Bishop's message on YouTube
The Bishop of Lichfield has turned to a video-sharing website to encourage more people to attend Sunday services.
The Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill posted his first Sunday Message of 2007 on YouTube yesterday, along with recordings of similar sermons from 2005 and 2006.
In the message, which was played to 585 churches in Mr Gledhill's diocese yesterday morning, the Bishop encouraged worshippers to return to God by taking part in the nationwide campaign "Back to Church Sunday".
Mr Gledhill's recorded message has become a tradition within his diocese, but it is the first time he has used the internet to gain a wider audience.
His spokesman Gavin Drake said the aim of the video is to reach out to young people who are missing from modern Church congregations.
In the message the bishop called on Christians to work together to bring about an end to global people-trafficking.
Bishop Jonathan said people can be proud of "the decisive part that Christians played in the campaign to abolish slavery and do something together to stop the new people-trafficking round the globe."
"I thought this a gimmick when I first heard of it, but experience all over the country seems to indicate that there are lots of people out there just wanting a proper invitation and a proper welcome to a service where the love of God is offered in a way they can grasp, for them to start coming back to church regularly," the Bishop said.
He also reminded congregations that in addition to the abolition of the slave trade, 2007 sees another 200th anniversary, in the outpouring of Christians gathered at Mow Cop in Staffordshire, which resulted in the birth of the Primitive Methodist movement - now part of the Methodist denomination.
He said: "We can celebrate with our ecumenical partners this special outpouring of God's love which particularly touched the workers of Stoke and we can pray for God to revive us in our generation."
He also praised the church community for the turn-around in the diocese's finances. He said: "Eighteen months ago each monthly Bishop's staff meeting was dominated by the need to tackle the diocesan debt and to cut stipendiary clergy posts - it was bruising for the area teams and depressing for the parishes.
"But for the last three or four months we have sailed through the item on finance, we have almost reached the end of the planned cuts and have increased the number of ordinands. Of course the pensions' time bomb is still in front of us; if it were not for that we could be planning an increase in clergy."
By Shaun Lintern
