00:00Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, good morning. Thank you very much for being here this morning.
00:07It is my great, great joy and pleasure to introduce the next Bishop of Wolverhampton, who is Bishop Tim Wambunya.
00:18So let's just welcome him and I'll say a little bit about him.
00:21I'll just say a word about Bishop Tim, but he will be able to introduce himself as well
00:40and you'll be able to read about him on the 10 Downing Street website and indeed more about you, Tim, on our diocesan website.
00:49As you can see, we are well ahead in the race to appoint a Bishop of Wolverhampton because Tim is already a Bishop.
00:56He has served as a diocesan Bishop in Kenya for several years, but for the last few years has been Vicar of St Paul's Slough in the Diocese of Oxford
01:10and an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Oxford.
01:13And Tim, I am so grateful to you for accepting my invitation to allow me to nominate you to the King, to be the next Bishop of Wolverhampton.
01:28We have been in this diocese looking for the next Bishop of Wolverhampton to be somebody with a warm pastoral heart and a real concern to care for the clergy and the people,
01:43particularly of the Wolverhampton area, and to share in the life of the diocese more generally and to help us in our journey towards greater diversity and a deeper sense of who we are together.
01:59I know that your gifts as a pastor and as a bishop will hugely enrich us, so I'm really, really thankful to you for saying yes to being the Bishop of Wolverhampton,
02:12to having care of this Episcopal area, for being part of the Diocese of Litchfield, and particularly for your ministry in this great city of Wolverhampton.
02:23So, welcome to Wolverhampton, welcome to the Diocese of Litchfield. Would you like to say a word or two and then we can have some questions?
02:33Good morning. It's a joy to be here this morning, a huge joy actually. I started off at 6am this morning and I thought the train was going in the wrong direction.
02:44I managed to get here at the right time. I just want to begin, first of all, by thanking Bishop Michael for having the confidence to nominate me as the next Bishop of Wolverhampton.
02:59As you know, there are not that many UKME bishops in the Church of England, so I think it's all credit to Bishop Michael and all those who are helping him make the appointment,
03:11to have had the confidence to invite me and nominate me to serve as Bishop of Wolverhampton.
03:18I'm also grateful to those who were involved in the appointment, in working out whether I was the right person to appoint to this position,
03:27and I know there's some people here as well who were part of that interview, and I just want to say thank you very much for what you did and for what God was able to do through you.
03:38I just want to acknowledge the uniqueness of Wolverhampton. I know this is a unique place, it's diverse, it's very rich in different aspects, and I come very excited to be part of this diocese.
03:53I know that there are several terrible things that were said about Wolverhampton by somebody.
03:58It was yesterday or the day before, and I want to assure you that I do not believe anything that has been said about Wolverhampton,
04:06so I come with great joy and excitement to be part of Wolverhampton.
04:12I just want to say that I'm here as well to add to the richness and diversity of Wolverhampton, and I pray that you will embrace me.
04:23I know you've embraced me already by inviting me to come here, but I am here to bring you more love and more joy and just increase the diversity in this particular part of the world.
04:35I also come ready to serve you, not to be served, but ready to serve you, and I am committed.
04:42I've heard people say that they're only here for a little while, but I'm committed to serve in this region for as long as the Lord will let me do that.
04:52So I come with commitment, I come with determination, and I come with love, and I come with compassion as well, as I've just said.
05:04I want to say that I won't be doing very much in the past few months, but I'll just be going around and just trying to get to know people and just trying to be a good pastor.
05:16As Bishop Michael has said, I love pastoral ministry, and I think that's one thing that you're really looking forward to,
05:24and I'm just here to say that, God willing, I'll do as best as I can to serve you as an excellent, loving, and compassionate pastor.
05:33So I look forward to getting to know you even more after this.
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