'I went into the newsagent's for a packet of fags and I saw the exercise book, and I thought, yes, that's got your name on it. Or it soon will. Buy it and fill it with your thoughts, which are many and beautiful and frequently in service to the Lord. Make a diary of your time at St Saviour's. Maybe, in two hundred years' time, you'll be celebrated as the Samuel Pepys of the Church of England. Or a sort of Reverend Bridget Jones. Is that too much to hope for, Lord?'
Meet Rev. Adam Smallbone, recently promoted from a sleepy rural parish to funky, inner-city St Saviour's in Hackney. Out of his depth in his new, urban surroundings, he's doing the best he can, supported by his loving, but agnostic wife, Alex.
As Adam struggles with the unfamiliar demands of his new parish, there aren't many he can turn to. There's the wild Colin, the waspish Archdeacon, the pompous Nigel, the smothering Adoha and Ellie, the formidably attractive headmistress of the local C of E school. There's God of course. There's always God. But in Adam's hour of need, will God - and Alex - be enough?