A miscellany of missing pieces

I haven't managed to keep up with the blogging very well in the last few weeks so here is a miscellany of some places I have visited and people I met in April and early May.

Gathering for the service

On April 5th I visited Hornton Methodist Church near Banbury. The people of this village church have developed the premises in order to further mission in the community. They work closely with the Church of England and the service of celebration and dedication was attended by many people from both churches and from the wider village community. Here is an excellent example of a Christian community who are developing mission in their context. They may not be a very big church in number but they are growing in faith and growing the kingdom.

I was welcomed by ex-Vice-President, Mike King and one of the members

From Hornton I went to the Methodist Council where much careful work was done by the committed people who give their time in this way to the work of the church.

Maurice Adams talking about Church Can

The following week I was in London for two days. On April 8th I went to Methodist Central Hall, Westminster for the launch of All We Can (Methodist Relief and Development). All We Can is the new name for MRDF. We began with a service of thanksgiving in the chapel, at which I was invited to preach. We then moved into another room where Maurice Adams, the Director of All We Can, spoke to us about the new name, explaining how it is strongly linked to Methodism having been inspired by words attributed to John Wesley. He also told us about Church Can - an initiative to reach one million people over five years working closely with Methodist Churches in developing countries. You can read more about this here

On Sunday, April 13th I joined the people of Castleford Methodist Church, in the Leeds District, where they were celebrating their 50th anniversary. The church was beautifully decorated with flower arrangements representing the different activities in the life of the church.






On April 30th, the Vice-President and I attended a meeting with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. This is an annual event which is an opportunity for sharing together and for exploring possibilities within the context of the covenant. This year the meeting took place in Lambeth Palace and after lunch there Daleep and I went to the House of Commons, where we had tea with one of the Methodist MPs, Meg Munn.