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A Pastoral Letter to the
Methodist People from the President and Vice-President of the Conference and the
General Secretary (following
the address of the President and Vice-President to the General Synod of the
Church of England on 11th February 2010) And are we yet alive? Our
answer, despite some recent press speculation to the contrary, is a resounding
“Yes!”. We have seen the evidence in various ways through our complementary
roles. As President and Vice-President we have represented the care, oversight,
authority and support of the Conference as we have visited local churches and
situations in different parts of the connexion. We have seen the Methodist
people being faithful and the Spirit at work in them and through them. We
mentioned some examples in our address to the General Synod. As
General Secretary, Martyn is
responsible for leading the development of the mission of the Methodist Church. He
too has seen evidence of energy being released amongst us. We are all convinced that God
is not finished with the people called Methodist yet. We began
as a discipleship movement within the wider church, a society of people seeking
holiness and engaging in worship and mission. In Wesley’s time and through
succeeding generations we have continually adapted to circumstances to fulfil
that calling as effectively as possible. It is still Our Calling today. And
mission has never been more needed than it is now. We live in a world ravaged by
war and poverty, and torn apart by questions of how we care for the natural
environment and the morality of financial systems. We live in a world where
people need to hear the word of God in a language they can understand, where
they need to see the love of God through people like us and experience it as
good news for themselves. We live in a world where not enough people are being
attracted and formed into disciples of Jesus Christ, responding to the
promptings of the Spirit. Responding
to situations like this, allowing God to transform us so that we can be most
effective in doing so, supporting each other in that through our
interconnections, is what Methodism has always been about. We best honour those
who have gone before us by doing the equivalent in our time and our
circumstances of what they did in theirs. It is our We
believe that God has a role for us in this mission, and we are increasingly
embracing it. We have about 265,000 ‘card-carrying’ members, and that number
has been decreasing because of the age-profile of our members. But more churches
are making more members each year; a quarter of our churches are growing; the
numbers worshipping with us on Sundays and, increasingly, mid-week is rising;
fresh expressions are starting to flourish; we have regular contact with over
800,000 people; and we are part of a growing world-wide Methodist communion of
over 70 million. There is a growing self-confidence amongst us
accompanied by an appropriate humility about ourselves, and a releasing of
energy for mission. But
we are not the whole of the church, and we cannot do it all by ourselves. So we
have voted consistently over the years for unity schemes that are designed to
increase the whole church’s effectiveness in mission. This is not a death
wish, but a desire to be obedient and a willingness to be transformed. We can
countenance ceasing to exist as a separate Church because we know that we will
still be the Methodist people within a wider Church. As
our major statement on the nature and mission of the Church Called to
Love and Praise put
it in 1999 “the British Methodist Church may cease to exist as a
separate Church entity during the twenty-first century, if continuing progress
towards Christian unity is made”. Methodism will still contribute some of the
riches of its own distinctive history and mission to any future church. We know
from that history that we can be the Methodist people either in our own separate
church or in some wider expression of the universal church. Helping to create a
wider expression of the universal church and becoming part of it will require
not just us but other churches to be prepared to move forward together and to
leave some things behind in the process for the sake of the Kingdom. So it is
not a question of Methodists being submerged or absorbed in the Church of
England or any of our other partners. It is not a matter of Methodists returning
to the Anglican fold, but of seeing whether together we are prepared to become a
‘new fold’. This is not just true of our
relationship with the Church of England. We have also signed a Covenant with
other churches in Wales, and recently a partnership with other churches in
Scotland. We have many local partnerships with other churches, the United
Reformed Church in particular. And we are all part of wider denominational
groupings. For example, the world-wide Methodist communion is over 70 million
strong and the world wide Anglican communion about 78 million. Both are faced
with questions of how they cohere in the 21st century, and how they
deal with situations where there are competing and even contradictory
convictions within them. In addressing these we have a lot to share with each
other. When we addressed the
General Synod it was only the second time that the President of the Conference
had done so; the first since the Covenant between the Methodist Church and the
Church of England was signed in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen in 2003;
and, importantly, the first time the Vice-President and the president had been
invited to address the Synod together. What we were saying to the General Synod
was that Methodists have always been committed to unity in order to create
greater effectiveness in worship and mission. We said that thinking like this
comes naturally from our spirituality. We approach our Covenant with the Church
of England in the light of the Covenant Service in our Worship Book which we
pray each year. We were gently but urgently asking the General Synod whether the
Church of England was prepared to make the same commitment and allow itself to
be transformed for the sake of the gospel. And what we say to the Church of
England we say to our other partners. So what happens if other
churches are not prepared to be changed in order to become more effective in
mission with us? Rather than being groups of Methodist people in a new and wider
church, we shall continue as a Methodist people in a separate Methodist Church
faithfully trusting in God’s continuing leading of
us. We could do that, and we currently do. But even as a separate church
we shall have to continue with our commitment to co-operate with others in
mission wherever possible and to whatever extent it is possible.
Whether co-operating with
others or allowing a wider expression of the universal church to come into
existence will require a lot of working together in mission locally. Doing that
will throw up some obstacles that will have to be removed and some issues that
will have to be resolved if mission is not to be hampered. Some of those include
matters of interchangeability of ministries, common decision-making structures,
the role of women in the church, and how oversight is embodied. Much work has
been done on these and some people will have to be asked to keep working at them
on our behalf. When we signed the Covenant we committed ourselves to working to
remove any obstacles to visible communion so far as our relationship with the
Church of England is concerned. Any solutions will have to be agreed by all of
us in due course and by due procedure. But in the interim we must all keep
striving to engage as effectively as possible in worship and mission. We have found the Methodist people in good heart, and an increasing sense of the energy of God’s love being released amongst us. We are a people of one book, the Bible. We allow the gospel to both comfort and challenge us. We let the love of God both confirm and transform us in the body of Christ through the Spirit. We
are yet alive. We shall be alive in the future in whatever form God wills. God
has not finished with us yet! The
Revd David Gamble President
of the Conference Dr
Richard M Vautrey Vice-President
of the Conference The
Revd Dr Martyn D Atkins General
Secretary
ADDRESS
TO THE GENERAL SYNOD, David
Gamble: Let me first thank Archbishop
Rowan for his generous words of introduction and welcome.
And let me also thank both Archbishops for their invitation to us to come
and to address the General Synod today We thought by way of
introduction it was worth rehearsing a few basic things about Methodism and
explaining who we are. The Each year the Methodist
Conference, our governing body under God, elects a President and a
Vice-President. The President is a
presbyter. The Vice-President is a
layperson or a deacon. At the annual
Conference there is an election as a result of which a President and
Vice-President are designated to take office at the next year’s Conference.
So, you spend a year as President and Vice-President Designate.
Then, pretty well the first thing that happens at the next Conference is
the election of the President and Vice-President by standing vote. As the person
designated by the previous Conference you’re the only candidate – so
you’ve got a pretty good chance you’ll get elected and it’s pretty
devastating not to get in. The President and
Vice-President hold office for a year. They
then spend a year as ex-President and ex-Vice-President, before joining the
ranks of what we call ‘Past Presidents and Vice-Presidents’. As one of my
predecessors described it, ‘You spend a year being ‘It’, a year being
‘Ex-it’ and then you become ‘Past-it’.’ Next year’s President and
Vice-President therefore have already been designated and they are the Revd
Alison Tomlin will be our President and Deacon Eunice Attwood our
Vice-President. It’s probably also worth
noting that, because the President and Vice-President are elected to the
position for a single year, as President you remain in the role to which you had
previously been stationed by the Conference and at the end of the year you
return to your full-time station. The
It’s probably also worth
noting that we have a report coming to this year’s Conference on senior roles
within the Richard
Vautrey: The Vice-President of the
Methodist Conference is the highest office within the Methodist Church in
Britain that can be held by a lay person, and it’s a role that I’ve been
privileged to hold since the Methodist Conference last July.
One of the things I’ve quickly found is that so many people assume,
that I’ll be the President next year, but I have to assure them, or may be
reassure them, that’s not be the case. One of the key differences
between the President and the Vice-President is that whilst the President takes
on the role in a full time capacity, traditionally the Vice-President continues
to fulfil their lay role, so for me that means continuing as a GP in a practice
in Leeds and as deputy Chair of the BMAs GP committee.
It makes for a busy year, and you need a very understanding family, but
actually I think that this is quite important, as part of what any lay person
brings to the role of Vice-President is their lay ministry, and what I do in my
day job informs and enriches how I fulfil this office. In the position of
Vice-President, the David: The titles of certain people
within the Of course, with a Conference
that only meets once a year there is a question of where does authority lie in
the meantime? Well, we have a
Methodist Council that meets regularly during the year.
It has its own responsibilities and is the employer of our Connexional
Team. But it also has certain
limited powers to act as the Conference between Conferences.
Any actions it takes in that way have to be reported to the next
Conference. And then there are certain
powers vested in the President to act on behalf of the Church between
Conferences. The powers are set out
in our Standing Orders, are strictly limited and have to be reported back to the
Conference. So much of what the President
and Vice-President do could be described as representational or perhaps
ambassadorial. We sometimes speak on
behalf of the Many of our visits include
ecumenical gatherings, occasions and services.
This coming Sunday I shall be sharing in an ecumenical service in It also feels as though we
visit half the world as well. We’ve
been privileged to visit partner churches on almost every continent. In each
case we have been challenged by a fast growing and vibrant church.
Richard has been to Richard: One of the first visits I made
after the Conference was closer to home, to the birthplace of Primitive
Methodism in the early 1800s at Englesea Brook and Mow Cop in Staffordshire.
Primitive Methodists separated from the Weselyans in the 19th
Century. One of the characteristics of the early Primitive Methodist movement
was the way that lay leadership played such a prominent role.
From the early days of camp meetings, organised by lay leaders Hugh
Bourne and William Clowes, to the widespread development of class and cottage
meetings, prayer meetings, love feasts and Sunday schools, lay women and men
played a crucial role in the development of this movement.
Lay people were not only able to be preachers as they were in the
Wesleyans, but they also had a voice in the decision making bodies of the
church, which was for many if not all, a new and exciting experience. Over time, as the Primitive
Methodist Church became more established the voice of lay people, and in
particular women, did start to wane although it was they who in 1872 introduced
the position of Vice-President of Conference and on rare occasions a lay person
like Sir William Hartley, of jam making fame, was made President of the
Primitive Methodist Conference. Much of this has fed through in
to our current tradition. In 1932 Wesleyan, Primitive, United and other
Methodist traditions united to make the Paul’s first letter to the
Corinthians makes it clear, we have different gifts, we can offer different
services, but the body is only made whole if we all appreciate and value what
each other brings and offers. I saw this clearly on a visit I
made to a small Methodist church in the north of It’s a great story that is
replicated around the country but wouldn’t it have been better if the work
they had done was between churches in the area, not just them alone.
Shortly after the signing of the Covenant between our two Churches my own
church in David: Obviously, one of the main
reasons Richard and I are here today is because our two churches, the Church of
England and the And you, the Church of England,
and we, the Others could tell you far
better than I where the Joint Implementation Commission has reached in its
thinking and doing. It’s well and
truly up and running and it’s identified some of the big issues to which as
churches we are currently responding. One
of those big questions is what does it look like on the ground?
What signs are there that these two churches have a covenant relationship
with each other? One sign is our presence here
today – to be followed by a visit by Archbishop Rowan to our Conference in
June. Another sign, one which you
will be looking at later this morning, is the Fresh Expressions initiative, to
which both of our churches are fully committed. Another, with which I have
direct involvement, is our work on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults
– with a joint post as our national officer, increasing joint working between
dioceses and Districts and new joint committees supporting this work. However, it has to be said that
around the country the situation is patchy.
In some places there are very close working relationships and exciting
new initiatives. In others you could
spend quite a long time trying to find any sign of the covenant in practice.
Some churches, clergy and communities are very enthusiastic.
Others have theological, ecclesiological or other differences and/or
reservations. Some think we have
moved beyond these ways of thinking of church structures.
For them, the Church is post-denominational and the ecumenical movement
as we know it is history. And sometimes a bad
relationship or total non-relationship between churches can even be down simply
to how particular individuals do or don’t get on. It’s also the case that
ecumenical working potentially involves many other churches and Christian groups
as well as Church of England and Methodist. Quite rightly.
There’s a long tradition of very valuable ecumenical working in
chaplaincy to the forces, to hospitals, to prisons, etc. And some of the most
exciting newer ventures I’ve seen on my recent travels have been developments
of the chaplaincy concept – workplace chaplaincy, for instance; or town centre
chaplaincy. I’ve seen this in
several places now, most recently in Another place that impressed me
was Cambourne, a new town outside When I entered theological
college, at Wesley House in Richard: We can and do work together on
issues of social justice, on issues that we both know God calls on us to
challenge our society and our world. We
saw that clearly in December when Archbishop Rowan joined David and me along
with a large number of other ministers at a service across the road in the
Methodist Central Hall prior to the Wave climate change march which was held
before the conference in There is though more that we
could and should be doing together. David
and I have just come back from a visit to Israel/Palestine.
There can be few other places in the world where the cries for justice
and peace strike deeper in to the heart. We
heard of the pain and hurt of individuals from all communities, not least
Palestine Christians who so often feel forgotten about and marginalised.
We also saw the inspiring work of the Ecumenical Accompanier Programme of
the World Council of Churches, men and women from all denominations and none who
stand alongside their brothers and sisters as they try to go about their daily
life, including the crossing of the separation barrier that now extends hundreds
of miles through Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. Palestinian
Christians have recently articulated their concerns in an important statement,
the Kairos Palestine Document. It’s
a clear call to their own people, but also a bold and courageous call to the
whole international community and the Churches in particular. We know that Archbishop Rowan
is shortly to visit There is much too that we can
learn together from our partners in the For instance the David:
So where do we go from here?
That’s not just down to the Joint Implementation Commission, but to all
of us. Clearly, there are some big issues with theological, ecclesiological and other implications that we need to work on. Our structures have something
of a mismatch about them. You have
national, diocese, deanery and parish. We
have connexion, district, circuit and local church.
But it seems that things we might do by way of connexion or district, you
do through diocese or parish. So,
some of the things we do through our daily work, actually we have a mismatch on
our daily decisions. Then there are all sorts of
questions still to work on relating to ministry and ordination.
How far can we develop interchangeability? What about women’s ministry
at every level? We Methodists still
have work to do on how our expression of episcope relates to personalised
episcopacy in the form of bishops. And then there is diaconal ministry and two
rather different histories of a diaconate. Both of our churches are part
of world communions where we have influence and history, but where churches in
other parts of the world are growing rapidly in size and importance and
sometimes see things very differently. As churches and communions, we’re both
struggling with how we can cohere in a post-modern word, with learning how to
live with contradictory convictions. And at such times it is hard to pay
attention to those beyond us. But it is precisely at those times that we have
things to offer each other. More practically perhaps, how
do we relate to the rest of But whatever happens in our
discussions and theologising at a national or, as we would say, connexional
level, the question of what is happening locally remains of major significance.
There are many places, especially in rural areas, where we probably have
too many buildings and maybe too many services and we could go much further
towards working and worshipping together as The Church in that place.
I mentioned Cambourne earlier, and that is quite a large community.
But there are many much smaller where we could do so much more.
The beautifully named MAPUM (Methodist Anglican Panel for Unity in But I wonder, too, how far we
could work further on ecumenical church schools.
Again, we have a lot to learn from Cambourne.
Speaking from the Methodist Church’s point of view, it’s interesting
that we have been involved in recent years in opening more schools – always
ecumenically, generally with the Church of England, and always where it’s been
a response to the needs of a particular community. I suppose my last question –
at least for this morning – is how do we together respond to the challenges of
the 21st century. A
society of different faiths, different cultures, different histories.
A society where many have no history of involvement with a faith
community but where the big questions still remain on the agenda.
Questions of meaning and purpose. Of
how we shall live together. Of life
and death. Of the future of our
planet. Of right and wrong and the
value of each person. Throughout the history of
churches working together, as I have experienced it, one of the major and
oft-repeated texts has been John 17.21, where Christ prays for the unity of his
followers not because it’s a nice idea, not because it’s financially a
better use of scarce resources, but that the world might believe.
It’s mission led. We only
exist to glorify God, to ensure that the word is duly preached, the sacraments
duly celebrated, and the people duly formed in discipleship for worship and
mission. For Methodists, the word
‘covenant’ is very important – part of our spirituality and our
understanding of our relationship with God.
Many of you may have shared in our annual Covenant Service, with these
powerful words: Richard: I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low
for you; let me be full, let me be
empty, let me have all things, let me
have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly
yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. David: Methodists
approach the Covenant with the Church of England in the spirituality of that
Covenant prayer. So when we say to God “let me have all things let me have
nothing”, we say it by extension to our partners in the Church of England as
well. We are prepared to go out of existence not because we are declining or
failing in mission, but for the sake of mission. In other words we are
prepared to be changed and even to cease having a separate existence as a Church
if that will serve the needs of the Kingdom. Are
we willing to take our covenant that seriously?
It’s quite a challenge – for both of our churches.
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