mum might have described them) and sandals are worn by others. It does give it a different feel. And, of course, we are all living on the campus in the student accommodation, mostly in James or Vanbrugh colleges, eating together in our respective dining halls, worshiping together, going to the same bars after business is concluded for the day.
So here we are, and as I write we are preparing to go into the Central Hall which will become the Synod Chamber. So, what to look out for in this Group of Sessions.
We are in York and this is the last meeting of the General Synod at which the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, will be present. He will be delivering the Presidential Address, so what might he say? Look for the legislative business because among those seemingly innocuous and boring clauses there can be interesting things, no Faculty needed for benches in churchyards or re-pointing of buildings, the definition of spouses in particular instances to include same-sex spouses. Goodness! We will be debating the Draft Cathedrals Measure for the first time and hopefully handing it on to the Revision process. We will be thinking about Mission Shaped Church as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of that initiative. We will debate the proposals for a covenant relationship with the Methodist Church and the recognition of ministries. There will be the standard business at this time of the year about budgets and there are two debates that have originated from the Diocese of Southwark.
Hopefully these two debates, one on Serious Youth Violence and the other on Refugee Professionals, will get a lot of interest from the media. I also hope that we will hear great stories of what the church is doing to support our young people and refugees. But as ever there will be interest in where we are with the ongoing debates on sex, sexuality and gender. Saturday afternoon will be spent by members of Synod attending a variety of seminars as we hear how the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ process is progressing. As I arrived here this morning I tweeted that this was my 14th Synod up here and we are still talking about sex – and, of course, whilst I am here I will not be with my sisters and brothers from Southwark Cathedral at ‘Pride in London’, witnessing to our inclusive love, supporting the LGBT community rather than just talking about it, flying the rainbow flag.
But I need to go to the chamber. Synod will begin, we will welcome our guests including the Worldwide President of the Mothers’ Union among others, discussing the agenda and taking Questions, as well as some initial Legislative Business. Please keep us in your prayers as I keep you in mine.
This Collect for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity seems to say it all.
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Andrew Nunn's reflections from General Synod 
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