The outline of business for the July 2025 meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod was issued today. It is copied below the fold.
GENERAL SYNOD: JULY 2025
OUTLINE OF BUSINESS
Full details of each item will be on the Agenda which will be circulated 26 June.
* not later than
Friday 11 July
2.00 pm to 7.00 pm
Opening worship
Introductions
Presidential Address
The Archbishop of York will give a Presidential Address
Business Committee Report
A take note debate on the content and shape of the Agenda
*3.30pm Address by member of Armed Forces
An address by a senior member of the Armed Forces
*3.50pm Spending Plans: Presentation
A presentation with questions on the work of the Triennium Funding Working Group developing spending plans for 2026-28 from the Church’s endowment managed by the Church Commissioners. This incorporates the Diocesan Finance Review presented to the Synod in February 2025 and policy proposals for improving future clergy pension payments and future benefits.
*5.30pm Questions
Saturday 12 July
9.00 am – 12.45 pm
Opening worship
Special Agenda IV: Diocesan Synod Motion
Redistribution of funds DSM
This debate will bring back the Diocesan Synod Motion relating to redistribution of financial resources which was adjourned at the February 2025 group of sessions
*10.45am Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
National Church Governance Measure – Final Drafting/Final Approval
This is the final drafting and final approval Stage for the National Church Governance Measure which will introduce new governance structures for the national Church.
2.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Armed Forces Chaplaincy (Licensing) Measure and Amending Canon No. 44 (licensing armed forces chaplaincy) – First Consideration
This Measure and Amending Canon are expected to go through all its Synodical stages at this group of sessions. It provides for the Archbishop of Canterbury to license all armed forces chaplains on a national basis.
Appointments to the Archbishops’ Council
This is a formal item to appoint two new members of the Archbishops’ Council.
*3.30pm Spending Plans: Debate
A debate on the spending plans for 2026-28 from the Church’s endowment managed by the Church Commissioners. This incorporates the Diocesan Finance Review presented to the Synod in February 2025 and policy proposals for improving future clergy pension payments and future benefits.
Special Agenda III: Private Members Motion
Clergy Pensions: The Revd James Blandford-Baker
This is a Private Members Motion from the Revd James Blandford-Baker which calls for legislation to be brought forward to restore the clergy pension benefit and recompense any clergy who have been disadvantaged by changes to clergy pensions.
Special Agenda III: Private Members Motion
Governance Review of the House of Bishops: Dr Ros Clarke
This is a Private Members Motion from Dr Ros Clarke (Lichfield) which seeks to set up an independent review of the governance and culture of the House of Bishops.
Sunday 13 July
2.15 pm – 7.00 pm
Address by Anglican Communion guests
*2.40pm Special Agenda II: Liturgical Business
Festival of God the Creator and Twenty-One Martyrs of Libya – First Consideration
This liturgical business will be considered for its First Consideration stage and expands the calendar to include festivals for God the Creator and the Twenty-One Martyrs of Libya
Address by Ecumenical guest
*4.20pm Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Armed Forces Chaplaincy (Licensing) Measure and Amending Canon No. 44 (licensing armed forces chaplaincy) – Revision Stage
Church Growth and Revitalisation
This will be a presentation with questions relating to the summary report of research on church growth and vitality, including an assessment of the impact of national funding to dioceses in support of that growth and vitality
*6.00 pm Thy Kingdom Come
This item outlines the journey of ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ over the last decade, reflecting on its reach, impact and influence in both the UK and across the world and to renew the call for prayer in evangelism and mission within the Church of England and beyond. This was deferred from February 2025.
Monday 14 July
9.00 am – 12.45 pm
Opening worship
Pattern of Future Dates
This item will set the envelope for Synod meetings in 2027, 2028 and 2029.
*10.00am Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Abuse (Redress) Measure – Final Drafting/Final Approval
This will be the final drafting and final approval stage of the Abuse (Redress) Measure which will enable there to be a consistent approach across the Church to redress following abuse
2.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Abuse (Redress) Rules – For Approval
This will set out the procedure for making claims for redress and how financial redress is to be calculated
*4.00pm AC Budget 2026
This sets out the budget for the Archbishops’ Council for the next financial year.
* 5.15pm Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Church Representation Rules – For Approval
Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Election Rules
This legislation relates to the Election Rules for the Houses of Synod which will need to be in place for the elections to General Synod summer 2026.
Tuesday 14 July
9.00 am – 1.30 pm
Opening Worship
Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
2nd Church Representation Rules – For Approval
This is in addition to the election specific amendments to the CRRs and relates to the broader work of the Elections Review Group.
*10.45am Special Agenda I: Legislative Business
Armed Forces Chaplaincy (Licensing) Measure and Amending Canon No. 44 (licensing armed forces chaplaincy) – Final Drafting/ Final Approval
Special Agenda III: Private Members Motion
Vocations and Issues in Human Sexuality: The Revd Mae Christie
This is a PMM from the Revd Mae Christie (Southwark) which seeks to remove Issues in Human Sexuality from the vocations process.
*1.30pm Prorogation
Deemed business
Special Agenda I: Legislative Business: Legal Officers (Annual Fees) (No. 2) Order 2025 and Ecclesiastical Judges, Legal Officers and Others (Fees) Order 2025
Archbishops’ Council Annual Report
Archbishops’ Council’s Audit and Risk Committee Annual Report
Contingency Business
Mental health and the Church
This proposes steps to deepen the understanding of mental health within the church and to foster a culture of sensitive and effective adjustments to enhance access and inclusion
Routemap to Net Zero Progress Update
This item updates Synod on work undertaken on moving to Net Zero by 2030 since the debate in July 2022.
Reimagining care
This item invites Synod to engage with this important issue in light of the national conversations taking place on the future of social care.
Poverty and the Church: 40 Years after Faith in the City:
This item marks the 40th anniversary of the Faith in the City report and encourages continued action to seek to end poverty at a time of great need and political opportunity
Please note that all timings are indicative unless marked with an asterisk
Deadline for receipt of questions: 1200 hrs Tuesday 1 July 2025
Good to see time being given to the finance motion at the start of the synod. It would be good to see synod revisiting the ‘net zero by 2030’ commitment, and addressing whether this is a concrete goal (and at what cost it will come to the local church) or a virtue signal without the requisite thinking through of the detail. I was at an Area Deans meeting earlier this week where one Area Dean had recently moved to a rural benefice of 9 churches. The benefice was looking at 2 of the 9 remaining as parish churches, and the… Read more »
I know of a church – ‘large and successful’ which spent the winter unable to worship in its historic well-loved building, a place very important in the community, because the gas boiler had broken down and could not be repaired – or replaced – under current faculty rules. Wounding to the congregation and eviscerating mission. Madness.
Madness indeed. Common sense & Faculties are not soul mates!
“The benefice was looking at 2 of the 9 remaining as parish churches, and the other 7 becoming ‘chapels of ease’… within a generation up to half the buildings the Church of England currently maintains will have no viable congregation or PCC.” Much of this has happened already. Across large tracts of the country over the last decade, and most especially following the pandemic, parish churches have effectively subsided into ‘festival’ status and have become chapels of ease in all but name. Many incumbents have pretty well given up on a number of the churches under their supervision. You don’t… Read more »
Froghole, I always enjoy your contributions on here, but I must take issue with you here. Firstly, I don’t believe for one moment that the dear old C of E will allow me to live out the rest of my days in ease and comfort – Church Commissioners don’t build up assets allowing that sort of thing to happen, you know. And secondly, it is not quite a simple as you suggest for a Church of England church to be demolished. Last year, a church here in Coventry was demolished, but it had been empty and derelict for fifteen years… Read more »
Many thanks, as ever. I was being clumsily sarcastic, but it is not impossible that if the demographic implosion does render almost the whole Church non-viable, then we will be at the point predicted by Andreas Whittam Smith before he retired as first commissioner: of the Commissioners being a large fund attached to a dead Church. If the Church has largely ceased to exist, then what happens to the outsize fund, especially if it is subject to the suasion of a Synod dominated by clergy? Would it not become more likely that there would be a distribution of assets, including… Read more »
Yes, I realised you were being tongue-in-cheek, and I allowed myself a brief moment to enjoy the thought of a carefree retirement courtesy of the Church Commissioners if/when the parish system collapses! But we are assuming that the funds won’t have been spent on something in the meantime… Yes, St Nicholas, Radford, was the church to which I was referring. Yes, it was a brutalist lump, though the interior was much loved for its light and airy quality. But it was badly designed and badly built and leaked badly from an early stage of its life. The congregation moved out… Read more »
Froghole, I greatly appreciate your contributions to this site. This one reminded me of a few comments last year on Halik’s ‘The Afternoon of Christianity’. The book prompted a lot of positive reactions, well beyond TA, which have followed the fate of the dew in the morn. A pity, because we really need to be working out ‘what next?’ for the church. But I suspect Halik has got stuck in a pile marked ‘far too difficult’, and pessimistic views on bricks and mortar ( or the fading legacy of our built heritage) flow more easily into discussion. Shared grief can… Read more »
I agree completely. I am most grateful to you for your remarks, as also for your own contributions, but I am also grateful to those who disagree and correct details in the messages I write in haste (but also without proof reading and, too often I fear, without adequate reflection).
Good point.
As someone who has spent most of their career in oil and gas (which over a long time has brought enormous benefits to the world), and who more recently has been working for NESO (National Grid), and in particular how to integrate renewables into the electricity network, my two cents are: most colleagues I know in oil and gas support the energy transition many shareholders are keen to maximise dividends today, so the boards are conflicted we will need at least some oil and gas for ever the transition is difficult there is a lot of virtue signalling net zero… Read more »
When Russia invaded Ukraine, National Synod rightly discussed the matter and condemned the invasion and the impact on white skinned civilian victims Today brown skinned Children in Gaza are being deliberately starved to death and some of them are going blind. Pope Francis cared. He rang the Holy Family Church in Gaza every evening even when close to death and he directed that the Popemobile should be converted into a mobile medical clinic for the children of Gaza. But the national church of England takes a different view. There is evidence that the British Armed Forces are aiding the Israelis… Read more »
As a basic member of Synod I have no input whatsoever into the agenda, would that I did.
The late pope did indeed care, but after his death he was subjected to some rather sharp criticism from certain quarters for not saying enough and for not being rather sharper than he was. The House of Bishops did issue a prompt and rather acid declaration last month after the bombing of the Anglican Al Ahli Hospital: https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/gaza-house-bishops-statement-attack-al-ahli-hospital. However, that was the first declaration since 13 February 2024: https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/statement-house-bishops-war-gaza-0 (to my knowledge). On the utilisation of the sovereign bases in Cyprus (which has continued under a government led by an erstwhile human rights lawyer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYIx3B5N5-E and https://www.declassifieduk.org/category/military/ (many items on… Read more »
Thank you for you thoughtful reply. Can I however correct one historical inaccuracy ? Israel has never been a democracy for this simple reason. In 1948 85 percent of the indigenous Palestinian population (750,000 human souls) were violently ejected from.their homes in what is now Israel. But for this War Crime Jews would not have been in a majority and a Jewish state would not have been possible. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are descendants of the mere 15 percent of the indigenous population who were allowed to remain. Israel has consistently blocked the legal right of return of the… Read more »
Thank you. For once, the inaccuracy was not mine, but was that of the member of Synod whose comment I quoted (a comment which could be dissected at some length). I believe that you challenged that inaccuracy last year in response to that person’s very same remarks. I am also familiar with the works that you have cited, and one of the works I referenced in my comment above was by one of the authors to whom you refer (which was published last year). When you did raise this whole issue on several occasions last year (and you were almost… Read more »
One of the justifications given here on 13 May 2024 for Synod saying nothing about this issue last year was that “Nobody cares what the General Synod says on this or many other issues…” So, if that is indeed true, and if members of Synod “have no input whatsoever into the agenda”, what, then, is the point of getting elected to Synod? I mean, why bother, unless the individuals concerned have a void in their lives which could quite easily be filled with some other, more creditable, useful and/or profitable, occupation. What does it say about Synod that people who… Read more »
Froghole and David, thank you for being willing to keep this subject in public debate.
I think sometimes we stay silent out of sheer helplessness, but perhaps continuing to bear witness is all we can do.
Many thanks, and I note that when Mr Hawkins did raise this matter last year you were one of the few people who noted that the Church needed to get its priorities right. However, silence as a function of ‘helplessness’ suggests that bishops, clergy and Synod lack agency. This is surely not the case. Throughout this tragedy large – and now overwhelming – majorities of those polled have recognised what is going on for what it actually is. Their eyes do not lie. This is not like WW2, where the full scale of the Holocaust did not become clear to… Read more »
Thank you all for your impassioned and thoughtful discussion of this issue. I am a regular reader of this blog and I post now as I have a question about the Synod agenda WRT the Palestine question. I had understood that the diocese of Carlisle had voted to bring forward the Sabeel-Kairos motion of solidarity with Palestine to Synod. However, I can see no mention of this in the Agenda. Could it be the Special Agenda item IV on the 12th – the Diocesan Synod Motion? Or has something happened behind the scenes to block Carlisle’s efforts?
The subject of each special agenda item is given on the line below; so the DSM item on the 12th is Redistribution of funds”. There are currently five Diocesan Synod Motions that have been referred to General Synod. They are listed here, and one of them is the Carlisle motion to which you refer. But there is limited room on the agenda for DSMs to be debated, and typically the Business Committee includes one for debate in each group of sessions. The debate on the Redistribution of funds DSM was started in February which is why it is being brought… Read more »
I see; thank you very much. Will the Kairos Palestine motion be debated at some point, or is that impossible to say before seeing the report on 26th June?