Methodist Conference in Scarborough

The ministerial session has been in process since Thursday, the representative session begins today and continues until next Thursday. Monday will be the anniversary of my Methodist ordination in 196o at the Liverpool Conference. This year's ordination services are tomorrow and include one hosted by St Mary's, Scarborough. On Tuesday the annual lecture of the Methodist Sacramental Fellowship will be hosted by St Martin-on-the-hill, Scarborough.

Don’t moan about Covenant with Anglicans, Methodists told
by Pat Ashworth

METHODISTS will be urged to “moan less” about the perceived limitations of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant, when the Methodist Conference meets in Scarborough from 5 to 10 July.

The retiring general secretary, the Revd David Deeks, will include in his opening remarks what he describes as a “parting plea” of the relationship: “I hear time and time again: ‘The Covenant has made no discernible difference here.’ My appeal to Methodists is to moan less and instead to take the initiative everywhere to open up new possibilities.”

The Conference will receive the quinquennial report of the Joint Implementation Commission (JIC), Embracing the Covenant, and will be asked to approve a successor body for a further five-year period. The JIC seeks to extend its membership, recommending the inclusion of a Methodist representative from Scotland and one from Wales, together with one appointed by the Church in Wales, and one by the Scottish Episcopal Church.

The report warns: “Some Methodists feel that the implementation of the Covenant is yet to have much impact on their worship, mission and ministry, and any future work will have to take account of this perception.” The Conference will be asked to commit to continued collaboration with the C of E in Fresh Expressions, which in the Methodist Church will include some pioneering new ministry.

Sustainability and development will be identified as the Church’s medium- to long-term challenge. Mission statistics for 2005-2007 show that an average of 262,000 adults, young people, and children attended Methodist worship each week in October 2007. Adult attendance has fallen by ten per cent over the triennium and membership by six per cent. Weddings, confirmations, and junior attendance have fallen at a faster rate.

But weekly attendance was higher in 2007 than in 2006, with most of that increase at midweek services: “After a long period of decline, it remains to be seen whether this represents the continuing reversal of a trend,” the report says. Numbers of adult baptisms have grown to around 900 a year, and the report highlights growth in Scouting groups and midweek groups for the under-fives, which “suggest that the pattern [of decline] is neither uniform nor irreversible”.
Mr Deeks will tell the Conference: “A profound change is taking place in the culture of the Church. . . My only fear is that there is a small number of church leaders (presbyters prominent among them) who were so bruised and demoralised by the dispiriting loss of nerve a generation ago, that they remain deeply sceptical, holding people back instead of encouraging them to move forward.”

Debate highlights will include a report on abortion and early human life, Created in God’s Image. The joint public-issues team of Methodists, Baptists, and the URC is working on a study guide, to be available by June 2009; and the 38-page resource paper to the Conference is an significant contribution to the debate.

It will be commended for reflection and study. The team will direct that: “In the light of the changed social and political context, and scientific and medical developments, including the gestational age at which a premature infant may survive, the Methodist Council should appoint a group to do further work on the issues surrounding abortion, including the drafting of a revision of the Methodist Statement on Abortion (1976).”

Racial, gender and disability justice will be reviewed. On human sexuality, the Conference will be recommended not to change the 1993 (formerly Derby) Resolutions, following a consultation among the membership that showed insufficient support for change. The six resolutions reaffirmed the Methodist Church’s traditional teaching on human sexuality: “namely, chastity for all outside marriage and fidelity within it”.

Youth participation will be a key report, introducing new posts of part-time “District Youth Enablers”. Central funding of £386,367 will be allocated to the employment of someone aged between 16-23 for 15 hours a week in each district. A youth assembly will elect a Youth President Elect each year as a spokesperson for young Methodists.

Conference will launch the re-configured Connexional team, the new central structure which will operate from 1 September.

President-bishop proposed

THE joint commission for the implementation of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant has suggested in its quinquennial report, Embracing the Covenant, published last week, that the President of the Methodist Conference should be consecrated as a bishop.

“An episcopal President of conference would be a bishop for the whole Connexion, which, as we have pointed out, already has certain characteristics of a large diocese. . . As now, the President, working with the Vice-President, would have a Connexion-wide ministry of leadership. But, while the first ordination could very well be of one bishop, some more bishops would be necessary for an effective episcopal ministry throughout the Connexion (including ordinations) and in relation to wider society and to other Churches.”

As incoming Presidents were ordained bishop, there would, in a few years, be a small group of bishops, “ordained for a lifelong ministry”, the commission says.

The ordination of the first “President-bishop” could be obtained, it suggests, by inviting one of the Churches that is both in communion with the Methodist Church and “ordered in the historic episcopate” to send a bishop to take part in the laying on of hands: it mentions the United Churches of South Asia, and some Lutheran Churches of Northern Europe.

“The Connexional nature of Methodist episcopal ministry could challenge the Church of England to be a more united Church, with more internal coherence,” the report says. “The Church of England would be challenged to anticipate, as far as it could, a future that was already becoming a reality, and therefore to take a constructive view of what the 1998 Lambeth Conference called ‘bearable anomalies’ in order to make it possible for Anglican and Methodist bishops, presbyters and deacons to work together on equal terms.”

It set outs various areas of church life in which there could be greater sharing in decision-making, but warns that the Covenant relationship must be allowed to unfold gradually. “The energy for implementing the Covenant is mainly at local level and among senior church leaders,” the report says. “We wonder whether the Churches have either the energy or the will to adapt institutionally to each other in any significant way.”

Guide to bishops debate. The Revd Simon Killwick, chairman of the Catholic Group in General Synod, has produced “A Simple Guide to the Manchester Report” for Synod members, writes Pat Ashworth. It summarises the options, and makes a few comments on each one. The advantages and disadvantages attached to each will “depend upon your perspective”, it says.

Embracing the Covenant (Methodist Publishing House, £5.99; 978-1-85852-346-9).