33rd Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

In ‘Beating the Bounds: Parish Ministry and Spirituality Today’, The Reverend Richard Coles explores the shape of parish priesthood today from the perspective of an incumbent of a small semi-rural parish with a much larger emerging digital and broadcasting ministry; and asks how spirituality sustains that ministry, and is, in return, shaped by it.

The Reverend Richard Coles FKC is a priest of the Church of England and Vicar of Finedon in Northamptonshire, where two of his ancestors were vicars in the seventeenth century (the latter sequestered for malignancy). He has a parallel career as a writer and broadcaster. A quarter of a century ago he was in the pop band The Communards, after which he read theology at King’s College London. He is the author of four books, including the best-selling memoir, ‘Fathomless Riches'.  His academic thesis, on the Greek text of the Epistle to the Ephesians, rests unread in Leeds University Library. With a particular interest in housing matters, he is Patron of Wellingborough Homes, and is Chancellor of the University of Northampton. He lives in the Vicarage in Finedon with his civil partner David, also ordained, and four dachshunds.