It is amazing to think how easily people write so openly on the internet through Twitter, Facebook and other 'social sites'. As Mr Site, through whom this site was set up, offered the chance to have this blog, it was started in hope.The fact that nobody seemed to want to read it was little encouragement, and my diffidence in writing has not been made any easier.
However, another discussion on the widespread use of the Internet by the population of Britain (well over 60% have broadband) makes me wonder why it seems as though a much higher proportion of church people do not use computers at all. Are we the Luddites of today?

As someone who is well cared-for, in reasonable health and with very few materal needs, retirement is mainly a time when slowing down happens gradually, while time goes faster. As my brother-in-law said last night, on country walks the stiles get higher!
Our society is generally very good to those of us who are in my condition, although there are some things which deserve to be complained about by grumpy old persons. I can mention just 3 examples:
We were told that every senior citizen can get a grant to insulate the loft of their homes. A man came to our home through the local council, climbed up the ladder to the loft, and said "Sorry, the space is a quarter of an inch too low for a workman to get in to do the job, so I'm turning down your application." Another official went next door and approved assisted insulation.
Secondly,there's the annual nonsense about my tax return. Hours of work allowan accountant in scotland to claim a small amount of repayment each year after a complicated calculation which beggars belief: am I at 74 years old a proper target for this costly charade, which must cost more to operate than it generates in income.
Thirdly, how long will it be before I qualify for a single person to ask if I, as an 'old person', needed any help in the snow? Nobody did!
In every case I would be considered unreasonable to raise this with the politicians who all claim to care about us, and in none am I suffering, but as we enter a year which will be marked by tedious and endless offers to assure us that our votes count, I know from my own experience that some very needy people will be no better off when June comes round. What's the use of shouting "We will change ....." when just seeing how existing systems work better would be much more helpful. My vote would be with a humane politician who says "We will make no changes in organisation for a year, and we will be more honest about what can be done."

Will you be excited by the election????

After sharing in the Ebenezer 150th Anniversary celebrations in French St Martin, there was one more day before the flight back to Amsterdam with KLM. When we were in the Caribbean about ten years ago I had tried to visit St Eustatius (usually known as ‘Statia’), but we could not book a flight. This time I had found that e-Bookers website offered flights and, what was even better, the tickets were at a concession price for over-65s.

This meant that we were booked on a flight with WINAIR, the only company to fly into Statia, at 8.30 on Monday morning, and the hotel let us get some coffee earlier than usual before the friendly taxi-driver drove us to the airport on the Dutch side. We took our food packs from the evening before for our breakfast, and not very long after we had eaten there was an announcement that anyone booked on the 8.30 flight who wished could get on an earlier flight, so before 8 we went out with about 8 other passengers and boarded the 20-seat Twin Otter aircraft. Joyce found it rather small, and bravely studied the safety instructions card. I had been in Statia when these planes were introduced and they were a big step up from 6-seaters! 25 minutes later we landed on the airstrip of the Statia airport, a friendly basic building with simple but adequate facilities. The Minister, Rev. Florence Daley, had stayed for another day in St Maarten, but she had kindly arranged for Mary, Steward and one of the people who care for the Bethel School, to take care of us. By the time she had come for us the day was getting hot, and it was good to drive in her cool car, and soon to find ourselves in the cool office of Headteacher Woodley at the school behind the church. It was so good to see the huge advance in facilities at the school, and the smart premises, all provide at some sacrifice and the physical labours of the members (especially ladies).

Compared with the bustling life of St Martin, Statia, with 3000 inhabitants, seems quiet -almost sleepy, but there is a development in the form of a large storage facility for fuel oil, and social problems which are a real challenge, even to the school. A strained relationship with one large religious community has continued to plague the island, and, to our surprise, there is a University of St Eustatius –actually a US-based medical school with about 100 students. There is a basic provision for Tourism, but it was not much in evidence, and, very encouraging, it seems that some of the younger generation of Statians are building homes and making their lives there.

Mary let us spend some time in the school, which warmed our hearts and made us so sad, even angry, that Methodists in the UK neither know (or seem to care much) about the unique ministry of our fellow-Methodists in the West Indies, in churches to which people like me were once sent as what were then called ‘Missionaries’ –now ‘Mission Partners’. A bit of support and lots of prayerful support would be so valuable. The Head took us to the nearby home of 2 good members, Carmen and Ashton Suares, and then up to see the Manse (little changed in appearance) where I had lived, and where Philip came as a baby, Gerard spent his early years.
After we had a wrap snack at the open-sided cafeteria at the University, we were given a car trip round the island (it is 2 miles from Tumbledown Dick Bay, the tank farm, to the Eastern White Wall, the pumice cliff at the base of the Quill, the dormant volcano which looms over the town). We saw where concerned people guard the nesting site of Turtles at Concordia Bay, the old Fort where the first salute was given to the Independence of the United States, wandered in extreme hear round the streets I used to walk so many years previously, and finally met a group of church people in the ancient and very special Bethel Church. What a privilege to be able to meet and still be remembered in some cases, by those faithful Methodists of St Eustatius. We flew back in the dark to St Maarten, and I left something of me in St Eustatius.

To crown it all, Miss Louise van Putten, who had been Circuit Steward when I lived in Statia, was with friends in St Maarten, and made the time, despite ill-health, to see us at the Hotel before we went to catch the plane back to Amsterdam, via Curacao on the Tuesday morning. Rev. Bonny Byron kindly came all the way to the airport to send us on our long journey home.

Did it really happen?   

In my previous Blog, (which you ought to read first) I described arriving to share in 150th Anniversary Celebrations at Ebenezer Methodist Chapel in Marigot, St. Martin in the French West Indies.
I ended looking forward to some special events.

These events were:
 a film evening when we viewed previous anniversary celebrations,
an evening with great programme of sacred music, sung by several choirs, including those from other churches in the Circuit,
and a Cultural Evening at the local Sports Centre, with dance groups and cheerful plays (with much laughter).
We rested well and enjoyed the lovely view from our room, the air-conditioned comfort, and the opportunity to walk a short way in the heat to the town of Marigot. We had lunch with the Minister, Revd Bonny Byron, one day, and when we got back from the fine restaurant at Simpson Bay on the Dutch side, I rode with her to the Circuit office, in my day the Manse which seemed quite large: now it was a very small building opposite shopping Mall! There we sorted out the hymns for the Sunday service, in one case by the Secretary the Minister and I singing a tune down the phone to various  choir members until a couple of them identified the first line of the hymn to which it is set in the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book, still used in the Caribbean.
One morning we rode over with Revd John Gumbs and his wife to Philipsburg, looked round the shops full of jewels and duty-free goods, which the shop-keepers were keen to show us because an expected cruise ship had been cancelled. We found jewellers even at the spot where the Catholic Hospital, where Gerard had been born, used to be. We went back to Marigot in a local bus, very reasonable in cost and well-filled with cheerful folk.

Another afternoon, Mrs Rose Miller, who had been a young Local Preacher when I was in St Martin, still a preacher and a Lay Worker in the Circuit, got her husband to drive us round all the churches and places  I used to visit -Colombier, Grand Case, French Cul de Sac and Quartier d’Orleans. There was an anxious time when the car developed a flat tyre, but Rose stopped a young man on his way into town and he changed the wheel, interrupted by some very heavy showers of welcome rain. It was a fascinating ride, seeing so many changes in the countryside, and an encouraging one, seeing the churches alive and well. We completed the circle of the island round through the Dutch side, where the rain had caused quite heavy temporary flooding. It reminded us of the warning from Revd Johnny Gumbs’s wife that the drive to make new land in Philipsburg, capital town on the Dutch side, by filling in the Salt pond with sand dredged from the harbour was going to take flood plains when it rained in the hills. The dredging has made the harbour big enough to take four of the largest cruise liners in the world at the same time, the new land place for more shops....
 
The day for the Anniversary celebration –Sunday, 22nd, arrived, by which time there were several of us guests together in the Hotel: it was great to meet up with those who had been colleagues so many years ago, as well as sharing a meal with Revd Franklyn Manners, the President of the Leeward Islands District, who recalled being one of the young people who came to a youth week we held in  St Eustatius in 1966 or ’67 (he now is in the US Virgin Islands).
After breakfast a taxi fetched Joyce, Mr Manners and me, and took us down to the Church. The stewards were all ladies dressed in smart light blue suits, and the musicians and other people kept arriving until the church was well-filled. (Incidentally, it felt smaller with its smartly-painted walls and ceiling, especially decorated with golden hangings and fine flowers –in ‘my day’ the flowers were usually coloured leaves of what I think were called crotons). It was a strange and humbling experience to be able to lead worship in that impressive place, and the singing and general atmosphere of worship was a tonic. I was also very nervous, and Revd Manners very politely sat in the congregation with Joyce. It was during the service that I was able to present to the Ebenezer Chapel a statuette representing the figure of John Wesley in the Courtyard of the New Room in Bristol, and to take the greetings of several U.K. churches at whose Anniversaries we had been in 2009. These were Bitton and Cock Road, two small chapels in the Bristol and South Gloucestershire Circuit who celebrated their 150th; All Saints, Abingdon (a young 50); and Sandfields, Port Talbot (64th). I think it was appreciated.

We had a pleasant lunch at the hotel with the Revd Manners, and after a brief pause it was back to the Chapel for the main event –the Anniversary Celebration service at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
This was a great act of worship and praise, with fine singing and a 3-hour celebration and act of re-dedication, in the presence of the great and the good from the Community, the neighbouring circuits, and representatives of other denominations. Messages of greeting, reminders of many special times in the past, and a general joy on this special occasion should stay in the memories of the people for years to come. It was my privilege to read a special message of congratulation and greeting from the British Methodist Conference, sent from Brazil via Revd Tom Quenet from Methodist Church House. I also went on to give the formal greetings on behalf of past Ministers from the UK and, although I have always had misgivings about some ‘apologies’ for past outrages in history, found myself moved to express the deep regret of many of us that we from the West represented, and often practised, real prejudice and insensitivity towards our sisters and brothers from Africa. I felt that both the message and the apology were well-received, and my own heart was lighter for speaking as I did.
Then the President of the District preached an encouraging sermon, and everybody was given refreshments in suitably-labelled containers. All so well organised.
That was not quite the end. A coach load of visitors were then taken round the lagoon to the Princess Juliana International Airport for a fine dinner, returning well-satisfied in every sense late into the evening to our hotel.

Return to St. Martin - a report

In the summer of 2009 I received an unexpected email from the West Indies. Like several other ministers from the British Isles who had worked in the area known as the Leeward Islands, I had written a few lines of greeting for a souvenir book being published to mark the 150th Anniversary of the Ebenezer Methodist Chapel in Marigot, St.Martin.
When I had flown there in 1962 the Chapel had been my first charge, and the total population of the island, which uniquely is divided into a French country in the north and a Dutch country, Sint Maarten, in the south, was less than 6,000. To my delight, I received an email asking if I could attend the celebrations at the end of November, 2009, and did not take much persuading to say, “Yes please.” Which is why, on 16th November, my wife Joyce and I, took a flight from Bristol to Amsterdam. Here we were able to meet up with my cousin Ingrid. She had visited my family in Marigot in the 1960s, and we looked over some photos she had saved. The following morning we went to Schipol Airport, and boarded a KLM 747 Jumbo jet, and flew across the ocean to land in the heat of the early afternoon at the same airport I flew into in a 6-seater plane. The airport is still fairly small, and the pilot warned us that he would have to brake sharply after we had swooped in over the heads of people on the beach.
Off the plane, with our suitcases, we walked out to the arrivals area, and the first person I saw was Nestor, now a baggage handler, but a member of the youth fellowship in our younger days and cheerily saying “Hello, Reverend James”, and then to see the kind face of Teacher Denise Louisey –a student in 1962 and also in the MYF when on vacation from college in Guadeloupe.
Much had changed, not only the size of the planes: the population now stands at over 95,000, reputedly made up of over 100 nationalities, and life has changed out of all recognition for many of the people I had known. What had not changed was their faith, and their joy in living out the gospel. The old Dutch-French Circuit has now grown into two Circuits, with a new self-confidence and joy in service which made staging four days of celebration possible and exciting.
Denise took us to the fine Beach Plaza Hotel, with hospitality provided by the Circuit, starting with a lovely flower arrangement in our room overlooking the lovely blue waters of the channel between St Martin and the nearby island of Anguilla. The rest of the week gave us time to relax, look around the shops, even take a dip in the sea, and especially to see how people live in a land where tourism shapes the life of every person, bringing  much prosperity and comforts, and also temptations and challenges.  Whenever we met people the welcome was warm and open, and some even showed me their certificates of baptism, signed by me! The first lady to welcome me at the film night came to tell me that it was her husband, a member who was a fisherman, who took us with my cousin Ingrid, who we had seen only two days previously, to Anguilla so many years before. He greeted me on Sunday morning, sadly now on crutches but still open-faced and friendly.
The church building itself, built only 12 years after the end of slavery to provide a spiritual home for people converted under the ministry of an Anguillian free man, Pastor John Hodge,  has stood firm despite many hurricanes have battered at it, and a serious fire in the 1980s, was immaculate and beautifully decorated for the Anniversary. With a host of visitors and guests, including several ministers from nearby Circuits, and supernumerary ministers from Anguilla, we were dined at a local café, and welcomed at evening events in the church.


My next blog will describe what happened!

Travelling around the land old ministers of the Methodist Church keep meeting people they have known before -it's not a clique but more like an extended family. We are always asked what we are doing now, and polite people graciously pretend they don't know and say "Retired, really? What's happening in Bristol ? We get the example of the merging of Circuits there as the way forward for every place."
If you have visited the website before you will probably know that until 2007 there were 5 'Circuits' in and around Bristol, and now there is one. Each had several ministers and almost all cared for more than one church, but now there are 50 places of worship and 22 ministers -and that is as big as it gets anywhere in Britain.
That's a lot to organise, and a great deal of excellent work has been done, but it is also an extremely complicated body and in the next few weeks we expect to hear who has agreed to become the next Superintendent Minister, and will wish them super-strength and super-patience.
Too large? The Lord alone knows, but if Christians were as awkward and arrogant as some of our critics, it would be impossible to have got as far as we have.

The problem with 'having' a blog is that you have also to be infected with the blogcumfacebookcumbebocumtwitter virus. Some prominent people seem to consider what  they tell unseen and unknown strangers to be their greatest achievements.
Now we will have some sort of a reaction because the curiosity taking part engenders has been shown to allow people with the most extreme perversions to share their 'secrets', in the case of three people who passed on to each other material obtained where children were meant to be cared for. We can only hope that these were not the sort of 'messages' many others did not see.
Which may explain why, when Mr Site (through whom we present this website to the world) included the facility for a blog page, although I had I set one up, I have not worked out how to get anyone to read mine. Some Methodists seem to find technology and websites far too trivial for their consideration, and it is no secret that the proportion of local members who access this website is tiny: if anybody read them, my blogs raised no comments whatsoever. So I deleted the page until last week, when I discovered that what I wrote last year was still floating round the ether, and I am trying again. Has anybody any idea how my time, which I do not grudge, might be used more fruitfully, or do you just think I'm wasting my time? If I were a blog virus sufferer I might know the answer.
Have a cheerful day!

In the recent Methodist Heritage Forum meeting in Bristol all churches were encouraged to join the scheme, so successful in so many areas, to take part in the DOORS OPEN DAY(s) in September, when many members of the public take the opportunity to see the inside of important buildings. In the City of Bristol thousands walk from site to site using a comprehensive Guide, and John Wesley's Chapel and the Charles Wesley House received over 1,000 visitors in each of the past 2 years.
What is important to realise is that arrangements for one September begin as soon as the doors close for the previous ones.
Members of some churches in our Circuit which have opened their doors in recent years have been dispirited, but it may be because they were not in a local Guide. The procedure for offering to be part of one seems to be kept fairly quiet: but it does not mean that offers to join will not be welcomes.

What is important is to apply to your local Council NOW before the end of February. You will be almost overwhelmed by the difference in numbers, and become a vital part of a Fresh Expression of showing that our Mission has been formed, and can grow, by understanding and being proud of our past.

Contact this website if we can find out more for you, please.

Enjoy!

A minister rang me (the 'webservant') to ask me to tell the congregation in some churches that Sunday's services were cancelled due to the dangerous icy roads forecast.
Within 15 minutes the information was available to the world, including tens of members, or even more, in whose homes Computers were switched on and who were directly involved. If I had been told about more such special arrangements, the news could have quickly and easily have been spread over hundreds within Bristol and South Gloucestershire.
In the next 12 hours in homes all round the circuit in those very homes some would have said "I wonder when our minister/steward/friends will ring to tell us whether or not they care enough about safety and don't expect us to risk our necks by sliding to Church."
If you are one of the six or seven people who open this website -and are actually involved in one of the churches in the BSG Circuit -may I ask a favour, please? Can we find any way to encourage more members to use the Internet as a friendly window on our world. Even parents and grandparents have younger members of the family who would not even mind opening this website for a few minutes between visits to Facebook and/or Bebo (did you know that "Bebo" is an acronym for "Blog early, blog often"?) -even if to smile indulgently about what we're trying to pass on -and say "Hey Gran, you've got Sunday morning at home!" (Maybe you'll say then something uplifting about still giving time to pray, study the bible, or listen to a taped sermon, or maybe not!)

I still believe that the web is worth using for good.

Take care!

Last Monday the Chair of the District declared open an exhibition showing some of the groups and churches who puit their faith into practice by doing good things in the community, such as providing for people in their senior years (MHA), or meeting the needy ('Midland Road' Methodist Centre), or providing hospitality for students from overseas (MIH). We do hope that people will go in and look at what is on offer.

Also there was Rachael Fletcher, Free Church Chaplain at the University of Bristol, showing an interest and reminding us of the care we ought to show when future leaders of the nation have so many tantalising offers of the future, and it is not always rosy.

It is just a reminder of how many of these places and organisations are kept going by teams of heavily-committed managers and very modestly-paid managers, alongside volunteers whose time and generosity seems to challenge those who sit in the corner and claim that THEY need more help, those places are not as important and the churches to which they belong (forgetting that the volunteers probably do more than anyone in their own churches.)

A somebody said, that's Mission.

It is always interesting to hear on any religious radio or tv programme, or to read in the religious press, how many people whose attitude to belief ranges from agnosticism to militant atheism spend time listening, watching or reading what Christians say. Sometimes I wonder if there would be more outcry from atheists than believers if (when) the BBC axes 'Songs of Praise".
I returned the compliment and looked up the Secular Society website, and read some alternative thoughts for the day, and they clearly are written by people who tune in religiously each day to the 'real thing', choking on their cornflakes. (Maybe I'm biassed, but I reckon Lord Griffiths* and Colin Morris make better listening!)

It was therefore interesting to look on the Methodist Church website to see that there is a Pod Radio interview with the young lady who benefitted from Professor Dawkins' generous payment for 'those advertisements on the buses' which say that there is probably no God.

*Lord Griffiths wrote a gracious reply to that excellent journalist Polly  Toynbee, who wrote an anti-Christmas piece in the Guardian for Christmas in the Methodist Recorder recently. If you do not subscribe, ask somebody to let you see it. It's tempting to ask the paper for permission to reproduce it on this website.

I hope that this will be the first of many reports of the life of Churches in our Circuit. So many work selflessly with little recognition, and we can only admire the work done at Fishponds, with thanks to Mary:

Although we are quite a small and on the whole elderly congregation at Fishponds Methodist, our premises are well used during the week, so we decided to invite all the groups to decorate a tree in the spirit of their organisation.  This, we felt, was a way of helping them to feel that they are not just renting any old hall, but that in so doing, they are part of the church. So, as a result, we had trees from the Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, Toddlers Group, Art Club, Friends and Neighbours, Coffee Morning and the Zimbabwean Church that meets on our premises, as well as the church’s own trees.  We were also pleased to include the tree, Nativity Scene and a group of knitted carol singers from our friends from Stapleton Methodist, which closed in August. We also have strong links with ‘ACTIVATE’, a group which works to foster community spirit in Fishponds and is responsible for the Farmers’ Market, the Fishponds Horticultural Show and a monthly Lunchtime Concert.  So we had a Concert tree and an ‘Activate’ tree plus Little Hayes Nursery and the local councillor’s tree.  Added to this were three special Christmas arrangements, a wall decoration the Gardener’s Tree and a Prayer Tree where people were invited to leave a Christmas prayer. 
We opened the church to the public and finished with a Carol Service on the Sunday before Christmas.  As a result we are able to send just over £100 to Frenchay Cardiac Unit and just over £100 for relief work in Zimbabwe.
We were delighted with the results and with the links forged with the various groups.  Incidentally, we asked people to choose their favourite trees.  The winner was one of the Rainbow groups and they received a box of chocolates at the Carol Service, a lovely ending to the festival!

As the year of 2008 ends, we look back on the brave move last September to change the way the people of the Methodist Church in Bristol and South Gloucestershire work together and in the community. At least it has got underway with signs that it is not as painful as some thought, as challenging as we feared. The best feature has been the events which brought the whole new Circuit into being, and the thought and prayer of those who accept that reducing the number of Circuits should be more down to inspiration than desperation. Let us make 2009 a year when we look even more closely and prayerfully at the mission of Christian people to bring hope and peace into a muddled and violent place.

For centuries the churches had various degrees of success in living the Gospel, loving, caring and hoping for the world where Christ reigns. About 50 years ago the noisier and brighter souls in our society who said that religion was the cause of strife set about taking over many parts of our nation -and we let them. They have hardly proved that un-religious people are any better and making society what we and they wish it could be. Let us at least work even harder to follow John Wesley's aim to 'spread Christan holiness" in the coming year.