Last weekend was spent in the Liverpool District. I arrived hotfoot from York Minster where I had been attending a service of consecration of three bishops in the Church of England. One of them, Chris Edmondson, is a long time friend, and that is the main reason for my being there. Chris and Susan go to Bolton from Lee Abbey in Devon, but I first came across them way back when I was a Methodist Circuit minister in West Yorkshire in the late 1980's. I was minister at Shipley and Saltaire and Chris was Rector of St Peter's Shipley in Saltaire. He will make a great suffragen bishop.
Then to Liverpool and to Synod where I got a generous amount of time to regale the good folk there with my passion for mission-shaped church. Then, later in the day, many stopped on to a testimony service for Alistair a probationer minister who is proceeding to ordination at the fast-approaching Conference in Scarborough.
Sunday was spent at Liverpool Rd church in Southport, celebrating their centenary, and in the evening at Kensington Methodist Church. Jim Booth and I shared in the administration of anointing with oil - I have invited this response many times this year and it is always humbling and precious to be involved in it.
Monday was spent with Church leaders from Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow who meet each year in a rotating venue of these three cities. In the morning Archbishop Kelly showed us round the Metropolitan Cathedral, but also the extensive work being undertaken in the crypt of the Cathedral originally intended to be built in the 1930's-50's. It is massive and will be a wonderful resource when it is fully upgraded. A wonderful addition to the already rich resources of the European City of Culture.
I'm currently in Jersey, just beginning a visit to Methodists in the Channel Islands, so more from here shortly.
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