Plenary, 28 Jun 2006
Meeting date: Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Official Report
418KB pdf
Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, as it is every Wednesday. Our time for reflection leader today is the Reverend Graham Carter, President of the Methodist Conference.
The Reverend Graham Carter (President of the Methodist Conference):
Good afternoon. It is a great honour for me to address the Scottish Parliament as president of the Methodist Conference. I am especially proud to have been partly responsible for bringing conference, the governing body of the Methodist Church, to Edinburgh; this is the first time that it has met in Scotland.
It is our practice to take conference around the country to where people are. People matter to us, and that principle has been at the heart of Methodism since its inception. The driving force that motivated its founder, John Wesley, was a deep concern to share the love of God with people, especially those who had been excluded from the church of his day. He was convinced that God's love and justice are for everyone. His comment, "The world is my parish", reflected his desire to be people focused rather than geographically bound.
Wesley knew that it was no good preaching only in church, because the people he wanted to reach were just not there. So he went to where people were: the marketplace. Wesley's principles have continued to motivate the Methodist movement to focus on people, especially those at the edges of society.
In the class meetings of early Methodism, people learned how to express themselves. They learned of God's justice and righteousness, and they supported each other in putting that justice into practice. That is why Methodists were influential in such things as the development of trade unions. The influence of Wesley's people continued to change the scene in Britain throughout the 19th century.
Of course, not everything has been perfect in the Methodist Church. I could tell you many stories about how we have lost touch with ordinary people. Nevertheless, Methodists continue to give a high priority to such things as working with asylum seekers, homeless people and others who are in need. Methodism gave birth to the charities NCH, the children's charity and Methodist Homes for the Aged, which works with elderly people. We support workplace chaplaincies, follow Wesley's lead in visiting people in prison, have played a leading role in debt relief campaigns, and we have our own small relief agency, the Methodist relief and development fund.
Significantly, we now seek to do all this in partnership with others. The expression of God's love is not restricted to one denomination, or even to the Christian church. If John Wesley was right in believing that God's love and justice are for all people, then it is up to us join forces with whoever is active in expressing that love and justice.