Virtual Methodist

Last Thursday evening at the "Listening to Your Enemies" event in Skainos, Jo Berry emphasised that it is important to have a safe space for difficult discussions... sadly the environment around Skainos seemed anything but safe that night. A couple of friends, colleagues and congregation members have already suggested to me, via email, facebook and face to face that the 4 Corners Festival and/or EBM /Skainos were naïve/arrogant/bloody stupid (delete as applicable) to field such an event in inner east Belfast, especially given recent interface tensions with the Short Strand residents, flag protests, the stand-off after the twelfth parade last year and other tensions concerning Skainos itself. Those who believed that it was still a worthwhile event, just not at the right time or in the right place, have asked why we didn't swap the two Methodist events and have the 4 Church Leaders event in Skainos and the Berry/Magee one on my own patch, the Agape Centre...

When we were planning the 4 Corners Festival some of our thinking was coloured by the theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity "Is Christ Divided?" and some by the fact that many in the room had also been involved with the Hope and History Campaign in the run up to the Haass talks. In that there was a reminder that the New Testament includes a call to love our neighbours, and even our enemies. This is in response to God’s reconciling, redemptive love for us, and a reflection of our role, as Christians to be ambassadors of that reconciling love, calling on people to be reconciled to God and to each other. However, such high-minded ideals take a bit of work... Reconciliation with one another requires a process that includes the recognition that our enemies are human beings... and loving such enemies may not be an instant thing... especially when that enmity has cost us and ours dearly. So when EBM offered to host an evening with Jo Berry and Patrick Mag...

It's one week on from the events at East Belfast Mission's Skainos Centre, and the effects of it rumble on . The next day I published on Facebook a couple of links to excellent pieces by friends and fellow bloggers  Dave Magee and Steve Stockman . Gary Mason the Superintendent minister of   East Belfast Mission, and Glenn Jordan , the director of the Skainos Project, have also offered their personal reflections on the events that have impacted on them personally, on the ministry of EBM/Skainos and the lives of those living and working in the area. It has taken me, however, substantially more time to gather my thoughts sufficiently to offer the following fragmented reflections. I hope that my musings don’t re-ignite any tensions, but I do believe that the events of that night, the run up to it and fallout from it deserve further thought… I was going to post it as a single blog of short snapshots, but it grew beyond that and so I’ll be rolling out a few connected posts ove...

My post of yesterday seems to have struck a chord or two given the amount of traffic it has generated on the site... That's encouraging, as I was very reluctant to post it, because, contrary to popular perception I'm not grumpy about everything all the time. I'm forever telling my congregation that we are good news people not bad news, so in contrast to my 12 mid-winter gripes of yesterday, here are 12 signs of hope that keep me going. They are not direct responses to the issues I raised, but are examples of the things that remind me that, in the midst of a fallen world, God in his grace is at work redeeming and renewing that which he once looked on and called good... So here goes: The commitment of Christian people across the UK to help the poorest in society through food pantries and other initiatives, including the Trussell Trust Foodbanks which have grown into a 300 strong network over the past 13 years, with 100 being established in the last year... with, hopefu...

It was a strange Holy Week this year… I suppose it had crept up on me unawares to a certain extent because I had been off ill in the run up to it... But the fact that it was as early as it can possibly be (and will be for the next 134 years or something like that according to someone I was talking to) also put a slightly different slant on it, as all the Easter allusions to new life and spring were a little out of sync. It began as ever with Palm Sunday and reflections about that cheering crowd waving palm leaves on the road into Jerusalem, but then the next day, there were yet more cheering crowds... this time with Shamrocks rather than palm leaves, because it was St. Patrick's Day. This sent the liturgically literate into a bit of a tailspin... Should it be a feast or a fast? But the rest of the world celebrated regardless... Actually, to paraphrase the words of Caiaphas about Jesus on Palm Sunday, and apply them to our own St. Pat, it seemed as if the whole world has gone over t...