Andrew Williams

Andrew Thomas Williams is a British-born American Anglican bishop. Since 2019 he has been the diocesan bishop of the Anglican Diocese in New England, part of the Anglican Church in North America. He was a lawyer in the United Kingdom prior to his entry into ordained ministry in the Church of England and his move to the United States.

Early life, education, and legal career

Williams was born in the United Kingdom. He graduated from Tavistock School in 1985 and received a law degree from Exeter University in 1988. In 1985, he met his future wife, Elena, at Exeter University; they married in 1992 and have three daughters.

Williams trained for law in Chancery Lane and worked from 1989 through 1994 at Cameron McKenna in London as a litigator defending architects, accountants, actuaries, insurance brokers, and Lloyd's underwriters in civil suits. From 1994 to 1998, he was a senior litigator with S.J. Cornish and Bond Pearce, where he specialized in legal malpractice defense. To meet locals, they visited their local Church of England parish, where Williams said "a kindly new vicar and a friendly small group of people came around us, and I found myself intrigued by and drawn to them all at the same time. . . . hey always spoke about Jesus like they knew him personally. I decided that I liked them sufficiently that I was not going to hold that against them." Not long after, Williams participated in a Lenten Bible study and had a conversion experience, praying “I am saying ‘yes’ to You without reservation. Whatever You want for my life, I desire too.” His wife had a similar experience. —pursued a call to ministry. At the time, the church had no midsize small groups, just prayer groups of three to four. Williams established 40 "mission-shaped communities" (MSCs) characterized by "low control, high accountability." In 2008, while speaking on the model at a conference of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, Williams was connected to Trinity Church, a non-denominational multisite church in Greenwich, Connecticut. (although Williams led a $6 million fundraising campaign for Trinity's office and ministry center for midweek programming in Greenwich). He was consecrated by ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach at a Catholic church in Amesbury, Massachusetts, on March 16, 2019, and enthroned at All Saints Cathedral the following day.