Introducing our newest Patron, Bishop Mike Royal
We are delighted to welcome Bishop Mike Royal as a Patron of Single Friendly Church Network. Bishop Mike is the General Secretary of Churches Together in England and a Pentecostal Bishop with the Apostolic Pastoral Congress.
We met with Bishop Mike on a sunny afternoon at the Churches Together in England Forum to welcome him officially as our Patron. Single Friendly Church Network was exhibiting at Forum to connect with church leaders across the denominations on their different single friendly approaches. Liz shares her thoughts and experiences of CTE Forum here.
Bishop Mike shared with us why supporting the mission of SFCN was important to him:
“The first thing is that Jesus welcomes all to his family. And let’s remember of course that Jesus himself was single, I think that’s really important. The Bible - particularly the New Testament - has lots of positive things to say about serving God in ministry as a single person. So we want to see our churches valuing single people of various kinds, whether they be young people, students, older people who have lost a partner or perhaps have not had a partner. That for us is really important: a church that values everyone and therefore is representative of the world they’re seeking to reach.”
As a charity working to see all churches of different denominations and styles welcome and value single people, we are grateful to have Bishop Mike’s support for our mission.
“The Bible - particularly the New Testament - has lots of positive things to say about serving God in ministry as a single person. So we want to see our churches valuing single people of various kinds”