Virtual Methodist

As I wrote in my post on Burns night, last week I was away with a group of ministers and Christian community workers on a residential consultation concerning the nature of working in loyalist communities, such as our own in Ballybeen. The quality of the inputs was tremendous. Hats off to Derek Poole and the folks at the LINC Resource Centre for pulling it together, and to the various contributers. There was enough material to keep me blogging for months... But one of the themes that we kept coming back to was the tendency within loyalist communities, and the pressure in community work in general, to focus on the negatives. A while back there was collective rejoicing in our own community programme, Dundonald Family and Community Initiative... Why? Because one of the electoral wards that we serve had just broken through on the Noble Indices into the list of the 10% most deprived communities in Northern Ireland. Why the rejoicing? Because such a statistic potentially unlocked charitable a...

Just come across something that has REALLY got my goat... Currently I minister in Ballybeen, the second largest housing scheme in Northern Ireland, with all of the attendant problems that 1960s housing schemes have anywhere in the western world, and a few extra that are due to the nature of our little local difficulties over the past 40 years. It has a high level of teen parents, single parents and blended families; large numbers of senior citizens; low educational attainment; a large level of debt problems; high levels of unemployment (all local manufacturing has now been discontinued). Into the middle of this a local developer is planning to parachute a prestige, gated apartment complex called Skye Buildings . No mention of Ballybeen in any of the publicity... but its OK... even if those buying do realise where it is, the gates should reassure them that the peasants will be kept safely at a distance. This is gentrification at it's worst. No sense of integration within the communi...

Recently had a bizarre and very full week. From Saturday 10th November through to Sunday 18th my church, Dundonald Methodist, worked with the other 2 main churches in Ballybeen, namely St. Mary's Church of Ireland and Christ Church Presbyterian, on an evangelistic outreach programme, which we called "Connect". It was underpinned by the idea of the 3 churches 'connecting' together, to 'connect' with the wider community and encourage people to 'connect' with God. You get the picture. We were supported in this by 3 evangelists: Roger Murphy, from Through Faith Missions , Paul Hoey of CPAS and Paul Woodman, an illusionist who is also a pastor in City Life Church in Southampton. There were a range of events in different venues around the estate all week, reaching out to all ages and interests, a men's health event, a seniors' tea dance, an evening of salsa aerobics for women, a beach party for teens (which is a novel idea for Ballybeen in the ...