From The Guardian-The ascension of Justin Welby to archbishop of Canterbury is confirmation of the quiet parallel rise of a controversial evangelical church in central London to become the most influential congregation in the Church of England.
Welby was in his late 20s when he joined the congregation of Holy Trinity Brompton in Kensington. He was working in the oil business and had relocated to London in 1983 after five years in Paris.
The years he spent at the church, becoming a lay leader there before quitting his high-salary career in 1989 and moving to Durham to train to be an Anglican priest, had a powerful impact on him.
Holy Trinity Brompton, or HTB as it has rebranded itself, is no ordinary church.
On Thursday afternoon, in a service attended by David Cameron and the Prince of Wales at Canterbury Cathedral, Welby will be enthroned as the symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. And yet the vicar of HTB, Nicky Gumbel, is almost certainly a more influential figure in England than Welby, his notional boss.
HTB is the only part of the Church of England that is confident that it is growing. The Alpha course first developed there – doctrinally extremely conservative but socially flexible and modest – is now an international phenomenon, operated as a franchise in more than 160 countries.
More here-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/20/justin-welby-powerful-evangelical-church
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