By Mike Brooks, USPG Communications Manager

Archbishop Rowan Williams urged the new Chief Executive of Anglican mission agency USPG to ‘surprise and engage’ the Church of England with new ideas for world mission.

The archbishop was speaking at a special service at Lambeth Palace on Tuesday to commission Janette O’Neill, who becomes the first woman to take the helm at USPG, and the Society’s first lay person at the top in nearly 300 years.

Archbishop Rowan told Janette: ‘This is where God has placed you in love and trust.’

In a homily that spelled out biblical qualities of leadership, the archbishop urged Janette to have a prophetic vision and to ‘tell the truth with divine enthusiasm’.

He told Janette: ‘Whatever lies ahead in the management of this great historic fellowship that we love, we pray and trust that these gifts will be yours.’

At a reception later, Archbishop Rowan said there was an opportunity for USPG and other mission agencies to surprise and engage the Church of England.

He said: ‘For all the legacies, and the complications of colonialism, nevertheless our agencies can be grateful for what God has allowed them to achieve; God has allowed them to find ways of sustaining people [around the world] and to speak the words for God in their own tongue.’

The archbishop added: ‘I do believe that this is a very key moment for the Church of England in thinking through how to join up its perspectives with the world church. [We need to ask] difficult questions about how to make best use of this precious legacy of the mission agencies.’

He then told Janette: ‘We look forward very eagerly and very joyfully to what you have to share.’

Janette’s background includes work for USPG-supported St James’ Hospital in Lesotho, Save the Children, Nets for Life, and Episcopal Relief and Development, in America, where she was a senior programme officer for Africa.

She said: ‘I join USPG as it strides into the future, moving forward to support some of the most vulnerable and marginalised in our world – the people in the gap.

‘My hope is to bring together development and mission, and to be in partnership with our church partners around the world in doing that, so that the result will be transformation and change in communities.’

Archbishop Rowan also paid tribute to USPG’s outgoing General Secretary Bishop Michael Doe, who leaves USPG this month.

The archbishop offered ‘heartfelt thanks’ for Bishop Michael’s contribution to USPG, including his ‘sense of proportion, wisdom and commitment’.