By the Rt Rev Dr Toby Howarth, Area Bishop for Bradford in the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales

THERE was a moment last week, standing in the middle of a flock of sheep with an early new-born lamb in my arms when I thought, “I bet this is not what some of my friends expected me to be doing as Bishop of Bradford!” But the Fleshers’ farm on Addingham Moorside is as much a part of the Bradford Metropolitan District as a mosque in Manningham.

Having moved up to Yorkshire at the beginning of the year in my new post, it was a joy to be welcomed for an intensive few day’s visit to the Ilkley Deanery, the area served by the group of Anglican churches and schools in Addingham, Ilkley, Ben Rhydding, Menston and Burley. It was striking for me to witness for myself how congregations are engaging creatively with their different communities: volunteers playing David and Goliath at a school assembly, visitors drawing alongside care home residents as they make the difficult transition from active lives to dependency, youth workers and young people supporting friends through the stress of exams and the breakdown of relationships. In all these and many more ways, the love of Jesus is shared and multiplied like the loaves and fishes in the Gospel story.

I was overwhelmed by the generosity and openness of people I met, and remain hugely grateful to all those who took time to share with me about their lives. The positive partnership of churches right across the District demonstrates for me the wider truth that whatever the different challenges we face in our own local neighbourhoods, we need each other and we are stronger together.