THE diocese of Lichfield has created the new post of Evangelism Enabler, with an environmental focus, “to respond to the challenge of the environment crisis and the Good News of a creator God”.

The first holder of the post will be the Revd Steve Hollinghurst, who is described in the diocese’s statement as having “extensive experience in training and researching on contemporary culture, evangelism and new Christian communities”. He will join the Mission Team next month.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Hollinghurst said that the post “combines vision for evangelism with work in the environment. . . The Christian message is for all of creation.”

It was about taking evangelism further than “purely human terms”, he said, and the diocese wanted to “speak to the climate-action agenda”.

The diocese’s mission-team leader, Simon Foster, said in a statement: “This is an innovative post which takes seriously our diocesan priority of evangelism and our belief that the Church has something distinctive to bring to our response to the environment.”

Mr Hollinghurst said that he had a “sense from the diocese of trying to create an intentional Christian community . . . with a focus of evangelism and environmentalism”.

He said that it would tie “into the natural year, and the landscape of Lichfield diocese”.

Mr Hollinghurst has worked with the Forest Church movement: a Fresh Expression that seeks to bring people closer to God through nature.