I want your seat, Penny tells Lambeth Bishops

Penny


Click to zoom

04 August 2008

Penny King (22) a parish assistant from St Chrysostom's has told the meeting of the Anglican Bishops at the Lambeth Conference that in the future she wants one of their seats. “I told friends I was practicing for coming back in thirty years time in a purple shirt,” she told her audience of several hundred this weekend.

One of four of the International Stewards who addressed a closing sessions of the three week conference at Kent University, Penny said, “We’ve had a lot of fun together,” she told the Lambeth Big Top. “There has been a great atmosphere of serving each other, of joy and laughter, faith and of hope and I am proud to have part of Lambeth 2008.”

Penny hopes to train to become a priest. She said that she had been encouraged in her goal by many attending the meeting, but Penny also had a challenge for the leaders of the Anglican Communion. “Don’t wait for our future ministry. God has given us many gifts already and we are offering them now. I ask you to enable us to use them both in traditional forms of ministry and in the creative ways God calls us. We can be good agents for change.”

Penny asked the Bishops that when they returned home to, “Speak to the young people in your diocese. You may have to seek them out. Discover their hopes for the future of the Church, discern their gifts, and see how they can best be used in God’s service.”

“When I said I was coming to the Lambeth Conference, I told friends I was practicing for coming back in thirty years time in a purple shirt,” a line which drew enthusiastic applause from the Bishops.

Fifty International Stewards from 15 countries, many recruited through the social network internet site, Facebook, have been serving the Conference for three weeks. When the conference closes today (Monday), the Stewards will stay on for a further two days for their own “Lambeth Conference” which will be addressed by Archbishop Rowan.

Other Stories