David Cundill has been welcomed to the Diocese of Lichfield as the new Deputy Director of Mission. He will work with parishes and pioneer ministers with a particular focus on supporting work under the Diocese's Reaching New Generations theme, including fresh expressions of church and reaching the 19-35 age group.
At a service in St Matthew's, Walsall, the Bishop of Shrewsbury Mark Rylands – who oversees the Mission Department – said David had an excellent pedigree and qualities for the role:
He has led a pioneer ministry in Leicester for the past six years, worked with various fresh expressions – including setting up a cafe church in the city. He has been a university chaplain and, before ordination, demonstrated great skills as a Project Engineer, developing air-bags and experimenting on test dummies for Land Rover Group.
David was previously leader of Presence fresh expression of church. Speaking in a diocesan podcast, he said,
The biggest challenge in the Church of England, I think, is making people effective disciples and helping people find that living a life following Jesus is something of significance. Lots of young people have mistaken Jesus for church, don't like the idea of church and are in danger of rejecting him but the exciting thing for me is that they've got a greater openness to exploring spirituality.
So many of these young people have got so little knowledge of the gospel that they're unable to be hostile to it and I find that young adults are really open; they are much more ready than you ever realise to spend until 3 o'clock in the morning talking about spiritual things. They're worried about 'church' and what Christians mean but there's a real optimism in their spirit that says there's something more they want to explore and I think we've got so much to offer in that sense. If we can just show them who Jesus is, and connect them with Jesus, he is still as exciting and ethereal to this generation as any other.