Revd Jo Winn-Smith

A thread about mental health. We keep hearing it's good to talk but how do we enable this? Saying 'how are you?' or 'just ask and I'm willing to listen' doesn't quite work. People need to feel safe and have 'permission'. So what does that actually look like? (/1)

@KingCrawa @2D0XPS @liambeadle @thevicarswife @tapanisimojoki @liturgicalben people stay in church even if the former get them in the door. Of course we want the perfect package, compassionate inspirers. We see that in the ads for clergy! But let's pray for the Holy Spirit, let's disciple our congregations so people want to join them. It's multifactorial

@KingCrawa @2D0XPS @liambeadle @thevicarswife @tapanisimojoki @liturgicalben I've been a tutor at a TEI and probably heard more sermons than most. I just don't think sweeping judgements on our colleagues explains lack of revival. There are multiple factors. Average preachers can be fantastic pastors and vice versa. The latter is probably what makes...

I remain deeply sceptical of this argument — there are so many compounding factors in the sort of church that is likely to use the BCP and other things about its services to be able to draw a neat line that BCP = Growth

@liturgicalben @liambeadle @2D0XPS @thevicarswife @tapanisimojoki I'm certainly not saying it's all brilliant, and I've marked student preaches ranging from not bad to very good. But the implication given in this discussion is: those other priests are failing, hence no revival. I'm not convinced the Holy Spirit is quite so formulaic

@liambeadle @jowinnsmith @2D0XPS @thevicarswife @tapanisimojoki I’d concur. I do remember being in a Precentor’s Conference a few years ago where only one colleague (rightly) said that people came to hear one of his colleagues preach. The rest of the room were fairly silent (and in many cases, fairly dismissive) on the level of preaching.

@2D0XPS @liambeadle @thevicarswife @tapanisimojoki @liturgicalben How have you managed to make this assessment when presumably you're in your parish every week apart from holidays? There are 16,000 churches in the CofE. That's quite the sweeping statement.

@thevicarswife @tapanisimojoki @liturgicalben Preaching is pretty terrible across the board in the CofE and as ‘faith comes from hearing’ ‘And how are they to hear without someone preaching?’ (Rom 10:17, 14) it's a revival of preaching more than a revival of the BCP (or any other liturgical form) that the church really needs

After shouts of Hosanna, Jesus enters the temple & clears out those who have used religion to exploit people. He then welcomes the blind & paralyzed in the temple & heals them. Holy Week reminds us that Jesus has a furious love for those the world has little regard for.

We didn’t fight to work. Women have ALWAYS worked. We fought to get paid.

@ReshapersCIC I'm not sure that's practical. You need archdeacon, parish reps, safeguarding team, registrar, etc all contributing to that conversation and planning, bringing in different perspectives, knowledge and awareness of context, legalities, relationships etc. so it would repeat it all

@jowinnsmith I understand that, but that should happen at a separate Comms meeting, not as part of the investigation.

It remains a mystery to me why safeguarding case management groups routinely have a Comms/PR person present. What risk do they manage other than reputation? I found it objectionable that a non-safeguarding person heard all the personal details of my abuse. Comms shld be separate.

@ReshapersCIC If there's likely to be a court case, prejeudicing the case by having too much in the public domain could be detrimental too.

@TheJupitersays @Baroness_Nichol How about inviting a friend to join you next time?

@Baroness_Nichol I attend Sunday worship in CofE. In the churches around me in Leeds. The usual congregations in my area number 8-12, none have children or families, over 90% of attendees are 70+. Flourishing? I think not.

CofE is actually flourishing - loads try to bring it down but since the Church is rightly always on its knees the worshipping prayers win through.

As an Edinburgh doctor working in elderly care medicine, I have written to my Members of the Scottish Parliament urging them to vote against the Assisted Dying Bill. I can understand why people say they want this choice. But my central concern is the risk to vulnerable older people: some would choose this not because of unbearable suffering, but because they feel they are a burden on family. I do not believe safeguards can solve that. The bill would then mean the state authorising medical participation in the deliberate ending of the lives of patients who, in some cases, do not actually want to die - but feel pressure from others, or feel a duty not to burden their families. It would be a moral disaster if even one person chose assisted dying for that reason.

@JoshPhillipsPhD Jane Austen, CS Lewis, Qoheleth

If I could have dinner with 3 people in the literary world, they would be: Tolstoy Dante Roger Scruton Who are you inviting?

On behalf of the Christians of the #MiddleEast, and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: cease fire! May paths of dialogue be reopened! Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace for which the peoples are waiting.

Be woman 2, whether you a man or woman:

@BirgitteUna Thank you

I probably should know better, but I am entering the fray - This image misrepresents Frances of Rome. She walked the streets of Rome seeking out the poor, tending their wounds, bringing their ragged clothes home to launder and fold. She was from a noble Roman family.

Happy international women’s day to this scene

🚨BREAKING: Berkeley researchers spent 8 months inside a tech company watching how employees actually use AI. The promise was simple: AI will save you time. Do less. Work smarter. The opposite happened. Workers didn't use AI to finish early and go home. They used it to take on more. More tasks. More projects. More hours. Nobody asked them to. They did it to themselves. The researchers sat inside the company two days a week for 8 months. They watched 200 employees in real time. They tracked work channels. They conducted 40+ interviews across engineering, product, design, and operations. Here's what they found. AI made everything feel faster, so people filled every gap. They sent prompts during lunch. Before meetings. Late at night. The natural stopping points in the workday disappeared. People ran multiple AI agents in the background while writing code, drafting documents, and sitting in meetings simultaneously. It felt like momentum. It felt productive. But when they stepped back, they described feeling stretched, busier, and completely unable to disconnect. 83% said AI increased their workload. Not decreased. Increased. 62% of associates and 61% of entry-level workers reported burnout. Only 38% of executives felt the same strain. The people doing the actual work absorbed the damage while leadership celebrated the productivity numbers. Then came the trap nobody saw coming. When one person uses AI to take on extra work, everyone else feels like they're falling behind. So the whole team speeds up. Nobody formally raises expectations. But the new pace quietly becomes the default. What AI made possible became what was expected. The researchers gave it a name: workload creep. It looks like productivity at first. Then it becomes the new baseline. Then it becomes burnout. AI was supposed to give you your time back. Instead it's eating more of it. And the worst part? You're doing it to yourself. Voluntarily.

What is worth saving if not our children? All our children. Video via @savechildrenuk

“We must dare peace. War is never holy! Only peace is holy, because it is willed by God. Enough! It is the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth. Stop! Stop war, with their painful piles of death, of destruction and exile. Only peace is holy because it is willed by God.”

@CapelLofft A few of the bars in some London hotels (usually with Michelin starred restaurant), sometimes have a pianist, and if you're very lucky a singer and double-bassist, but there isn't dancing

Something that puzzles me. I hate nightclubs, in the sense of seedy, deafening sweat-traps that are overcrowded, serve terrible booze & play appalling music. But a 20s style nightclub - live swing music, dinner & dancing etc - would be v civilised. Why are there no such things?