Prophets, Priests and Poets

Sermon for Ordination Service – Irish Methodist Conference

June 2019

What is this calling that you are joining in with?

(Story about an endless harvest supper planning meeting – brocollie quiche)

Ministry is not all about keeping the roof on the church or organizing the harvest supper. It is those things, and many more similar things but it is perhaps also to be a prophet, a priest and a poet.

All that I’m saying to the three Ordinands today, is also for every church member and for the whole church – we are part of the priesthood of all believers and we are the body of Christ – so this sermon is not an exercise in eavesdropping!

So to begin with – what does it mean to be a prophet? We heard in our Old Testament reading the wonderful passage when Isaiah encounters the full glory of God in the temple and through that encounter is given all that he needs in order to be God’s messenger.

If I were to give a job description to Isaiah or any of the prophets of old, it would be to do two key task – firstly to paint pictures and, secondly, to hold up a mirror.

Firstly, to paint in people’s minds a picture of what God longs the world to be – a picture of a place where the widow, the orphan and the refugee have the seats of honour. A new reality in which justice flows like rivers and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Painting a picture of a promised land, not for a chosen few but for all God’s children.

In this picture, the principalities and powers of this world are temporary – they will blow away, like dry grass before a storm. It’s a picture that brings comfort to the people, a hint of hope in a landscape of oppression, exile and loss.

Isaiah paints a picture of the God who set out the heavens and made the earth a home in which we dwell, every nation and every person called by name.

The second role of the prophet is to hold up a mirror – to two groups. First the prophet holds up a mirror to the people of god – reminding them who they are, that they are God’s people and helping them to see for themselves where they have fallen short of living out their full calling to live as God’s people in the world.

For the prophets of old the task was often to call out people for idolatry – the worship of false gods – my word, they would have plenty of material today. That list of that which distracts us from love of God and love of neighbour has never been so long! Yet the things that do distract us are from the same mould – love of wealth, love of power, love of self – that is not a healthy understanding of our own worth before God but leads to an empty narcissism that sees us as the centre of the universe and pays little attention to the care of creation and the love of our neighbour.

The second group of people that the prophet holds a mirror to is the powerful – the rulers and power players, those who abuse power, who rule by fear and ignore righteousness and justice.

This leads to trouble! Most of the prophets spent time on the run, their lives threatened by the powerful who did not want to be shown a mirror in which they could see themselves as God sees them.

So perhaps your calling is to be a prophet? To paint a picture for your people and the world of God’s longing for how things should be and to hold up a mirror that shows the world as it is and reminds us as disciples and a church of the things we need to chaing in ourselves and makes the powerful uncomfortable, sufficient to change?

Or perhaps you believe that your calling is to be a priest – that is one who represents Christ to the Church and represents the Church to the world?

If we are to truly embody Christ we need to accept that the role comes with a bucket load of risk – it will involve spending time with those that society and good church folk find unacceptable. We cannot model Christ if we only spend time with people who moderate their behavior to fit into patterns that are deemed appropriate or acceptable.

Jesus spent time with those that Charles Wesley described as harlots and publicans and thieves! Who are those that society rejects and the church condemns today? To model Christ is to move beyond the walls of the church, to leave our comfort zones and to be alongside those who would no sooner enter a church than they would enter a bear pit.

To model Christ is to be broken, as we break bread in communion; to give of ourselves sacrificially and to share in the brokenness of the world in which we live. Bala, the Vice President and I visited a project in Stamford called Second Helpings. Each Saturday over 120 people are fed a three course meal – with choices – and no charge is made. People can leave a donation if they wish. Babies in high chairs sit next to people in their nineties; people on Universal Credit sit next to millionaires – all are welcome. Not only is the food providing a service but the company and new relationships are changing lives. The food used to make the meals is donated by supermarkets in the town – it is food that would have been thrown away. Here is one example of a living sacrament – taking that which the world has rejected and transforming it through love into a feast that all can share.

To model Jesus is also to enjoy a good party! To spend time laughing with family and friends and to take time away in prayer and to be quiet.

To model Christ is to walk the way of the cross, to turn over the tables of injustice, to challenge false religion and to be those who bring healing to people in pain.

So is that your calling? To be a priest – to model Christ, sharing in his mission in and to a broken world?

Or perhaps your calling is to be a poet?

As disciples and ministers we are people of the Word and in words we see and hear God’s love made real. These words are the words of scripture and The Word (capital W!), Logos – the cosmic Christ who was part of God at the very beginning of all things.

We are called to be God’s word embodied. Why does that make us poets?

Poets are those who play with words – respect the power of words – look for the patterns within and between words and have an instinctive or honed talent for seeing and creating rhythm.

Those who lead worship, preachers, worship leaders, liturgists and musicians all have a role as poets – playfully, respectfully and creatively using words to describe God. To offer praise, to acknowledge weakness and heartbreak; we use words to offer assurance, promising absolution, giving thanks and re-membering Jesus and recalling all God’s marvelous acts.

All human words about God are metaphors, even the word ‘God’ is a metaphor – a human shorthand for that which we cannot possibly describe in our inadequate language.

The job of the poet is to play with metaphors, to make connections, to surprise, enlighten and provoke the reader.

The role of the minister is to be a poet – to play with the metaphors for God that sing in our scripture, our tradition and our experience and to cast those metaphors into new poems. Poems that make connections, surprise, enlighten and provoke God’s people and all who want to know more of this world and all that makes human beings who we are.

We do not only compose our poems through words, we cast them in our actions, by our living and our loving people will catch the cadences and the rhythms of God’s love.

In our discipleship, our move towards Christian perfection, it may be that we move beyond being the poets that live and speak God’s love – in fact we become the poems and God the author.

This calling to be prophets, priests and poets is not only for the ordained – it is the calling of all God’s people.

We are to paint a picture of the world God longs for, to hold a mirror up to the church and to those in power, showing how things are. We too, all of us are to model Christ – to be the priesthood of all believers.

And, through our words and our lives we are to be the poets that tell again the story of God’s love for the world.

In telling that story, may God transform us into those who become the poem of God’s grace.

Amen.

The Story that Shapes Us

Methodist Recorder Article (for May 3^rd)

The Story That Shapes Us

Alderney

One of the great privileges of being the President of Conference is to visit Methodist Districts across the Connexion. This year the visits to the island districts have fallen close to one another – Bala and I have visited the Isle of Man, Shetland and the Channel Islands in a four week period. It has been wonderful to meet Methodist sisters and brothers who live in island communities and, whilst many people consider island dwellers to be on ‘the margins’, those I met are at the very heart of vibrant, caring networks of love and grace.

The Bus of Blessing

The identity of the people I have met has been formed in no small part by the history and the landscape of the places they live. In the Isle of Man I visited a set of manx crosses in the churchyard at Maughold. These crosses and other carvings reflect the Celtic Christian tradition which resembles those that can be found in places such as Iona and Lindisfarne - but there were some unique features. One of the crosses featured the figure of Loki – who in Norse tradition was the mischief-making brother of Thor. The Viking and Christian history of the island blend together in the carvings. The modern shaping of the Manx people owes a great deal to the financial industry that employs a significant number of residents and to the TT races, the infrastructure for which is an all-year-round presence in the roads all over the island. A new feature on those roads is the Bus-ny-Bannaghtyn or ‘Bus of Blessing’ – a mobile pray vehicle. A camper van has been transformed into a space that can be used for mission and ministry anywhere in the District, helping shape people and communities through prayer and love in action.

Shetland

Shetland has become famous recently for two television series – one ‘Island Medics’ which follows the lives and work of people in the islands through their hospital and community health service. The other series is the fictional ‘Shetland’ which falls into the Nordic Noir tradition of detective stories. Like the Isle of Man, a great deal of Shetland’s character is found through its history with Scandinavia. The people are shaped by a beautiful yet bleak landscape, by treeless peat moors and crashing seas. Sea-going for fish and trade is a part of the history and I was stunned to come across a connection with one of my own ancestors in Lerwick. 

My husband and daughter joined Bala, Sylvia and myself on the visit (huge thanks to generous hosts!). Sandy and Tamsin went for a walk to the harbour in Lerwick and came across a memorial to the Whaling Ship, Diana. The stunning memorial gave thanks to God for the ‘providential’ return of the Diana. The Captain of the ship was John Gravill and he is my first cousin, seven times removed. I knew about John, who was a Wesleyan preacher from Hull, I hadn’t realised that the Diana had called in to Shetland to pick up crew on the way to the Artic. Her final voyage was a disaster, she became icebound and many of the crew, included Captain Gravill died on the ice or on the journey home. In travelling to one of the furthest points in the Connexion I found a part of my own identity and added another chapter to my family’s story. 

Alderney

I was struck when visiting Guernsey and Alderney, how much the identity of people and the community there is shaped by the history of occupation during the Second World War. For some the story is living memory, children evacuated, people with no choice but to stay and try to live under occupation and the whole population of Alderney who left their homes and island until after the war had ended and on returning home had to build a society from scratch. There are many stories, told and untold which shape the people of the Channel Islands – some are found in memorials, others in the physical remains of tunnels and battlements and some are told in museums, archives and literature. It is difficult to put oneself into the shoes of a whole society that is shaped and traumatised by a particular set of historical events. How does a liberated people find liberation from that story and shape a new future? When is it the right time to take down some of the physical reminders and to begin to tell a new narrative. Does an old story continue to shape a people today? 

The Divers' Inn. JW stayed there after his ship was blown off course.

What the people of ‘island Methodism’ share in common, alongside all the uniqueness they enjoy from context and experience, is that they find their identity in Christ. The story of Christian faith, of God’s grace and love is told in the landscape, through crosses and ancient Keeills (Manx prayer chapels) and through modern chapels such as the new church at Haroldswick. In Alderney the Methodist Church is being refitted to be more welcoming, inclusive and flexible to serve the community. In only eighteen months the small congregation have raised over £300,000, with support from the Connexion and District and especially from the local community which recognises the importance of the Church in the life of the island and its people.

The story of God’s grace is told through the people who faithfully worship and who, with commitment and imagination, find new ways to tell the story – through prayer buses, ‘God and Marmalade’, Food for the Way, ecumenical projects and a myriad of social projects that demonstrate God’s love in action. 

As Christians we are not only shaped by our oneness with Jesus Christ, we shape the world around us. Through our reflecting God’s love we can transform lives and communities and create new landscapes of love and grace in which all can find a place.

A cross – catching the light of the morning

Crown of Thorns.

Pause for Thought (BBC Radio 2)

Good Friday 2019

New Life

One of my favourite TV programmes when I was a little girl was ‘The Phoenix and the Carpet’, in which four children found an egg wrapped in a carpet. The egg hatched into a phoenix and the carpet turned out to be magic and lots of exciting adventures began. My own children discovered the delights and mysteries of the legend of the phoenix through the Harry Potter books.

There is something fascinating about the idea of a mystical bird, full of wisdom that, when it reaches a grand old age, bursts into flames and out of the ashes rises to live again, carrying all the wisdom and memories but beginning a new life in a new body. 

I thought about the phoenix, when on Monday night I watched horrified and mesmerized by the images from Paris as the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral blazed in furious flame. It seemed particularly poignant that this should happen in Holy Week, the week when Christians remember the events leading up to Jesus’ death. 

On Tuesday morning it must have felt to the Cathedral team, to many in France and to millions watching from around the world that something of their identity, their hopes and dreams now lay in ashes. Yet an image emerged at the centre of the devastation and destruction – a cross – catching the light of the morning, intact and shining in the midst of the gloom. It was an empty cross, the symbol of resurrection – the very heart of Christian hope.

Crown of thorns - detail

Today on Good Friday, Christians remember Jesus’ crucifixion, the cruelty and sadness; an event filled with despair and lost hopes. In the marking of those events, hope finds a way into the story because Christians believe that death is not the end. There is always a possibility for new life, a new beginning and we look towards the dawn of Easter day and the light of the morning that will shine on an empty cross, because Christ is no longer there, he has risen. I hope that you will have a very happy and blessed Easter.

Finding a way through the Wilderness

Finding a Way Through the Wilderness

An Lent/Easter Message

Travelling through the wilderness is not for the faint-hearted. To journey in hope or in despair, in joy or in heartbreak can be an act of courage; often it is an act of necessity. Our journey through Lent this year has been a time of wilderness for many - experiencing a difficult journey with an unknown outcome. The landscape is unfamiliar and the horizon keeps shifting and no-one is sure what the destination will be if it is ever reached at all.

What is this wilderness? For some it is the empty wasteland of being a refugee - seeking sanctuary, shelter, a modicum of friendship in a strange land. To enter the mind of someone who has left everything behind takes most of us a huge leap of the imagination. What would it mean to have no home, to have no church or other place of worship, to leave behind family and friends or to run from the horrors of conflict and war? The people of Israel spent forty years in their particular wilderness; it must have been agonisingly slow progress at times, moving at the speed of those who were least able to travel and it certainly must have involved teamwork in order to move people, livestock and chattels from watering hole to shelter and to places of good grazing. The leadership that Moses, Miriam and Aaron offered depended entirely on the good will of the people - if the community dug in their heels and refused to move there would be devastating consequences for the whole nation.  We see that unfold in Numbers 20, the tribes were in the wilderness of Zin and Miriam died. Suddenly the people had no water, perhaps Miriam had been their water diviner. In their grief people became angry and nostalgic - they remembered the good fruits of Egypt (conveniently forgetting their enslavement) and they longed to give Miriam a proper wake but had no access to figs and pomegranates in that wild and inaccessible place. They had no water to wash the grave-soil from their hands. In fear the people rose up against Moses and Aaron, ignoring the fact that Miriam’s brothers were grieving too, and they demanded leadership that would solve all their problems - they wanted a simple solution.

Moses and Aaron responded to the people by consulting with God - they turned to their spiritual loadstone and were granted what their people need. Water was brought forth from the rock and the place was named Meribah - a place of bitterness and a place of God’s providence. There was a cost to the leaders in this story, neither Moses nor Aaron made it to the ‘Promised Land’ - they remained in the wilderness.

What is this wilderness? For some (perhaps many) it is the empty wasteland of Brexit. As I write this reflection it is by no means clear what the outcome will be, short term or long term. What is clear is that the old landmarks of politics and of governing by consent are shifting or entirely missing. Whilst this affects all ages and demographics, it is young people who feel most lost and without clear direction at this time. Identities are challenged, freedoms and privileges that have been taken for granted for four or five generations are under threat and the ‘Promised Land’ seems to be a shapeless mirage built on shifting sand. By the time this article is published we may well have a new Prime Minister - it may be that there are lessons to be learned about leadership from the Matriarchs and Patriarchs of old.

What is this wilderness? For some it is an increasing awareness of the damage that unfettered consumerism and the obsession with growth as an indicator of economic health are having on our precious planet. In fact, many of our ecosystem wildernesses are disappearing as new wildernesses of deforestation, floating islands of plastic and flood-leached agricultural land emerge and vulnerable communities are moving further from the shoreline in a race against rising sea levels. The landscape of our environmental wilderness is changing, not just metaphorically, but in reality. The horizons and landmarks of creation’s health are moving dangerously towards disaster and the poorest communities worldwide will suffer the severest consequences. We need a global leadership that is interested in working together and not easily distracted by short term politics and the shiny accessories of power.

What is this wilderness? Perhaps it is the wilderness of the people of Christchurch, New Zealand. The devastating act of a single gunman upon peaceful people of faith and the wider community has changed lives and communities forever. Like many nations wounded deeply by acts of terror, the people of New Zealand could have chosen to enter the wilderness of hate, of false patriotism and savage revenge. It could have chosen to put up barriers, build walls, pull up the drawbridge and turn in on itself - but it has not. A leader has led her people with compassion, listened carefully to the pain and shown empathy. Jacinda Ardern has avoided a jingoistic, populist response and chosen instead to show vulnerability in strength, to admit that they are not a ‘perfect’ nation, they have their own racism to challenge. Bringing people together, delegating the strategic response to those with the skills needed and offering an example to the world of how to be a human being has brought the Prime Minister of New Zealand praise from around the world and has evoked a sense of hope and the first steps towards healing for those in grief.

Or is the wilderness that we have travelled, the one which Jesus himself travelled? The wrestling with our own sense of identity and purpose, our own temptations - whatever they may be for us. In order to be the person he was called to be Jesus had to be shaped by the wilderness, to be challenged by it, to find its places of shelter and oasis, to fight with those forces that would divert him from his purpose. Jesus also travelled the wilderness of Holy Week, experiencing the empty glory of a crowd that turned to a baying mob. He stood in his Father’s house of prayer and challenged those who had turned it into a wilderness of unfair trade and idolatry. He washed the wilderness dirt from his friends’ feet and experienced the pleasure and pain of being anointed in a foretaste of his own burial. Jesus travelled the wilderness of betrayal, unjust arrest, cruel trial and the ultimate degradation of the cross and the anguish of abandonment and finality of death. The joy of Easter Day is the joy of one who has crawled through the wilderness on their hands and knees, longing for one single drop of soothing water and who finds themselves in a new verdant paradise watered by a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

The wilderness in which many of us find ourselves is a hard and challenging place but it can shape us and help us discern who we are called to be, as Christians, as churches, as nations, even as a global community. We will need to rest from time to time in the oases, to catch our breath, to restore our strength and in the end, God willing, we will find our way out of the wilderness. From death will come new life, hope will rise up and conquer despair, from grief will come joy and God will be praised. Alleluia.

A reflection on wilderness for Lent

The call of the wild
sounds romantic to the inner child,
devoid of cares
who dares
to set off on unknown byways and
adventurous highways.
There is a different call
when you pick up all
you can carry
and dare not tarry
as the rattle of machine gun
or the drone of the drones
robs childhood of fun
and families of homes.
The dogged rhythmic beat
of endless walking feet
day in and day out
carrying hope and doubt;
longing for a welcome,
for a rest,
for a cast off bed,
no need for your best.
As false gods and prophets
break vows and make profits
and give in to temptations
of power and control;
a wandering preacher
a healer and teacher
weeps gently
for the children who will never grow old.
He watches the able
fail to turn the table
of injustice and loss
and so revisits the cross.
For love’s sake
call out from the wilderness
the orphan, widow and refugee.
For Christ’s sake
Call out the careless war-brokers
and conflict stokers,
that in peace and safety
all might be free

Michaela Youngson 

For All We Can - Lent 2019

A video of this reflection which is part of All We Can's set of Lent resources

Learning from the past

Remembrance Sunday Article

(featured in the Methodist Recorder)

We will remember them

On the eleventh of the eleventh, in fields, by war memorials, in churches and in homes familiar words will be spoken, “We will remember them.” Stirring hymns will be sung and silence will be observed as, for the 99^thtime, the nation remembers the end of the first world war. This centenary anniversary of the Armistice has a particular poignancy – there are now no survivors of that great devastation left to remember, to tell the story, to pass on to a new generation the scale of disaster that swept across Europe.  

Special commemorations

There are some very special commemorations this year, including the ‘There but not There’ project, where acrylic or metal outlines of ‘Tommies’ are set in place in churches showing where men from that community may have sat if they had survived the War. It is moving to see the outline of soldiers on pews or chairs – present in their absence. When we see them we are sharply reminded of the human beings at the centre of war and the way whole communities are devastated by loss on such a scale. Methodist Churches are marking the centenary in creative ways, such as Penkridge Methodist Church, where people have crafted over 8,000 poppies which will be suspended in a great cascade as part of that community’s act of remembrance. 

We do not only mark the end of the ‘Great War’ on Remembrance Sunday, we remember all the battles and wars since and all who have lost their lives, serving the nation. For some Remembrance Day is a time of personal pain as they remember loved ones who have lost their lives or suffered life-changing injuries. For many it is a day to pause and reflect on the cost of peace and on the foolhardy willingness of human beings to stop talking and to start fighting. For some, a proper pride in courage and loyalty is warped into a jingoistic nationalism that threatens to shift our focus from a dignified solidarity with all who suffer in war, towards a flag-waving call to defend our borders from ‘The other’, whoever the other might be. 

Fault Lines

The way that we mark Remembrance can offer insight into some of the fault lines in our nation today; fault lines of age, faith and gender. In recent years the official liturgy used at war memorials has changed a little to reflect more modern language. It could still be argued however that the language used, the hymns sung and the formality of the events hark back to a time when the majority of citizens were assumed to be Christian and understood what they were doing when they prayed. The prayers offered remain largely Christian, yet many who are being remembered and many who attend are of other faiths and none. The military style of most memorials and those who lead them tends to a majority of male attendees at memorial events and echoes back to a time when, in traditional communities, only men attended funerals. The words used on such occasions are, for many people, comforting and familiar and to radically change what is done would cause great distress, yet the question is being asked as to whether the 100^thanniversary of the end of WWI might be the point to let go and begin to do things differently. 

Comfort and Challenge

Jeremiah pointed the people of Israel towards God at a time of great upheaval and turmoil. The leaders of Israel and their families were in exile in Babylon and the future looked bleak indeed. They were living in a situation where they were ‘the other’ and fault lines of faith and nation were drawn sharply around them. Into this chaos and fear the Prophet presented the word of God, offering comfort but also a challenge. The comfort was that in the end they would be restored to their own land and be free from their captors. The challenge was that they were not to sit around waiting for it to happen, whilst nostalgically looking back to all they had lost. God called on them to settle down, marry, have children and, most strikingly, to pray for the peace and prosperity of the city to which they had been taken. (Jeremiah 29.7) 

Not ‘going back’

There is a good deal of rhetoric around at the moment about ‘going back’. In churches many long to go back to a time when the Sunday School was full and there was always a volunteer to do every job needed (nostalgia has a tendency to warp reality!). In the discourse around our nation’s place in the world there is a longing by some to ‘go back’ to being independent, in control, in charge. The present is perceived to be a Babylon into which we have been exiled and the past is a safe place and we long to return. God is not going to take us, church or nation, to a place of the past – not least as it is not the land of milk and honey that we might imagine. No nation can flourish without a complex set of relationships, we live as interdependent communities and working out how to value and honour each other is the only path to peace. God longs for us to pray for peace and for people to prosper in the place we find ourselves now. Living faithfully in God’s love is a call to love those amongst whom we live, however much we feel they are ‘the other’ or that we are. 

As we look back to the times in our history when peace has been overwhelmed by the clamour for war, for power, for the maintaining of a particular world order; may we be willing to learn the lessons of the past and pray for the peace and prosperity of all God’s children.

 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you out from captivity.” (Jeremiah 29. 11-13)

Visit to the Labour Party Conference

http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/prayer-is-a-revolutionary-act/

“Bring biscuits!”

This was one of the new Ten Commandments drawn up by Christians on the Left and launched at last week’s Labour Party conference.  These commandments, though light-hearted, were conceived as a way of helping Christians speak into often fractious constituency meetings, by encouraging people to disagree well, being quick to listen and slow to speak, showing hospitality by buying the first round, seeing the good in everyone and choosing love.

Delegates meet with Christians on the Left.

Church leaders from the Baptist Union, Methodist Church and United Reformed Church met with Louise Davies, Director of the group, to talk about the role of Christians in the party.  The Ten Commandments initiative has taken off within the Labour Party, being endorsed by Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and popular amongst party members, whether or not they are Christians.

This delegation of Church Leaders is part of an annual visit to the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative Party Conferences.  The group aims to affirm the calling of Christians in local or national politics and share concerns about our society and world.

As part of the delegation, leaders always participate in the prayer breakfasts at the Conferences.  At the Christians on the Left breakfast, Revd Michaela Youngson gave an inspiring reflection on prayer.  Prayer is a revolutionary act, she said, because it is a declaration that we believe change is possible, recognising that God’s heart is with the poor and oppressed.

Michaela reflected on her day at the Labour Conference, saying “It was encouraging to see the level of passion and engagement with issues, as well as the openness to the place of faith in public life with those we met.  The things that were at the top of their agenda are at the top of ours – even if we disagree with the ways of doing it.”

Church delegates with Janet Daby, MP.

The group discovered much to discuss – points of agreement as well as disagreement – in their conversations with Christian politicians during the course of the day.  Stephen Timms, MP for Newham, discussed the possible impact of Brexit on the poorest, along with gambling and Universal Credit.  Janet Daby MP, the newest MP, who was elected in Lewisham East in June of this year, spoke about establishing a foodbank and the importance of defending those caught up by the “hostile environment”.

Moderator of the URC General Assembly, Derek Estill, reflected on the value of the delegation, saying “meeting together like this demonstrated unity across our various denominations”.  Bala Gnanapragasam, Vice-President of the Methodist Conference concluded “What became clear in conversations and in prayers is that churches can play a full part in bringing about change for the better.  The challenge for us is to understand how to participate most effectively.”

You can read Michaela Youngson’s full reflection from the Labour Party Conference here: https://sacredwells.blogspot.com/2018/09/prayer-as-revolutionary-act.html