Bishop Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy: An advocate for bold, courageous ministry
Marcia Dixon MBE spoke with Bishop Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy, the first Black person to be appointed Bishop of Willesden
The Church of England (CoE) has come a long way since the publication of its ‘Seeds of Hope’ report in 1991, which lamented the lack of Black Anglicans in leadership positions.
Fast forward to 2026, and numerous Black Anglicans now occupy prominent roles. This includes the Rt Revd Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy.
In 2021, the Rt Revd Lusa, 48, made history by becoming the first Black person to be appointed as the Bishop of Willesden. Although he views his appointment as a “privilege and an honour”, he didn’t immediately think he had made history. He recalled: “I don’t think my first thought was, ‘I’m going to be the first Black Bishop of Willesden’, because the way I read my life is not primarily through the lens of Blackness.”
He continued: “I was born into a Black world, in which my identity was not defined by my ethnicity, because that was the normative experience. I ‘became Black’ when my family moved to Europe. That said, I was acutely aware of the iconic element of that appointment. There’s a huge pride in being a bishop in the church, but also a bishop of African heritage in in a church with its historic colonial legacy, and that historically has not always been forthcoming in creating spaces for Black flourishing.”
The Willesden Episcopal area has a population of 1.2 million and covers the boroughs of Brent, Hillingdon, Ealing and Harrow. Mindful of the issues impacting local communities, such as gentrification, anti-immigration sentiment and Christian nationalism, Bishop Lusa hopes to make a difference. “There’s a vocation for us to be bold and courageous in standing up in solidarity, speaking out for those who are marginalised and often victimised, and also to offer the vision of the Kingdom that is not just something we aspire to attain one day once we’re dead, but a Kingdom that can be and should be a reality here and now.”
Like many church leaders, Bishop Lusa, married with three children, has a keen interest in the younger generation. He shared: “One of the things close to my heart are children and young people and what we set out for them in creating safe spaces in which they feel that they have a say and don’t have to face a future that feels locked and unopened.”
He supports several youth organisations and is also on a mission to encourage people to relate inter-generationally. He said: “There’s a sense in which society tends to fragment itself across class, ethnicity, gender and age. Churches are one of the few places where you often have multiple generations doing life together. We want to be intentional in making sure that the way we do church is inviting for all generations and enabling young and old to be co-curators in transforming the space. We also want to think not just about what we do in church, but what does that mean for us outside of the church context.”
One way Bishop Lusa encourages different generations to work together is through volunteers and those who work with young people. “We try to impart some tools and resources that might help them to develop things. If we had more resources, we probably would have appointed someone who could lead specifically on this.”
Another area of concern for the Bishop is gender-based violence. He has done work in schools around the issue. He is also keen to see the church engage men more, especially in this age of toxic masculinity and where the ‘manosphere’ has great influence.
He has several ideas on why more men aren’t in church. “When I was a kid, I was part of churches where you had families coming to church together. And then I started noticing that dads would typically start reducing their involvement with church – sometimes to the point of stopping altogether. And sometimes that had an impact on their kids.
“I’m not totally sure what the issues are. I wonder whether there is a crisis in leadership, in the sense where, in many of our churches, you’ve got male leaders who aren’t necessarily creating spaces that affirm other men. I think we should take responsibility for that.”
I asked him about the steps he has taken. “I wonder whether there is something about creating spaces of accountability, where we as leaders become accountable to others. Sometimes, in some of our churches, there isn’t necessarily the sense in which we hold ourselves accountable to others. I wonder whether there is an assault on the family dynamic, where family structures are becoming a bit looser, and therefore faith plays less of a part in the way in which we relate to one another. And I wonder whether the Church might help not just men, but also women, children and young people, to find ways in which faith as a family, as a household, becomes something that holds us together, and something we do not just when we show up in church, but something we live, day in and day out.”
Journey to Anglican ministry
Conversing with Bishop Lusa – who, I might add, speaks five languages – it is evident he never aspired to be a full-time church leader and has had an interesting journey to the bishopric. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of seven children, he was raised in a Christian home. He recalled: “Our paternal great-grandmother was the first person to become a Christian, paradoxically out of a mission from British Pentecostals, who found their way into my part of Congo. She gave birth to three sons and two girls – all three sons ended up being ministers.”
Bishop Lusa’s father was a head teacher who accepted the call to ministry and moved several times with his family to gain ministerial training and a theological education. He moved firstly to north-east Congo, then to the Central African Republic, and then to Belgium, where he finished his PhD and settled there with his wife and children. Bishop Lusa was eight at the time. He remembered: “The plan wasn’t really to set roots in Europe, but I think the economic and political situation had shifted back home, and our parents probably decided to keep us in the West to give us opportunities, particularly in terms of education. I think it came at a high price, because it meant they had to renounce living and raising us back home.”
During his teens, Bishop Lusa became a follower of Jesus and was appointed a youth leader. Whilst serving at a summer camp, he began thinking more seriously about Christian ministry. He recalled: “I remember talking to a seven-year-old girl, whose parents were American and Finnish, serving as missionaries in Belgium. I remember quite clearly, at the end of that chat, I had a strong conviction that if I was serious about serving God, the only acceptable way for me would be to dedicate my whole life to do that.”
He initially considered serving the Lord via a profession, such as a lawyer or academic, as he didn’t want to be a “broke minister”. However, he ended up studying theology at Faculté Universitaire de Théologie Protestante (FUTP) and teaching RE in Brussels. He then made plans to study for a PhD in the US, but his life went in a different direction.
The dean of the Faculty of Theology, where Bishop Lusa was studying, told him of an opportunity to serve a historic Protestant congregation that met at Canterbury Cathedral. It had been started by Huguenot refugees from France and Belgium, who fled persecution by the Catholics during the 1500s to live in Britain.
Bishop Lusa took the opportunity and moved to England to take up the role. He didn’t know anyone when he arrived in England – and couldn’t speak English either – but learned the language and was eventually able to speak five languages. He lived on Canterbury Cathedral grounds and worked for the cathedral and the French Church. He also found time to study for a master’s in Christian Ethics at King’s College, London.
He did such a good job of serving the church and reaching the wider community, church members encouraged him to get ordained. He travelled to Belgium to do so, and returned to Britain, intending to spend five years here and then return to Belgium or Paris. However, God had other plans. “There’s a sense in which opportunities were starting to arise for ministry within the Church of England. I remember a conversation with the dean of Canterbury Cathedral at the time, who advised me to explore this. The curious thing is that wasn’t on my horizon at all.”
Following his conversation with the dean, Bishop Lusa trained for ministry at Durham University. He was appointed a deacon in 2008 and became a priest in 2009. He served in two churches in Kent between 2008–2017, and, prior to becoming Bishop of Willesden, he was the BAME Mission and Ministry Enabler in the Diocese of Leicester.
As someone who spent his late childhood, teens and young adulthood in Belgium, Bishop Lusa has observed the differences in the UK’s and Belgium’s approaches to faith. Belgium is majority Catholic. Bishop Lusa, whose roots are in Pentecostalism, attended a protestant church and was part of a Christian minority. He said: “There was a sense in which faith in Belgium was very much a private thing. There wasn’t a sense of faith being actively present in the public sphere. And so, when I came to the UK, it was really surprising to see the Church at the heart of British society. And I was baffled to see that in the Lords, you had Church of England bishops.”
Bishop Lusa is excited about what the years ahead hold for him and for those he ministers to. “It’s a really exciting place, with a lot of rich diversity. Churches are being increasingly confident in owning their place in society and communities, and often punch way above their weight, in terms of the ways in which they are reaching out to the community, and the way in which they are offering Christ to the community. What I would love is to come alongside these church communities and just champion what we are doing together in sharing the love of God in word and in action, in presence, in solidarity.”
