Civic Hall,
Wolverhampton
2nd - 9th July 2009 |
Host Districts of The Chester & Stoke on Trent, Wolverhampton & Shrewsbury and Birmingham Districts |
This morning our opening prayers were led by representatives from the Chester & Stoke District before we dealt with administrative matters – including the report of the business committee suggesting an alternative way of dealing with Notices of Motion on Thursday when we are usually short of time for the amount of business left to be done. Unfortunately for the business committee the Conference didn’t agree with their suggestion!
Martyn Atkins, the Secretary of Conference, then introduced to the Conference the Rt Revd Graham Cray who is the newly appointed team leader of Fresh Expressions and we duly welcomed him. The main business of the morning has been the debate surrounding the report ‘Hope in God’s Future – Christian Discipleship in the context of Climate Change’. We agreed the resolutions – with some concern whether the report was radical enough - and agreed to send it out for consultation, study and discussion. An additional resolution regarding the report and its issues was brought by representatives of our partner churches throughout the world, some of whom spoke movingly about how they are feeling the affects of climate change in their own countries.
At 12 o’clock we paused for a moment’s silence and prayer to remember the anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings.
We were then slightly behind schedule so we began the report which looked at world church relationships – adjourning the debate to be returned to – before receiving a report back The Gambia and the inaugural Conference of the autonomous Methodist Church in The Gambia. This report was in the form of a video of the President (then the Revd Stephen Poxon) as that Church came into being and we hear from the President & Vice-President of The Gambia.
We then moved to the AGM of the Methodist Missionary Society – of which all Methodist members are also members of. We heard a story from Mission Partner Nicola Vidamour of her work in Russian who told us that there are now more churches in Russia than there are Starbucks coffee shops! And we hear from the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church Zimbabwe who shared news with us of the current situation & how we can support the church. We heard how the money raised at last year’s Conference was used to purchase a lorry which is now being used to transport ministers & food around the country. We were encouraged to give more freely to the Fund for World Mission before the bishop led us in a Zimbabwean song the word of which meant ‘Thank God because God is good’ in recognition of the answer to our prayers.
The business of the AGM was also adjourned for lunch – also to be returned to later!
On resuming business after lunch we began with pensions – the report of the Methodist Ministers Pension Scheme (not an easy topic for first thing after lunch!) We agreed to a 7 per cent increase of stipends both in the year beginning 01/09/09 and again in 2010. This increase, we agreed, would be divided by an additional 2% to be paid by ministers and an additional 5 per cent to be paid by those bodies responsible for the payment of stipends. How this 7 per cent would be divided for the year 2010 would be clarified next year. We agreed to establish a designated pension reserve fund from the proceeds of property sales thereby increasing the amount of the levy which goes to the Connextional priority fund. There was also some discussion around the review of the minister’s pension scheme that is taking place – given that the reasons for the size of the deficit are not temporary.
From pensions we turned to the Methodist Council report which simply outlined the work that the Council has done in the past year – much of which is contained in other Conference reports.
We agreed amendments to Standing Orders outlining the purposes and terms of reference of the Connexional Grants committee before we then received the report of the grants committee. It was interesting to see the list of projects – both in Britain and overseas – which have received grants from the committee over the past year, and we agreed arrangements for grant making next year.
Next on the agenda was the report of the Faith & Order committee which took the form of a report regarding the new ways of working of the committee which have been implemented this year, establishing a working party to develop a theological statement on the nature of pastoral care in the Methodist Church, agreeing that the working party on looking at membership would report to Conference in 2010 instead of this year (and included within their remit a Notice of Motion asking for work to be done around the pastoral issues of those requesting adult baptism having found faith as adults but who have been baptised as infants), agreed the British Methodist Church’s response to the World Council of Churches paper ‘The Nature and Mission of the Church’ and we received the report of the work the committee has done during the year in terms of scrutiny and consultancy including establishing a working group with the Church of England called ‘The Joint Anglican-Methodist Working party on the Ecclesiology of Emerging Expressions of Church’ (affectionately known as JAMWPEEC – basically looking at the nature of the church in relation to Fresh Expressions) as well as looking at future work the committee hopes to do in the coming year.
Finally, before the tea break we returned to the business on the review of World Church Relationships staffing which we had to adjourn this morning – concerns were raised over the area of mission education and we were assured that a report addressing these concerns would be brought to the Autumn meeting of the Methodist Council and we agreed to the additional full-time post in the World Church relationships cluster in the Connextional Team.
One other thing that we have been doing today is voting on next year’s President and Vice-President. The candidates were revealed today (a choice of seven for President & 5 for Vice-President), we have until the end of business to vote and the result will be announced tomorrow.
After tea we dealt with the business of the Stationing Committee – we received the account of the stationing process in the past year & policy issues dealt with, agreed consistent standards for manses across the connexion to include manses for deacons as well as presbyters and we agreed Guidelines for manse accommodation to included as guidelines within CPD rather than within Standing Orders which deal rather with general principles. This report was followed by the report taking forward the recommendation of the Stationing Review Group.
Related to stationing matters, we debated a resolution brought to Conference brought by the Bristol District regarding the needs of larger circuits and the difficulties of appointing superintendents to such larger circuits. The Resolution requested that circuits with more than 12 ministers be given permission to advertise for a superintendent rather than they be appointed through the normal stationing process. After debate, we decided to refer this to the Stationing Committee.
We then returned to the missionary society AGM – part two! We heard news regarding the financial aspects of this report from Chris Elliot & John Ellis – noting that donations had gone down in the year covered by the report from the preceding year and apologising to the MMS difficulties with accounting processes. A clarifying statement regarding the finances will be brought to Conference before the end of Conference and the MMS report will be reissued in time for September Synods when the report is usually circulated.
Giving we were then ahead of time, we dealt with a number of notices of motion – beginning with expressing our solidarity with the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka in the context of recent conflict & our concern regarding internally displaced people held in camps. We resolved, by standing vote, to ask the Sri Lankan government to permit individuals & organisations more access to these camps to meet the needs of displaced persons effectively and create conditions that will enable them to return to their homes & re-build their lives in a secure & peaceful environment. We assure the Sri Lankan people of our continuing concern and our prayers.
Then we agreed to support a ‘year of the bible’ given that 2011 is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible & encouraging churches and circuits to make use of resources produced to mark this anniversary.
We discussed the ‘renewal of the preaching ministry’ and overwhelmingly reaffirm our belief in the ministry of preaching as a central part of the mission of the Methodist Church and directs the Connexional Team to report to the Conference of 2010 on initiatives being undertaken to support & develop preaching across the Connexion.
Ahead of our planned business Conference was then adjourned until tomorrow.
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