I spent my Summer holiday in Canada, with my daughter Helen, visiting family in Orangeville, Ontario and then being hosted by Bert and Chris Giffen in Edmonton and on a journey through the Rockies and Selkirk mountains, all very special. I hope many of you will have some special space during the Summer.

In Britain September has some sense of a beginning place. Our education system begin new years, a pattern of living for all from four to sixteen, and for many into their early twenties, as more and more young people are encouraged to go on into Further and Higher Education. Of course in many households the next generation taking their place in the process means that this cycle continues to touch our lives. So how will the ‘new year’ touch you?

I remember my first science lesson in Secondary School, or maybe it was the second lesson really. The lesson was about the effects of heat on metals, and we were given a new exercise book in which to present our work. The exercise book had a plain paper page on which to draw a diagram and a lined page to present our written work, to report our aim, our method and our findings. At the end of the lesson we had to hand in the books – all done. Second lesson and the master (teacher) handed out the books, calling names and then the books flying in your direction. I was in high state of anxiety because I was not good at that catching thing, but my name was not called! Finally, the teacher looked up and ask, ‘Who has not got a book?’  I raise my hand, and say nothing, voice lost. The teacher advances towards me and hands me my book saying, ‘I’ve written your name in the space provided’. I took the book and looked at the front, already a mess, stained with the sort of things a book so easily picks up in a Science Lab, and there where it said, ‘Name’ in bold hand ‘Grubby’, and so I was known in the Science department until I left school at age nineteen (always a slow learner) with two science ‘A’ levels.

Oh well that off my chest and now I belong to a Church, a people, who organise their lives beginning a new year in September. Ministers take up new appointments. In the process of ‘Mapping the Way Forward – Reshaping for Mission’ where that leads forming new Circuits, it is their start date. Our new Prayer Handbook ‘Each Returning Day’ becomes available. In the Birmingham District we welcome several new ministers and look forward to working with them. We form one new circuit, ‘The Mid-Warwickshire Methodist Circuit’, bringing together the former Leamington and Kineton Circuits. Taking time to get to know each other, listening to each other’s stories, understanding what makes the other tick! It seems to me that these are some of the approaches that help us to make the most of our new beginnings. So, whether it is in education or church we continue in our life journey and as John Wesley is reputed to have said at the end of his life, ‘This best of all is that “God is with us”. ’

Yours in love,

Bill Anderson

Images from Canada

Church and Circuit Stewards of new Mid-Warwickshire Circuit