Newbigin Annual Public Lecture 2026 with Rev Dr Sam Wells

The Holy Spirit for Grown-ups” | Annual Newbigin Public Lecture 2026 | Rev Dr Sam Wells

Somewhere along the way, many of us inherited a version of the Holy Spirit that felt either too small or too strange: a warm feeling in worship, a force for the spectacular, or a subject quietly avoided in polite theological company.

Refuse that inheritance. Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields and one of the sharpest public theologians of our generation, takes the Spirit seriously, and in this Newbigin Public Lecture 2026, he invites us to do the same. Drawing on decades of parish life, ethical reflection, and rigorous theological scholarship, Sam opens up what it might mean to live and think pneumatologically as adults: with depth, honesty, and hope.

This lecture belongs in the great tradition Lesslie Newbigin himself embodied: theology done for the world, not just the academy. Newbigin believed the Spirit was the church’s primary equipment for mission, not a bonus feature. Sam Wells picks up that thread and pulls it somewhere vital. Worth listening to with pauses to think and pray.

The Newbigin Public Lecture is hosted annually by Seedbeds and was given on Wednesday 3rd June, 2026 at Lodge Road Community Church, Winson Green, Birmingham, UK.

Watch the full lecture here: