This month's message

Just A Thought for September 2010 by the Rev Stephen Burgess, Chair of the York and Hull District

The journey is for us all - not just ministers

IT IS a bit of a joke in our family that I admit to a fondness for Autumn. I suppose it is a mixture of looking forward to evenings sitting round the fire, and those lovely smells of leaves and damp earth. Perhaps we get enough dampness during our Summers, but it is more special in Autumn.

Autumn is also the time for new beginnings. It makes me think of starting new years in school or college, or new jobs, and it is of course the time when congregations welcome new ministers. Across the Connexion, as well as in the York (South) Circuit, there are ministers who have just moved, and who are gradually settling in to new communities.

Barbara and I can claim to be experienced “movers”, as we have lived in eleven homes since we were married! One of our sons did ask why it was that we always seemed to move home during each appointment – actually, that’s just how it’s turned out. We started married life in Birmingham; then a circuit appointment and school chaplaincy in Bromley and Chislehurst; next another school chaplaincy, in Cambridge; followed by the superintendency of the Cambridge Circuit; and then to God’s own county, and this appointment. I was thrilled to be given a badge after one Welcome Service which said: “NOT BAD FOR A SOUTHERNER”. I do try!

I’ve never sought the appointments where we have landed up, nor have we had much idea what each of them was going to be like, nor did we know much about the area where we would be living. It’s actually been a bit of an adventure, and I sometimes wish that together as God’s Church we could approach our Christian discipleship in a similar way. In other words, treat it as an adventure, a journey into the unknown – and be prepared to be surprised, and to find God there already.

At Southlands, soon after  you have said farewell to one Superintendent Minister we are asking you to welcome the Revd Jennifer McKenzie  as your new Superintendent Minister. Many of you may have managed to be at her Welcome Service, or be getting to know her in the next few weeks. If it was a challenge for me to journey from Cambridge to York, then think of the challenge for Jennifer in her journey from Manchester to be with us!

The journey we undertake as disciples of Jesus demands different things of each of us – but for us all it remains an exciting and challenging one. Discipleship is a theme of which you will hear much over this next year or so, especially as our Connexional Team I are making it a focus of their leadership within the Methodist Church. It is about each one of us seeking to be better followers of Jesus. That is our calling – every one of us.

I hope you get a chance to read the recent booklet by our General Secretary, the Revd Dr Martyn Atkins, Discipleship and the people called Methodists. It is all about the journey which we are called to undertake – not just ministers, but everyone who dares to call themselves a Christian.

So, a Happy New Methodist Year to you; make sure you welcome and get to know your new minister; but more importantly make sure you get to know Jesus more and more, and be prepared to follow wherever he leads you.

Every blessing

Stephen