Diocesan Synod meets in Kennington

To St Mark's, Kennington (left) for a meeting of the Diocesan Synod, which links together parishes throughout Southwark Diocese (which covers most of south London and east Surrey).

As part of the report back from General Synod I got to say a bit about the debate on estates evangelism - especially the need for generous funding, new pathways into the ordained ministry for people from non-traditional backgrounds, and the goal to have a living Christian community on every estate in the nation.

Having singularly failed to get to speak at the General Synod, I got another chance to make a contribution at the diocesan synod, this time on a motion on knife crime, from my old deanery of Reigate.

Recalling my days as a teacher in an inner city comprehensive school in our diocese, I wanted to warmly welcome the Reigate motion, but to offer a caution about linking school exclusions with knife crime, as if the former was the inevitable cause of the latter.

It might be, of course, but it might just be that the kind of youngsters most likely to commit knife crime are the kind most likely to get excluded from school, without the exclusion itself being the cause of their crime.

Simply to seek to reduce the number of exclusions could just put hard-pressed schools under even more pressure than they are now under, and actually worsen the situation overall. Sometimes exclusions are needed.

It was really good in the same debate to hear of the work of our own Diocesan Board of education as it seeks to support church schools up and down the diocese.

The really good outcome was that the Reigate motion, slightly amended, was unanimously passed by Synod, as part of a thoughtful debate in which synod its expressed its compassionate concern for a pressing social issue.