Rev. Gledhill said: “One way of looking at the tough places is to see them as kind of barren places where there's no leadership at all.” He referred to the numerous town councillors and police who regard the marginalised communities in the dioceses as “dens of vice”.

The Bishop of Lichfield also referred to the numerous cynics in the Bible who asked whether anything good could come out of Nazareth, saying that “God actually carves out his living stones in the local quarry”.

“The trick that I have seen many of our churches are learning, in new kind of ways appropriate to a new century, is how the love of God enables the local quarry to be opened up and new living stones to be hewn out – how to grow a whole new generation of community leaders from people who've not had much chance to run things.

“People who in the past have been the clients of the expert social workers we have sent amongst them, or the clients of the expert theologians,” he said.

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