West Park's pastor, Robert Brashear, said the church had a long tradition of supporting activism, having launched a program for gays, bisexuals and transsexuals and founding the charity God's Love We Deliver.
The BBC's religious affairs correspondent, Robert Pigott, says the new archbishop is inheriting a Church which has seen congregation numbers decline dramatically in recent decades, and which is struggling to promote a Christian message to an increasingly sceptical and secular society.