St. Mary Magdalene Church
Lundwood, Barnsley

A fly-on-the-wall documentary. That was one little phrase embedded in a two-page parish profile for prospective applicants to the post at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Lundwood. After having spent two years of my theological education at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, I returned to America to serve in a large parish in an affluent suburban section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Two years later, I received an invitation by the college to return to Yorkshire, and so I did. Once the invitation came through, I began perusing the weekly priest classifieds in the Church Times. There was one ad for a fixer-upper parish in the Diocese of Wakefield where it seemed the church could make a significant contribution to a needy area. Unlike pleasant middle-class suburban ministry of niceness, this would be a place of grit and and a place in which truly to live out the Gospel in the streets. However no crystal ball foretold what the impact of the 'fly-on-the-wall documentary' would have on the congregation, the village and myself during that year of filming from September 2004 to September 2005, nor in the time that has elapsed since the three episodes of Priest Idol aired in November 2005. This website will try to capture the excitement, the lows, the progress and the set-backs we have experienced during these few years, but even more, this site will begin to reveal where God is leading us next and how you can join us along the way.

Peace,

James