The Bishop of Lichfield has told the Church of England in a video message, that it should focus its efforts in 2006 on reaching out to young people.

|TOP|The Rt. Rev. Jonathan Gledhill, who looks after Staffordshire and parts of Shropshire and the Black Country, said: “It continues to concern me that in some parishes I visit the young are so few."

In the video message for Evangelism Sunday, Rev. Gledhill said his diocese was considering the central support it provided to parishes for youth work.

The diocese is also considering the possibility of appointing a youth and children’s mission worker to engage in work across the diocese, as well as a youth officer and trainer for each area.

"We may be a post-Christian society but equally we are a post-atheist society. Religion of all sorts is everywhere. Church schools have never been more popular,” said the bishop.

|QUOTE|“Uniformed organisations like scouts and guides, and boys and girls' brigades meet a crucial need. Parents long for their children to be brought up with right values and good foundations for life,” said Rev. Gledhill.

This is the second year that Rev. Gledhill has delivered his Evangelism Sunday message through a video CD to his 585 congregations.

The Bishop of Lichfield recently used his New Year message to voice strong criticism against Western governments for ‘putting themselves outside the law’ in the war against terror.

He called the “extra-territorial prison camps” and controversy surrounding the possible use of torture “shocking”, adding that people have the impression that such things occur only under extremist regimes.

“Is it true a neighbour with a grudge could accuse us of having a link with a terror cell and we could be dragged out of bed without warning, taken abroad, left to rot for months without being told the evidence against us and be interrogated until we confess?,” questioned Rev. Gledhill.

He further warned that although emergency powers were acceptable in light of the 9/11 attacks, an even greater danger than the likes of al-Qaeda could emerge.

“We might become the thing we hate - killing the innocent, alienating people of good will, imposing our will wrongly on other nations,” said Rev. Gledhill.