Questions and Answers

This week I was part of a panel for a recording of "Burning Questions" for Premier radio. Rob Frost asked me to be involved some months ago and he had been planned to chair the panels. John Pantry did a great job standing in at St Mary's Church, Walthamstowe. The programme's a bit like Question time where all of the panellists are invited to bring a Christian perspective to the topics of the day. These ranged from whether Tony Blair should have been more "up front" in talking about his faith to whether Desmond Tutu was right in saying that the Anglican Church is too obsessed with sexuality with other questions such as whether the rules on giving to Political parties are transparent enough and whether we would be surprised to find one of our neighbours living alone had fallen ill and died because no-one was being a good neighbour. The other people on the panel were all really interesting - Stephen Timms MP, Joel Edwards, Jonathan Oloyede, Matt Summerfield and Alan Craig. See http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=1212 to read more about them. I really enjoyed it but forgot that it was being recorded so probably sound awful!

On Wednesday I was able to spend a little time with 5 Methodists from the Birmingham District - Nicola, Margaret, Dane, Elixabeth and David who had come to the House of Commons to lobby their MPs about the situation in Palestine. They brought me a carved "guardian angel" from Palestine and left me after a cup of tea to get involved with their real business which they all care passionately about. I met a couple of other Methodists that day who were in for the same reason. We keep the situation in the Middle East in our prayers.

It was good to have Martyn back and to see him briefly at the tea party I hosted at the House of Commons for MRDF on Thursday. The photo above shows Kirsty Smith, the Director of MRDF with MPs Meg Munn and Hilary Armstrong and myself. Alan Beith MP was there as well and Lords Griffiths and Walton and lots of invited guests and supporters. Brian Caveney, the Youth President was there on his first official visit. Kirsty began her presentation by sharing some of the questions people ask about the Methodist Relief and Development Fund - why, why, why..? she shared some great stories, answered the questions of why? and then challenged us to ask ourselves and others - why not MRDF to support in the work of small miracles. Hilary Armstrong told us of how much difference her two years on VSO had made to her as a young woman and the importance of development, lending her support to the work of MRDF. I think that people enjoyed the opportunity to come to the House of Commons and the tea - sponsored by Methodist Insurance- and most of all to learn more of and give thanks for the work of MRDF. http://www.mrdf.org.uk/pages/home.php