Some people get really excited about change: new challenges, new opportunities and new places are the things that get them fired up. Other people find change difficult. They’re much happier with things being settled and familiar: they want to know where things are.

There’s a lot of change around at the moment. We have a new government, which is different from previous governments because it’s a coalition and we’re still finding out what that may mean. We have lots of announcements being made and many of them will result in change.

This could be huge reductions in public expenditure and we don’t know what that might mean for us, our families and communities.

For many that is very unsettling. There are also the things we wish would change but they don’t – a certain football team’s performance perhaps.

Since April I’ve known I’m going to be facing a pretty big change, but I had to wait until a couple of weeks ago before anybody else could know. In June it was made public that I will be moving to Kent later in the year to become the next Bishop of Rochester
That means change for me.

A new role, new place, new home and change for my family with a new home and my wife having to find a new job; and change for people in the churches and more widely in Kent because they will need to get to know their new bishop.

There is a lot I am looking forward to about this change. I find it exciting to get to know new people and new places. There will be plenty of meeting people, getting out and about, discovering who is who, learning where the traffic jams are, finding out how things work in a part of the country that is new for me.

For the last six years I’ve been living and working in north and west Norfolk. For 18 years before that I was a parish priest in Birmingham. The Diocese of Rochester will have similarities with both, but there will also be differences about which I will have to learn.

For me, getting to know the communities of the diocese will be very important. I have a passion to see the Church active in communities, helping to improve people’s lives, making a difference, working for people’s good.

Over the years I’ve had a particular involvement in that through organisations working to provide affordable housing for people who need it. A decent home is so important for people to lead good lives. I’ll be seeing what the Church is already doing in our neighbourhoods and trying to see what I might do to help and encourage that.

A bishop has a special role in supporting the work of clergy in their parishes, chaplaincies and other settings. At the moment I have about 100 clergy in my part of Norfolk. There are many more in the Diocese of Rochester. This means more change for me and for them.

I imagine them wondering what this new bishop will be like, phoning their friends who may know me to see what they say.

And at the same time I’m wondering how I’m going to get to know all of them and how we might work well together.

You can’t live without facing change. We’re changing all the time and the world around us is doing the same. Every new day is different. For some that is a frightening prospect, as things or people they rely on or take for granted are no longer there – we need our securities, the fixed points in our lives. But then there’s the excitement and the buzz of the new – fresh experiences and challenges, the need to think new thoughts.

For me as a Christian, the great constant is the love of God which he shows us. In one sense that love never changes: it is always there, always available, never running out. In another sense it is always changing because it is fresh each day, opening up new possibilities for us.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,” we read in the Bible, “his mercies never come to an end: they are new every morning”. That’s an important verse for me as I face, the coming changes.

• James Langstaff is the Bishop-designate of Rochester.