The Bishop of Lichfield, Rt. Rev. Dr Michael Ipgrave officially announces the appointment of Rt. Rev. Dr Timothy Wambunya as the fifth Bishop of Wolverhampton at the YMCA in Wolverhampton.
The new bishop will officially start in October.
The new bishop will officially start in October.
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NewsTranscript
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.