London Days

Living in London has lots of advantages. One is that it is possible to fit a few extra events and occasions into the Presidential diary. So, last week, the day before driving up to Yorkshire for the weekend, Liz and I were able to go to a gig at which our younger son, Joe, was playing bass guitar with one of the two bands he plays in. The band is called Night Code. The venue was the Bull and Gate, Kentish Town (and this may be the first time that particular venue has been mentioned in the President's and Vice-President's blog!)

On Monday evening I went to the British Academy for the 5th birthday celebration for Roehampton University, of which Southlands College is a constituent part.

Then on Tuesday it was to Lambeth Palace for Christian Aid's AGM. I'm pictured, left, with Christian Aid's Daleep Mukarji, for whom this was his last AGM. Daleep and his wife Azra are good friends of ours, and attend Muswell Hill Methodist Church.

On Wednesday I went into Methodist Church House and was joined by Roberta Rominger from the URC and Jonathan Edwards from the Baptist Union, as together we signed a Christmas Card for Phil Woolas MP, the Immigration Minister. We're encouraging people to send him a Christmas card inviting him to do what he can to end the UK's detention of children seeking sanctuary.

Then it was off to URC Church House to meet the staff, discuss all sorts of things, and pray together. The picture (below) shows me with John Marsh, Moderator of the URC General Assembly, Roberta Rominger the URC's General Secretary and Richard Mortimer, Deputy General Secretary.

A Yorkshire weekend - November 21-22

So, while Richard went from Yorkshire to London, Liz and I did the opposite journey and went to Yorkshire for the weekend.

Saturday afternoon saw a service to celebrate the opening of Phase One of the COGS (Centre on Gracious Street) redevelopment at Gracious Street Methodist Church in Knaresborough. What has been built is a most exciting, creative, attractive and eminently useful building - well worth a visit to see what can be done when a church believes it is called to serve the community in which it is placed. The service was lively (with a world premier of a new Brian Hoare hymn!) and well attended, with lots of civic representatives and people from the wider Knaresborough community. There was a 'buzz' about the whole occasion. And, while we celebrated the completion of Phase One, it was also the time to launch Phase Two of the development - so there's lots more work to be done. But what a brilliant start! (Photo shows previous minister David Ely, present minister Gail Hunt, me and the Leeds District Chair, Liz Smith.)

On Sunday I returned to York South Circuit, where I had served as a minister in the 1980s. Morning worship was at Holgate, whose centenary year this is. (Liz and I posed by the banner made to celebrate the centenary)

Evening worship was at Central Methodist Church in the City Centre of York (left), where I had been the minister and where Liz and I were married in 1987.

A wonderful opportunity to meet up with old friends and hear the latest news. Also, to see how churches respond in the 21st century to the challenge of sharing God's love with the community in which they are placed

Hinde Street Methodist Church

Today I spent the day at Hinde Street Methodist Church in the West London Mission, a church that describes itself as being a conscience at the heart of Marylebone for nearly 200 years. It is also at the centre of a significant amount of social care activity and the Mission employs around 60 staff in this work. I reflected with the congregation that the only other time I’d been to the church was when I attended my first Methodist Conference in 1988 when Hinde Street was one of the venues for an ordination service.

The Church has a tradition of using a 1936 order of Holy Communion every Sunday morning and I joined the congregation to share in this. The main morning worship follows an hour later and today was led by the Superintendent minister Revd Sue Keegan von Allmen. I had been invited to preach.

Once a month different class groups volunteer to prepare lunch after the morning service and today Revd Leao Neto’s group were in charge in the kitchen. It gave a good opportunity to meet with members of the congregation in an informal setting.

Following lunch a group of us met to discuss the questions that arise from the recent debate about assisted suicide and advance directives. The group included health care professionals who reflected on how difficult some decisions could be as well as others who shared their thoughts when they had considered writing an advance directive for themselves. We reflected that the law can leave us in a messy place, but to try and clarify or change the law may makes matters worse rather than better.

MHA Multi-Faith Housing with Care Project – The South Leeds Appeal

This evening I was invited to attend a presentation given by MHA to describe their plans for Hemmingway House, a multi-faith housing with care project in South Leeds. Local residents and members of the various faith communities in Leeds had also been invited to hear about this ground breaking scheme which is a national first.

MHA is proposing to build a facility that will provide support for up to 90 residents in 45 apartments which will offer independence with the security of 24 hour staffing. The unique element of the scheme is to use the project to encourage the coming together of local faith groups in South Leeds focused on the care of older people from all faith communities. It is hoped that local residents will use the facilities in the building, like the planned vegetarian bistro, and so ensure that those living in Hemmingway House will continue to feel that they are full members of the community.

MHA now provides care and support to over 13,000 older people through 75 care homes, 50 retirement schemes and 49 community based projects, and they are applauded for their work to support people with dementia as well as their emphasis on nurturing a persons spirituality and by doing so helping to improve physical wellbeing. However they have never done anything quite like this.

The South Leeds Appeal is an attempt to raise £750,000 to make this dream a reality and I’ve no doubt that once people see the quality, scope and importance of this project the target will be quickly achieved.

Youth Assembly

David and I spent this weekend at the Methodist Youth Assembly which was held at Ushaw College near Durham. This is the first Youth Assembly and replaces the Youth Conference held in previous years. It has certainly been more successful in attracting young people, with 211 attending, almost double the numbers attending previous Youth Conferences.The Youth Assembly has also succeeded in reflecting the ethnic diversity of the Methodist Church in Britain, probably more so than Conference itself.

I was impressed by the large number of young people that had been involved organising the Assembly and who continued to act as stewards on the day. All the sessions (or Logins) were facilitated by young people trained for the task. The many senior members of the Connexional Team who came to support the event sat on beanbags in a corridor and acted as advisors only when called on to do so. This was very much an event that empowered young people to speak and be heard.

Login sessions covered a range of subjects including youth violence, sexuality, God and me, self esteem, equality and diversity, you and your rights and vocation. There can have been few Presidents of the Conference who were invited to attend a discussion group led by young people because he was “the expert on sex”.

Later in the day login extra sessions were added to discuss topics requested by those attending, including exploring Christianity in a multi-faith world, and considering the challenges that being in a relationship with someone who is not a Christian brings. All the sessions were well attended and by all accounts lively and thoughtful.

Throughout the weekend the process of selecting the next Youth President took place. Youth Assembly members were introduced to 5 possible candidates for the role and after a series of interviews and an initial election they were left to make a choice between 2. This morning Pete Brady, from Bradford, was finally elected to be the next President and will take up office almost immediately. X-Factor was nowhere near as exciting as this.

Pete was inducted during the morning worship that took place in the splendidly ornate chapel in the College. I can’t imagine that the ancient catholic saints that look down from the stained glass windows could have witnessed worship quite like this very often. The chapel was packed with young people as well as members of all ages from nearby Methodist circuits. The powerful and dynamic service followed the theme for the weekend, “be something beautiful...for you, for the world, with God”. We were reminded that God saw the worth in all people, whatever they looked like, and picking up a theme I articulated at Conference, God calls us all to work and witness wherever we find ourselves.

Contemporary songs were well led by the band Life Colour, with words and video clips on a series of screens distributed around the chapel.

It concluded a very successful weekend and I’m sure that even those that had long journeys back home left uplifted and inspired.

Meeting with Chris Bryant MP about Fiji

Yesterday evening I went with David and David Bradwell from the Connexional Team to meet Chris Bryant MP, a minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to talk about the situation in Fiji. The meeting had been facilitated by Methodist MP Meg Munn who also has an interest in this issue, having visited Fiji during the summer as part of a group looking at the impact of climate change.

The Methodist Church in Fiji is by far the largest religious group there and has been the subject of increased persecution by the military government led by Commodore Josaia Vorege (Frank) Bainimarama who came to power in a coup in 2006. This year the annual Conference was prevented from taking place, as was the annual choir festival, and significant speaking restrictions have been placed on senior church leaders.

In August the President of the Methodist Church of Fiji Rev Ame Tugaue, the General Secretary, Rev Tuikilakila Waqairatu, and seven other church leaders appeared in court charged with attending an unauthorised committee meeting. Court action continues and communication by and within the church is being monitored, crippling the churches business.

Last week the political situation in Fiji deteriorated further with the expulsion of the Australian and New Zealand High Commissioners.

The British Government is aware of the risks of being seen as a former colonial power lecturing Fiji, but nevertheless they have made their concerns known about the unacceptable treatment of the Methodist Church in Fiji. Fiji has now been suspended from the Commonwealth and the EU has also taken action to try and put pressure on the military leadership to move to free elections as soon as possible.

David and I underlined the concern raised by the Methodist Conference and by Methodists across the world and hoped that the British Government would continue to do all in its power to help seek a resolution to the dreadful situation in Fiji.

Remembrance Sunday

I joined other representatives of faith communities for the annual Act of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. The bands were magnificent. As the last notes of Walford Davies' 'Solemn Melody' faded away, the Royal Family were all in their places as Big Ben struck the hour and a gun fired one round to introduce the silence and another two minutes later to end it. I've seen the event or parts of it many times on television, but the experience of being there is far more moving. Liz joined other guests on one of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office balconies, and had excellent views of the event.

It has become the tradition on this Sunday for the President to preach at Hinde Street in the evening.

There were many aspects of this service I enjoyed, including the music group (pictured) that accompanied the hymns (including the Conference Memorials Secretary on bass recorder).

After the service, some of us retired to the manse for eats, drinks and conversation.