John Barnett

​John Barnett was ordained in 1977 and worked in parish ministry in Birmingham and the Black Country until his retirement forty years later. In 2003, he was appointed to a group of parishes in Oldbury and Smethwick, and engagement with other faiths became an important part of his work. In 2009, he became Interfaith Officer for the Wolverhampton area of Lichfield Diocese. He advised the Bishops of Wolverhampton and Lichfield on interfaith matters and had oversight of Black Country Near Neighbours, a government-funded community cohesion programme which was rolled out across four metropolitan boroughs. For a number of years, he regularly worshipped at GKN Sikh gurdwara alongside his continuing Christian ministry until both were disrupted by COVID-19 regulations.