Tonight, the BBC South news covered a new text message service being provided by Church during Lent. Participants text ‘Lent’ to 64343, and then during Lent, there will be daily texts sent by the diocese encouraging people to do something different each day for Lent. However, in the process of reporting the story, although the online service has got it right, the BBC South newsroom managed to give Bishop Colin, the Bishop of Dorchester a promotion.

Since Bishop Richard retired last year, Bishop Colin as the senior of the three suffragan Bishops in the Diocese has also been acting Bishop of Oxford – unfortunately BBC South forgot the ‘acting’ bit and introduced him as Bishop of Oxford… Anyway, unintentional promotions aside, it will be interesting to see how the text message service goes down. BBC South presented the story as the last item tonight, and in perhaps a rather light-hearted way, without some of the explanation that Ian has given in his interview in the Oxford Mail.

Having said that, both the BBC, and the Oxford Mail seem to be crediting the Oxford Diocese, when in fact the text message service is part of the countrywide Love Life Love Lent campaign being pushed by Church House Publishing. Still, after our local paper announced that our Church was being eaten by worms, I’m not overly surprised at the BBC and the Oxford Mail not getting things quite right!