Dear Friends,

Greetings, from your refreshed Chair of District after a very interesting Sabbatical. I repeat my offer to come and share at least some of the journey with folk around the District, and I am sure some will come to light as I share worship with you.

As I sit writing this the Magnolia tree is inching its way from flower to leaf and other trees are laden with blossom, and so the hopefulness of Spring moving to Summer. In Church we lie in that time between Easter and Pentecost, and hopefully this will be posted on our web-site on Ascension Day. Trying hard not to be a preacher, this too may be a journey of hopefulness as we understand more fully the potential for Resurrection life in our world today, the reign of the God of love. I think it is in the Sikh community that the strong challenge is to embrace potential in ones self in order to live it. So maybe we can reflect on how love will shape our living.

While I was away, the life of the District went on. (Please note no surprise in that comment – just thankfulness). We prepare to make some exciting new appointments and to slightly shift emphasis. In the process that is called ‘mapping the way forward’, we will see some new Circuits come into being during the Summer. I am restrained from naming them because they have not yet all named themselves. To help in this journey one of the appointments will be a District Development Enabler. This will be a full time post, although we would be open to a job share. This person will pick up on work that Charles Worth has done, but will also expand on it. In Synod we adopted new District Mission Priorities, which reminded us that the District is about facilitating local mission and community outreach. It asked us particularly to focus in on Fresh Expressions of Church – touching people who don’t yet belong, engaging with children and young people, and places of extreme need. I would think that how we do this will form a starting point for the type of work this post will engage with. At the same time in the new Regional Training Forum for the Midlands we will have the focused resource of two posts, a Training officer(half-time) and an officer working part time in two districts (Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury and ourselves) at introducing a new venture called Extending Discipleship Exploring Vocation. This is being piloted in the Tamworth and Lichfield Circuits at the present time.

In all of this people are key, individuals bringing themselves, giving of their gifts and graces, daring to be vulnerable, taking the risk of love. I guess that the early followers of Jesus found out about Resurrection  Life as they lived in this pattern, and we may too. By the time I write again Israel and Leela Selvanayagam will have returned to South India. Our love and prayers and thankfulness go with them to life and work in Bangalore.

Yours in love,

Bill Anderson

Chair.

Hillcrest Celebration google 'Little Traveller' to find out more

White Rhino and young before breakfast

Children at after school club sing a welcome