The Methodist Church
Birmingham District

The City of Birmingham is regarded as England’s second city. However the Birmingham District is much more than the City of Birmingham. The District spans much of the West Midlands industrial belt from part of the Black Country in the west to Coventry, famous for its Cathedral, and Nuneaton in the east. From the famous three spires of Lichfield cathedral in the north the District stretches to the cathedral towns of Worcester and Hereford and on to Ross in the south taking in the Vale of Evesham, renowned for fruit farming and market gardening.

By road and rail the Birmingham District is accessible to all parts of the country. The region’s motorways, the M6, with the infamous spaghetti junction, the M5, M42, M40, together with the new north Birmingham Relief Road, a six-lane M6 toll motorway, make the District an excellent centre for communication. With good links with the motorway network, The National Exhibition Centre has become a prime venue for many national events.

Birmingham is a city full of life and vitality, undergoing change not only in its physical appearance but also in terms of its social and cultural life. The city centre has at its heart the Bull Ring, a busy place to be at any time twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The Jewellery Quarter is famous for the production and sale of fine jewellery.  To the north of the City Centre is Sutton Park - the largest natural urban park in Europe.

Birmingham has more canals than Venice, and the Balti restaurants are second to none. With three teams in the Premiership, Test Match cricket at Edgbaston and international golf at the Belfry the area has much to offer the sports enthusiast. In the centre of Birmingham you will find the National Indoor Arena, Symphony Hall, the newly refurbished Hippodrome Theatre and many other theatres and places of entertainment.

Particularly in inner city Birmingham you will find a mix of people of various cultural and social backgrounds as well as representation of a number of faith communities. Nonconformity has played a very significant part in the development of the city and it has developed into a lively and exciting home for people of many different ethnic backgrounds and religious faiths. Learning to live together as communities of many faiths presents opportunity for inter faith dialogue, where multi-faith communities are working side by side in tackling some of their social problems. You do not have to travel far in the city to move from communities of severe social deprivation to others of great affluence.

Through the Birmingham City Centre Project the church seeks to establish a Methodist presence at the heart of the city. Our other city centre work is based around the activities of Coventry Central Hall. Lichfield, Worcester and Hereford bring the total of cathedral cities to five.

The Birmingham District is not to be thought of only in terms of cities and urban conurbations. There is the beautiful countryside of the Severn and Wye valleys, and a walk in the Malvern Hills will give some breath-taking views. The town of Stratford-upon-Avon with the beautiful ‘Shakespeare’s county’ of Warwickshire, and the parts of Herefordshire reaching towards Wales makes the Birmingham District as much worth exploring for its rural delights. The Arthur Rank Centre at Stoneleigh makes sure that we remember the agricultural base on which we all ultimately depend. Indeed, the Royal Agricultural College is a major centre for mission in the countryside. Recent events have focused for us the changing face of the countryside, the pressures upon farmers and our ultimate dependence on each other

Educational links are strong with five universities in the District, and we have a particular input into primary education through our two Methodist/Anglican schools; we are also glad to be home to the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education and the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies.

The Methodist work in the Birmingham District reminds us of our connections with the world church. We have a long tradition of world mission involvement, first with Kingsmead College, and then the ecumenical partnership with USPG at the United College of the Ascension and more recently with the Selly Oak Centre for Mission Studies. We are developing the work of providing hospitality for overseas students through the work of a company called ‘Birmingham International Student Homes’. This brings together the work of the Methodist International House (Wesley House) and the Methodist Overseas Guest House (Asbury House) in the same Selly Oak area. Both Houses are being extensively modernized and new work on these premises is being undertaken to improve the quality of the work being done there. This is mutual giving and receiving - as several of our circuits have rejoiced to discover as they have welcomed overseas ministers under the World Church in Britain programme.

Pictures of Churches in the Birmingham District