This week one of my most important tasks is to prepare for Methodist Conference. Tomorrow evening I shall join our Plymouth and Exeter District pre-Conference preparation meeting, where we will pray and prepare together as we work through the agenda. We will also eat together and there will almost certainly be lots of banter around the table.
I am writing the blog very carefully in the light of the events of the past week. On Friday morning each of us who exercised our right to vote in the EU Referendum will have reacted according to the result and in line with our own deeply held beliefs and convictions. A whole range of reactions and emotions have been expressed over the past three days.
There is no ‘MWiB line’ on the issue of our membership of the European Union, just as there is no MWiB line on issues which we will address at Methodist Conference during the first week of July.
If you are able, please pray for those of us who will confer at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. I commend to you this prayer from the Conference handbook, written by Revd Naomi Cooke:
Eternal Welcome and Embrace,
you spoke and said: before you were formed in your mother’s womb, I knew you.
As we gather for this Conference, we are each a gift to the other, created in your image, most precious in your sight.
Liberate us from the confines of our hearts and minds.
Call us to come out from the secure tombs of our making,
that we might step into the terrifying freedom of your resurrection love.
May we hear your word to us:
this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.
Listen to him.
Just listen to him.
My photo tonight is from my valuable period of ‘time out’ yesterday on Exmoor.
