Bishop Steven

The Bishop of Sheffield, Steven Croft

Last Updated on Thursday, 23 September 2010 09:22

Steven Croft was born in Halifax in 1957. He graduated from Oxford in 1980 and went on to study for the priesthood in Durham at Cranmer Hall, St John's College. It was there that he was awarded his doctorate in 1984.

After being ordained in London in 1983 he served as Curate of St. Andrew's, Enfield between 1983-87 before returning to Yorkshire as Vicar of Ovenden in the Diocese of Wakefield between 87-96. For the last three years he was also diocesan mission adviser.

An invitation to become Warden of his old theological college came in 1996 so Steven and his family returned to Durham to lead the training of men and women for Church of England ministry.

He thrived in his new responsibilities and wrote widely about his experiences as a parish priest and began to express increasing concern about how urgent is the task for the Church to re-engage with huge swathes of the population which it had completely lost touch with.

Shortly after Rowan Williams was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury, Steven was appointed as Archbishops' Missioner and Leader of the Fresh Expressions team.

For four years he has oversaw the emergence of Fresh Expressions - an initiative of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in conjunction with the Methodist Church aimed at encouraging new ways of being church in the 21st century.

He was a member of the Church of England Evangelical Council from 1997-2000 and a member of the steering group for Anglican Church Planting Initiatives and the Sheffield Centre from 1996-2002.

He has been a member of the Finance Panel and of the Theological Education and Training Committee of the Ministry Division and of the Publishing Board of the Archbishops’ Council.

In January 2009 he was consecrated Bishop of Sheffield and began public ministry in May of that year. His aim in the first two years is to get to know the Diocese, which has included spending time with each deanery, visiting the clergy in their homes, as well as becoming familiar with the hospitals, prisons and schools of the Diocese.

He is a co-author of Emmaus: the way of faith (1996-2003), a set of resources for Christian nurture widely used in the UK and across the world. He is author or co-author of a number of books including Ministry in Three Dimensions (1999 and 2008); and Travelling Well (with Stephen Cottrell) (2000). His first novel for children and adults, The Advent Calendar was published in 2006.  In 2009 Jesus’ People: What the Church should do next challenged the reader to rethink both the role of Jesus in the Church and that of the Church in today’s society and culture.