I am currently on sabbatical from work, which means that I am able to do things that I would not normally be able to do. One such occasion was Sunday 21st May when Karen and I went to a café worship at Hethersett Church with our daughter and grandson. The service was wonderful, and the Church was filled with families, and we had a great time together. About twelve years ago the Church decided to open a Rainbows group for girls in the village aged 4-7 and all these years later the group is still thriving and is offering a service to a rapidly growing village community.
The Rainbows were present at the café worship and as part of the service several girls received awards for work, they had completed during the year, then a few new girls who had just joined the group made their promises before their families and the community of the Church. I have been trying to think of an illustration for today’s “Thought for the Day” for some time and the words of the Rainbows Promise resonated with me. The promise teaches small children the whole point of what being a part of Rainbows mean in very simple terms.
Today is “Conference Sunday” in the Methodist Church. The Methodist Conference is a representative group who meet as the governing body of the Church. This year the Conference is meeting in Birmingham and during this weekend, a new president and vice president will be installed, and today new ministers will be ordained into the work of the Church, it is an important event and during the next three days representatives will thrash out the business of the Church. I have attended once in my over forty years in the life of the Methodist Church and that was in the year that I was ordained, 2007 in Blackpool. I am interested in politics, but not necessarily spending a week of my life away from my family debating issues, it isn’t really my thing and I doubt that I would make a difference if was a delegate, so I don’t put my name forward.
The reason why I have agonised over writing this “thought for the day” is that I have been trying to say something meaningful about Conference Sunday. As part of my Sabbatical studies, I am trying to gain new insight on the mission of the Church in the 21st Century. Looking back at the ministry of Jesus it seems that central to his “mission” was to include the outcasts, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and forgive sins. I find it quite fascinating that even though Palestine was under Roman rule at the time, he didn’t seem to engage with the political systems of his day, his work seemed to concentrate on showing the Church of his day the error of their ways and re focus on what really mattered. On Sunday 21st May 2023, half a dozen little girls committed themselves to what it means to be a Rainbow. Maybe Conference Sunday is a good opportunity for us to think about what it means to be a Christian and, in this Church, what it means to be a Methodist.