September Greetings to you all.

‘Season of mellow fruitfulness’, if I quote Gerald Manley Hopkins correctly! To prove it I am returning to one of my former Circuits on Sunday for a Harvest Festival. As I have been preparing for both this and Synod (10am Saturday) I am very aware that the Aid agencies (Christian Aid and Methodist Relief and Development Fund) to which I often turn for Harvest material are making strong links between Aid work and Climate change. Way back in ancient times, Book of Deuteronomy, the pattern is set for the thanksgiving both at the gathering of the first fruits and ‘when all is safely gathered in’, but also for a party or two to be shared with ‘the widow, the orphan and the stranger’. Set this alongside the thinking of the second creation story, in which God shares responsibility for the created world with us people and it has the potential for an interesting conversation. Our carbon footprint ask questions not only about where we holiday, how we travel and how we generate our energy and use it, but also about how we shop, and what we buy and many other complex issues. I think that we are all being encouraged to take such matters seriously, which I think means making changes to the way that we live.

Many of you reading this will have come to recognise my presence at events, not so much by my face, or my words, as by my scarf, it came as part of the Jubilee Debt campaign, and I took to wearing it as I came to Birmingham as Chair of the District three years ago. Being a rainbow it has much to commend it, not least it provides a splash of colour. It continues to ask questions about the debts which continue to cripple much of the developing parts of our world in the face of promises by the G8. It opens up conversations on buses and at church doors. It reminds me that God has promised peace between creation and Creator – a challenge for me, even us, to work at. I think it speaks into the questions of climate change.

On Saturday, 1st September, when I should have been writing this, I found myself joining in a walk for peace in Lozells, Birmingham. Our sisters and brothers in the Black Lead Churches, many of which have bases in that community, had arranged the march. People from the Sheik and Muslim faith communities, as well as people who are just committed to the community joined people from a wide range of Christian traditions. It was a joyfully inclusive occasion with a gentle Christian strength about it, and as we ended the walk we shared bread and the fruit of the vine and washed one another’s feet. It was one of those precious moments, when you catch a glimpse of heaven in the most surprising of places.

Please remember you may use any of this article in Church or Circuit magazines, it is probably as well to acknowledge from where it came.

Yours in love,

Bill Anderson

Lichfield cathedral

Big sing at Greenbelt

L'Arche community worship - apassover meal Greenbelt

Posh setting for NCH council meeting - the gift of the hotel to NCH