At the beginning of the Second World War as a conscientious objector, he served with a Friends Ambulance unit but later became a Royal Army Service Corps private in Cairo.

Here as an Oxford classicist he was recruited into the Political Operations Executive and sent into occupied Crete in August 1944, working undercover from Chania, with the objective of lowering German morale.

He began his career with a curacy at Gedling[7] after which he was: Priest in charge of St Francis Clifton, Nottingham; Vicar of Leamington Hastings; Diocesan Missioner for the Diocese of Coventry then finally, before his appointment to the episcopate, a canon residentiary at Windsor.

The residential community of The New Era Centre in The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay, which was purchased in 1980, was dedicated on 4 October 1981 as a space to explore and work towards the synthesis of Christianity and more contemporary understandings of societal transformation.

Stephen Verney extensively discussed, and believed in, the role Buddhist practice and philosophy could play in increasing connectivity with a Christian deity, and it was this belief which led many of The New Era Centre's early pursuits.