Fr Luke Miller

The London Resilience Forum gathers together those who respond in London to major incidents. Chaired by Deputy Mayor of London, Dr Fiona Twycross and supported by the London Fire Brigade , London Resilience is a partnership comprising the emergency services, local government, the army and other responders such as the RNLI, Public Health England, and the Environment Agency. There are three 'sector panels' for the Business Sector, the Voluntary Sector, and the Faith Sector, which I chair. Last week the London Assembly's Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee took evidence about how the partnership works to enhance London's ability to cope with stresses. You can watch my evidence to the Committee from 1:06:45 Five years ago when I took the chair of the Faith Sector Panel the question was ' why is there a Vicar in the room ?' It is now recognised that the contribution of the Faith Communities to London's resilience is of huge importance and the qu

A couple of weeks ago now my colleague the Acting Archdeacon organised a study day on estates ministry in the Two Cities. In his opening remarks he made the point that here in the centre of London our estates are "hidden". Both by deliberate acts of planning and also in that they are at the back of our minds. The font where I was baptised The Church of the Holy Spirit This set me thinking about my own engagement with ministry on estates, and indeed with living on estates. I was born on an estate, the Riddings Estate in Scunthorpe where my father was the first priest in charge of the then newly built Church of the Holy Spirit . I was baptised in a font made out of a piece of unworked iron ore underneath a spire formed of three steel girders made in the Appleby Frodingham Scunthorpe steel rolling mills. Then after a brief moment in which he served in a rural Lincolnshire parish while being the deputy youth officer for the diocese of Lincoln, we moved to Leeds where

Reflection in S Stephen Walbrook at the launch of the Musicians' Church Website S Cecilia  was a martyr who had nothing specific to do with music. The story has it that she was a young girl who was to be married to a rich Roman who required her to adopt paganism. She refused, asserting her faith and that she was betrothed to Christ, and was sentenced to death. They put her in the hypocaust to suffocate her. It did not work, so her throat was cut. Following  Jesus Christ was and for so many is a matter of sacrifice, and the fine music of a S Cecilia Mass does not mask the fact that the feast celebrates the martyrdom of a young woman.  The antiphon for the opening of her mass used to run: As the organ played for her wedding, music sounded for her in heaven . Later the main school for church musicians in Rome was next to her church and she was their natural patron. From the act of witness of a young girl so much great good has come since she has inspired so many gr