Archives: News

Conference Business Digest 2023

The Conference 2023 Business Digest is ready to be read online. Read what happened at the 2023 Conference. Click here.

MK Methodist Circuit – Monthly Newsletter – July 2023

Please find below the July edition of the Circuit Newsletter.

Please send items for inclusion in the August 2023 edition to the Circuit Administrator, email office.mkmc@yahoo.com, by Wednesday 19th July.

Photos are very welcome but do get the permission of anyone pictured.

MK-Methodist-Circuit-Monthly-Newsletter-July-2023Download

A Justice Seeking Church

The report from the Walking with Micah project, A Justice-Seeking Church was taken to the Methodist Conference this year. This report outlines why we do justice, what we do, and how we do it, all as part of the Methodist Church. Join a webinar, listen to the audio version and read a summary of the report here.

The Methodist Conference has overwhelmingly voted to recommit the Methodist Church to being a Justice-seeking Church. The report received by the Conference hopes to encourage more Methodists in acting for justice, along with their local communities, and to focus efforts on contributing to change in key areas including poverty, refugees, the environment, discrimination and peace.

The report is the result of a two-year process of conversation and listening. This involved looking at how Methodists have worked for justice throughout their history and what is being done now, as well as hearing people’s experiences of injustice. The report involved churches, young people, communities and schools sharing their visions of what a just world looks like.

Presidential Designates 

The Methodist Conference has elected the Revd Helen Cameron to serve as President and Mrs Carolyn Godfrey to serve as Vice-President, starting their year of office with the Representative Session of the Methodist Conference in Leeds in June 2024.

Revd Helen spoke on BBC Radio Northampton about her election. Click here – tune in from 2hrs 52mins.

New President & Vice President 

The Revd Gill Newton has been elected and inducted as President of the Methodist Conference alongside Vice-President, Deacon Kerry Scarlett. The induction took place on Saturday 24 June at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole, during the Methodist Conference. 

If you missed the President & Vice-President addresses at The Methodist Conference, you can find them here. They both talk about what treasure looks like in our personal lives and how we can find it in our communities and churches.

Prayers for Ukraine

Every Friday evening at 7.30pm, the Methodist Peace Fellowship and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, as well as others, pray for peace in Ukraine. All are welcome to join the led sessions regularly or occasionally.

Join here

Portfolio reader for candidates’ portfolios

Do you know anyone who might be interested to become a portfolio reader for candidates’ portfolios. This role replaces the assessment previously carried out. The readers carry out a robust process and offer guidance to the candidate and the Connexional committee.

This is what is needed:

  • People who have some experience of assessing written and creative work (video, audio, visual) in relation to expressing a call to ordained ministry and theological reflection.
  • Willing to be part of a team who read portfolios individually but also check aspects with each other and produce reports that the whole group ‘own’.
  • People who have time to do this work between the last week of November and Christmas (ie: it is not easy for people in active circuit ministry).
  • Willing to attend a meeting online in very early January (2 Jan 2024) and a review/training meeting in person that is likely to be early March in 2024.
  • More women, more people from global majority heritage, more lay people, more deacons.

The current team is not large enough to deal with the potential numbers of candidates which could be higher than in recent years. Also some of the team members are in their last year. The team are aware that they are not sufficiently diverse. We would also like some people to shadow the role before launching into it (though we anticipate that the need will be such that some new people might need to launch straight in, but they will do so with support as part of a team). Guidance and training is provided.

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