Well it is now 10.20 on Thursday evening and this week has been every bit as busy as I predicted and more! As I said in my last post I had six funeral services to conduct over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, all of whom were connected with Shirley MC in one way or another and so it has been sad and hectic at the same time. As ever, SMC worked extremely well as a team ensuring that all went smoothly, especially on Wednesday afternoon when we hosted teas for two of the services as well as a wonderful celebration service for Mary's life which she would have loved.
Last night I attended the first meeting of the circuit assembly for the new Birmingham Circuit. The Circuit Assembly is a meeting of the Trustees of the Circuit. It is where the business matters of the circuit are attended to and decisions ratified, it will be held twice per year with the next meeting being in March. Last night we were updated on property and finance issues, we briefly looked a the report given to conference by the General Secretary of the Methodist Church, Martyn Atkins, who focuses on discipleship and being shaped for mission. It is an excellent report and one that I will be bringing to the church Council for further discussion. It will also form the basis of a wider discussion at the March Circuit Assembly. One especially good item on the agenda last night was the testimony of a young woman from Lozells Methodist Church who feels called to diaconal ministry. It was an excellent testimony and the meeting agreed unanimously that she be recommended to go forward to the next stage in pursuing this call.
At lunch time today I attended the Shirley Churches Together ministers lunch, usually we meet at the Bridge (the church opposite SMC) with a packed lunch and have an informal business conversation. Today we discussed the next Churches Together service which will be held at Shirley Methodist Church on October 9th at 6.30 where we plan to celebrate the gifts we bring as churches which enable us to engage with the local community. We also talked about our signing the statement of commitment to work together as churches in Shirley and decided that this should happen at our joint service in the new year during the week of Christian Unity.
This evening I went along to the meeting of the Interfaith Forum in Solihull where I will be taking over from Susan Height as the representative for Shirley Churches Together. I am especially interested in interfaith dialogue and so I am very pleased to be appointed to this particular group. Somehow I managed to come away having taken on the role of minutes secretary for the group as well as volunteering to start a blog to share its work and various events that it will be promoting!
Tomorrow, well it should be a day off but I really need to catch up on admin and planning services for Sunday. Oh and, speaking of Sunday, don't forget we have our very first Jazz Gathering at 3.30pm I will post Adam's email on this shortly so that you have all the details you need if you are thinking of coming.
And Saturday? Well on Saturday I will be popping in to see Agnes, one of our members, who will be celebrating her 100th birthday. I'll be posting on that on Saturday evening.
See you than if not before. Jx
