Six Things - The Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson

Alan was born in Edinburgh, grew up in East London and Kent, and studied at St John's College Cambridge and then Balliol College Oxford. He was ordained Deacon (1979), Priest (1980), and Bishop (2003). Married to Lucy, a violin teacher, they have five children.

Not your average clergyman Alan served in a parish which had a Crematorium and visiting several thousand families to listen to their stories of relatives and friends who had died was an education not many of us recieve. He has worked as a chaplain at Reading Prison, and led courses in Applied Ethics and History for Reading University, developed a supervision model for ministry. Alan hasn't worked exclusivly in the church world, in the mid nineties he undertook  commercial design work producing airwaybills, contact lens containers and packaging products.

A member of many ministries and organisations that promote social responsibility and equality, education, arts, and mission.  He speaks various languages badly, having learnt from his Hungarian mother the value of understanding other peoples’ conversations rather more than they think you can.

Alan has been involved in writing on websites and his own blog since 2007 and I came into contact with Alan through his role as a judge of the Christian New Media Awards.

One thing that's always worth getting out of bed for
The buzz of people interacting around visions and ideas, especially friends

One thing about yourself that often obstructs you
A lack of focus pulling together all the strands of life in a way that adds up

One thing I've learned the hard way
To write concisely, not in a St Paul "stream of consciousness" mode.

One thing that gets under my skin
Inequality in all its forms. It gets way up my nose when people suggest God colludes with partiality, or the way things have always been, or that faith is some kind of get out of jail free card for injustice or discrimination.

One thing I'd love to change
(personally) My inability to play jazz piano
(in England) The stuckness in Education - I'd love to see all able to access an education that brings out their God-given creativity and giftedness and enables them to flourish spiritually, mentally, physically, artistically and socially as well as academically. Bit of a tall order, I realise...

One thing I hope for
To see the church become a more open, accepting, and loving network of local disciples - less hierarchically fixated, top-down, anxious and fearful,

Six Things is a series of micro-interviews with interesting and creative people
in which they’re asked to respond to a standard set of six prompts.