Tuesday 24 July 2018

Seoul Reflections



 What a privilege it was to attend the World Methodist Council meeting in Seoul and to hear about what God is doing in and through the Methodist Church as well as learn about concerns for prayer.  The World Methodist Council comprises 425 members representing almost 80 million members in over 130 countries and it is a real honour for me to be a part of this on behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain.

It was also good to learn about the particular issues facing the church in South Korea and hear about their earnest prayer for the reunification of North and South Korea.  I was honoured to attend an early morning prayer meeting with 5000 local believers, as the culmination of 40 days of prayer for the reestablishment of the church in North Korea.  I learned that there used to be a flourishing church in North Korea as described on this notice board outside the church where we were meeting.


As I arrived for the early morning meeting, many had already gathered and were silently and fervently praying.  Each person had brought their Bible with them, some of which were very well worn and clearly loved, and many took notes as the Pastor preached. The commitment, fervour and spiritual hunger of the Korean Christians was a challenge to me and something from which we in the UK can learn so much.  We gave thanks to God that although just a year ago the nation was on the verge of war, today the prayers of many have been answered as reunification seems a step closer.






Prayer wall in the entrance to the church
 

It was also an experience to share in worship on a grand scale on the Sunday morning, complete with orchestra and full robed choir.  Kwanglim Methodist Church has around 85,000 members who meet at various times and places during a usual Sunday.  It was amazing to experience church on a large scale like this, though I have to say, not something I would want to do every week!  The sheer organisation of getting communion to over 5000 people at a time, taking up the offering and getting people in and out was awe inspiring!






The President and Vice President of the World Methodist Council leading prayers.

There were banks of cameras everywhere! 
 

The very professional choir.



The team collecting the offering - with military precision! 

Lovely Mataiva from New Zealand who has a remarkable testimony of how Jesus has brought her healing from cancer.

We had to sit in special pews! 



On the Sunday evening we were invited to take part in an open air peace prayer service, again praying for the church in North Korea.  It was a blessing to stand with the people of the church in South Korea to pray for the breaking down of the barrier that divides their nation, and in many cases, their families. 

Gathering for open air prayer meeting

Korea's Methodist head office

Statue of the king who introduced the Korean language





One of the highlights for me was sharing a meal with some of the Korean women from the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church women, along with other leaders from the UK and USA.  We were treated to a traditional Korean meal eaten with chopsticks of course.  I have decided that this is a brilliant diet plan as I just couldn’t eat very much at all!  Clearly I need more practice!






It was a real honour to receive the generous hospitality of our Korean brothers and sisters and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the wider world church through the WMC and I am so grateful to everyone back home for your prayerful support as I travelled.  

Library in a shopping mall - it reminded me of the library in Beauty and the Beast! 





Saturday 24 March 2018

Life without supermarkets - update


Well here we are approaching Holy Week and I promised I would let you know how I got on with the challenge of giving up supermarkets for Lent.  This has been a harder challenge than I imagined it would be and has made me realise just how much we rely on supermarkets in this society. 

Here are some of the things I have discovered:
  • ·        We have a great butchers in Ivybridge (Gribbles) and I ordered a meat pack from them during the first week which has given us practically all our meat for Lent.  I found that you can order the meat online and just tell them when you want to collect it so that made my life a bit easier as I thought I would have to be popping in every week.  I have decided that even after Lent, I will continue to buy my meat from them as it is good quality, locally sourced and by eating a bit less of it, good value for money.  I also realise that unless people use the local butcher he is likely to go out of business and then we will have no choice but to go to a supermarket for meat that is not locally produced or the same quality.


  • ·      I have been ordering some vegetables and fruit from Riverford Farm to be delivered here free of charge on a Thursday.  It is all organically produced and very good quality.  More expensive than I would usually pay for fruit and veg but we have been eating less of it to compensate.  I have also found that by buying less, it is making me use up every last thing from the fridge instead of continually buying more and this has significantly reduced our wastage and made me more imaginative in what I cook.



  • ·         I have also been visiting our local farm shop next to Endsleigh Garden Centre to buy some extra things I couldn’t find elsewhere especially milk.


  • ·       Nature’s Larder in Ivybridge is a great source of dried and store cupboard ingredients such as dried fruit, flour, rice and pulses.  They also sell environmentally friendly cleaning products but I haven’t needed to buy any of those as I had stocked up before Lent (maybe cheating a bit but I knew how busy I was going to be so had to make some allowances!)
  • ·      Another great place locally to buy fresh food is Ben’s Farm Shop at Yealmpton but again it is quite expensive so you need to buy less!  I have discovered they also sell things like cereal, washing powder etc loose so you can take your own container and fill it up which is great for cutting down packaging waste.
  • ·        People have asked me if I have spent more money over these weeks but I have found I am actually spending less as there is not so much choice of things to buy and I am just buying basic ingredients.  However, I have a growing shopping list of things I need once Lent is finished so I will be needing to do a big shop next weekend so it may even out!
  • ·       I was wondering whether I would be able to find wine!  I have managed to get some at a farm shop but it is probably more expensive than I would usually pay for wine so again I have been drinking it less!  Probably not a bad thing!
  • ·   It is not as convenient to buy things in different places and I have struggled a bit particularly in busy weeks to get the things I need.  I have had to be a lot more organised and plan ahead more carefully and also have had to manage without more often and think of a contingency plan. 
  • ·       I’ve lost 4lbs in weight – could be coincidence but maybe not as we have been eating less and much more healthily.  That is a big personal bonus!
  • ·      The two things I have found hardest to find are yoghurts and orange juice and I have missed those.  We did find some at Darts Farm but they don’t keep so you can’t stock up on them!
  • ·         Confession time – there have been a few times that we have in desperation bought one or two items at our local Co-op such as cat litter and milk.  I checked the Ethical Consumer website and in a score table of supermarkets based on ethical issues, the Co-op came out top of the league so I felt that wasn’t too bad a slip!

I read about some facts concerning supermarkets and it doesn’t make comfortable reading.  

For example, did you know…
  • ·         Almost 50% of supermarket fruit and veg contains pesticide residues?
  • ·       UK supermarkets make 40p in every £1 on bananas and plantation workers only receive 1p of every £1?
  • ·        Every time a supermarket opens the local community loses on average 276 jobs?
  • ·         In the 1970s, British supermarkets had only 10% of the UK’s grocery spend.  Now they swallow up 80%, influencing how we shop, what we eat, how we spend our leisure time, how much rubbish we generate.

(Shopped – The Shocking Power of Britain’s Supermarkets – Joanna Blythman)

So this experiment has made me really think about the food we buy, the welfare of animals and food producers, the miles food travels, how much waste it generates and the chemicals often used.  It has made me more aware of how the power of the big supermarkets has a tight grip on us and how we live, by virtue of their convenience and low prices.  It has made me want to break free from that grip and become less dependent on them - for the sake of my own health and wellbeing, the taste of my daily food, the welfare of the animals and food producers and the effect on the environment.  I will be using supermarkets again because I have to, but I will certainly be using them less and being more thoughtful about how I shop for our food. 








Tuesday 6 March 2018

The African church


During our visit, Rachel and I had the privilege of visiting the Connexional Office of the Methodist Church of South Africa where Rachel led the staff devotions. 




    
After the morning prayers we were taken for coffee to a room in which there was an amazing exhibition telling the history of Methodism in South Africa. 

I learned that Methodism in South Africa began as a result of lay Christian work by an Irish soldier of the English Regiment, John Irwin, who was stationed at the Cape and began to hold prayer meetings as early as 1795.  This paved the way for missionary work from 1816 onwards and the establishnment of mission stations along the Cape.  The Methodist Church of South Africa formerly began in 1833 and gained independence from the British conference in 1926.   Today there are reportedly 2 million members in the Methodist Church of South Africa.



 The first black President of Conference was shockingly as recent as 1964 and the first female minister was ordained in 1976.  Sadly, to date there has not yet been a female President of Conference so we will watch this space with interest for the future!

What saddened me here (and in other countries I have visited) is the way the churches seem to operate in a very ‘British’ way and don’t always reflect the culture within which they are placed.  If you look at the photos below of one of the churches we visited, it is interesting that there is nothing to give it away that we were in Africa (other than maybe the palm trees!) – it could be a church anywhere in the UK.



The township churches definitely had a more African feel to them and even though the services were organised in a very ‘British’ style, when the congregations began to sing in worship, their passion and exuberance burst out and we felt that we were truly worshipping in a way that was natural to the people. We were in awe of Rev Steve Day who has worked hard to learn to speak in the language of the people and who on the day I was with him in the township church of Good Hope, led the entire liturgy in Xhosa.  The local people are amazed that a British man has gone to the trouble of learning their language and he has earned a lot of respect for that. 





          
From various countries I have visited it seems that congregations feel that the ‘British’ way is the correct way to ‘do’ church and I have a sense that in the building of congregations, much of the original culture of the indigenous people has been lost.  There is a colonial feel to a lot of our churches overseas and that makes me feel sad. 

Ernest Cole, writing in 1967 (House of Bondage) about the arrival of Christianity in South Africa states that ‘The white missionaries, no matter how high their purpose, could not help but impose their own Western background onto African converts whose traditions and culture were far different.’

I know from various African Christians with whom I have spoken that many are grateful to the white people for bringing Jesus to them but often want to be free to worship in their own way rather than in a way imposed on them from Britain. 

It seems that we have a long way to go within the church in releasing people from the religious traditions and culture of our way of doing church, so that they can be enabled to worship and run their churches in a way that is at one with their own culture and traditions.

Again Ernest Cole writes, ‘The Africans learned from white example that Christianity can be treated as little more than a religious social club, something to join because it is somehow better to be inside than outside but not something to affect ones everyday life deeply.’  How I pray that the African church will be able to hold on to Jesus and not allow dead religion to squash their faith and passion for God. 

The other thing we learned about the churches from our visit is that there is still a lot of segregation within the church with different groups for blacks, whites and coloureds and there is still a lot of prayer needed for the healing of old wounds and bringing about unity so that the church of Jesus can be an example to the rest of society in reconciliation and fellowship. 

The Magnify programme, run by Jane, seeks to do just that as it brings together women from across the cultural and racial divides in a common sisterhood and that is a powerful, prophetic statement in this country and a lesson in unity to all of us wherever people are excluded or separated. 

I close with the words of a song from the song book at the Connexional Office which is a prayer for the nation of South Africa:

Who will save our land and people?
Who can rescue us from wrong?
We are lost – faint, false and foolish
We have slighted God too long.
Save the people, Lord our Saviour,
Guide us home from country far
Holy fire consume our rancours;
Thy Kingdom come – in Africa.