Another really positive day

The Friday programme followed the same pattern as Thursday. The first speaker was Juan Carlos Lopez from Brazil. God called different people and he did it on purpose. God's ultimate purpose to unite the whole of creation under the headship of Christ.  We do not create unity, we are to maintain and preserve it.

A drama about onesss

Dr Harold Good from Northern Ireland asked what does it mean to be one people? How far does it extend? Peace and walls are contradictions. Every conflict begins with the sin of exclusion.

Dr Good

The early church battled with who was in and who was out. Oneness is not sameness. Diversity enriches us. Oneness is not exclusivity. Wesley would not have tolerated the individualism of today. Central to Methodist theology is the word ALL. Cherish this gift and share it with others.

A perceptive quote

In the afternoon Jennifer Cox from England reflected on Isaiah 61. Comfort to inspire the Hebrew people to risk rebuilding. Isaiah is writing to homeless and marginalised people. Exile can be a place of creativity and surprise. We need to stop seeing our exhaustion and productivity as a status symbol. Most effective mission comes from within the place of brokenness.

In the evening their was a Texas evening. There was a local band with 'country' style music. Some dancers, a very large church choir and finally a very popular Christian Group 'Gungor'. We hadn't heard of them, but apparently they are quite famous. There were not entirely our thing, but they were good.

Marachi Band

An enriching Day

You know its going to be interesting when the speaker has platted his beard with silver bits on the ends. Rudy Rasmus and his wife co-pastor a Methodist Church in Houston of 9000 members, almost a third being former homeless people. He based what he had to say on the parable of the good Samaritan and invited us to consider what happens when love crosses the road in our communities.

He also told how when he was young his most favourite place was the Houston Zoo, because only there could he drink from the same tap as white folks. He asked how it was that the Zoo could get it right and Church was not able to voice or challenge what was going on.

A challenging quote used by Rudy 

An even more challenging quote

After morning tea Grace Imathiu spoke. Her father from Kenya is a former President of the World Methodist Council. She began by saying that privilege in any kind harms both parties and reminded that Jesus could have prayed for anything --- but prayed that we would be one. She focused on the Parable of the prodigal son and reminded us that by giving the parable a title we can obscure the meaning.
It is about God. Prodigal -- means extravagant, reckless, lavish ---the way God loves. Being prodigious is only sinful when it directed to oneself. It is about God treating us like a 'son', until he remembers he is a son again. A toast to resurrection.

Grace Imathiu

In the afternoon Ted Campbell a theologian gave an excellent and courageous address. Once again emphasising the breadth of God's love. A really positive and stimulating day.

Ted Campbell

The Conference begins

Wednesday the Council continued in the morning and Aimee's International Young Leaders Seminar commenced. Lynda spent the morning relaxing. David's meeting concluded around 1pm and he had the afternoon off.

Conference Logo

We walked back to the $1.29 shop so David could get a writing pad, and on the way stopped for a smoothy at a food outlet. It was several scoops of frozen yoghurt, fortunately fat free, beaten together with the appropriate flavour. Large, but yummy.

Being able to travel via the tunnels certainly makes it more pleasant. It was exceptionally hot outside.

Jennifer Wiseman and David Wilkinson

The Conference opened on the Wednesday night with two great speakers with expertise in Astronomy and Physics. They illustrated their address with some amazing photographs. It was a great beginning. The worship band was also really really good. There were people from 107 nations and 88 churches present.

Conference Worship Band

Aimee had enjoyed her IMYL Seminar and we went to bed and she 'partied' at a young people's coffee bar.

It had been an excellent start to the Conference and a good day. The questions we were left with were.
If God loves us so much, how does he view our neighbour?
If God has invested so much in creation - then what can we make of new creation?
How are we changed by the majesty of God?

World Methodist Council Meeting

The World Methodist Council and Conference were the reason for us being in the USA and Houston. The 2011 -2016 Council meet from 9am on Tuesday morning which meant an early start. I had been asked to convene a small group prepare a 'listening report' for the Council's meetings. I will include that in this blog as the best way to record what happened.

Council Meeting

While I spent the day at the meeting Lynda and Aimee very bravely caught a local bus to the shopping mall. They didn't spend much as the shops were all quite high end. They still had a good time and were back in time for a swim.

In the evening we went to the supermarket/deli and had a very healthy meal.

Listening Report World Methodist Council 30^th – 31^st August 2016

The members of the World Methodist Council gathered in Houston Texas on 30^th and 31^st August 2016 in conjunction with the World Methodist Conference.

The meeting hears reports from the President, General Secretary and Treasurer and the Programme Committees. Member churches were also invited to share news from their regions.

Some themes were heard across the areas of the Council’s business.

Creation, Care for the earth and Climate Change
There was a call from President Bishop Paulo Lockmann, “that we be urgent in deepening discussion in both Council and member churches to serve God through care of creation.”

Past President John Barrett, President Paulo Lockmann, General Secretary Ivan Abrahams

Migration and Refugees
The consequences include child entrapment and trafficking and cheap migrant labour or modern slavery. The General Secretary Bishop Ivan Abrahams challenged Methodists to be modern day abolitionists.

Ecumenical Challenge
Invitations have been received to join in prayer and action to focus on care for the earth ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ from the Anglican Communion and to participate in the ‘Call to Holiness’ from the Roman Catholic Church. The Council recommended Pope francis encyclical ‘ ..’ for study and reflection.

A highlight of the quinquennium was the establishment of the ecumenical centre in Rome.

Evangelism
Evangelism was reaffirmed as a priority for the Council and the Methodist family.

There were other reports which challenged us.

·         Youth and Young Adults called the Council to be open to the input and enthusiasm of young people. Their challenge is included as an appendix to this report.

·         Nuclear threat and trade in arms. Incoming President Bishop J C Park spoke of the threat on the Korean Peninsula and his intention to address this during his term as President of the Council.

·         Rejecting religious extremism. The Council received and endorsed the statement printed as appendix 2.

Programme Committees Reported.
Each programme Committee lead the Council in the work they were planning for the Conference. In some cases we viewed the 5 minute video prepared for the Conference.

Ecumenical Relationships and Dialogue introduced the ecumenical guests to the Conference and encouraged the Council to participate in the Catholic Churches call to care for creation. [1^st September to 4^th October]

Youth and Young Adults have created a devotional blog and worked on their communication. Thanks was given to John Thomas III who concludes his role as Youth and Young Adults Coordinator.

Family Life Resource packs are available on the World Methodist Council website addressing issues such as Child domestic workers, campaign for Children in Poverty and Child Health.

Theological Education has shared in many symposiums in the last five years. Peace Education and the nuclear threat will be a future emphasis.

Inter-religious relationships. This new committee was established at the 2013 Council meeting in London. The website has been developed.

Education provided copies of two publications; a directory of more than 1000 Methodist and United institutions and the 150 years History of Methodist Education.

Social and International Affairs reiterated Council resolutions and on-going work on social issues such as HIV/Aids, Environment and climate justice, Peace-making and Poverty and inequality.

Evangelism / World Methodist Evangelism Institute a new logo and website have been developed. 45 years of work is being celebrated and an invitation was given to the Global Evangelism Summit to be held from 20 -27 June 2018.

Affiliate Reports

World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women were meeting at the same time as the Council and Conference with the theme: “Chosen People: Called to proclaim”

World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Men will now be known as Wesley Men. They continue to work through ‘Stop Hunger Now’.

Israel – Palestine Liaison Office The call was for all member churches to work with and own this initiative.

World Methodist Historical Society reminded the Council that ‘Heritage is claiming the past for the sake of the future; Nostalgia is claiming the future for the sake of the past’.

Oxford Institute the 14^th Institute will meet August 12 -19 2018 at Pembroke University at Oxford. The theme “Thy Grace Restore, Thy work revive: Revival, Reform and Revolution in Global Methodism”

Epworth Old Rectory reminded the Council that this belongs to us all.

World Methodist Museum is celebrating 60 years

Invitation to the 22^nd Conference
The Swedish Covenant Church along with the Nordic and Baltic Central Conference of the UMC invited the Methodists of the World to hold their Council meeting and Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden in August 2021.

Appointment of Officers
The Council appointed the following Officers:

Rev. Dr. JC Park – President – Korean Methodist Church
Ms. Gillian Kingston – Vice President - The Methodist Church in Ireland
Mr Kirby Hickey –Chief Financial Officer/Treasurer – United Methodist Church, USA

Officers.
Ms. Christine Elliott -– The Methodist Church in Britain
Mr. Joshua Rathnam - –Church of North India
Rev David Bush –– The Methodist Church in New Zealand
Bishop Darryl B. Starnes Sr. -– The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
Rev Dr George Mulrain –-Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas
Archbishop Michael Stephen – The Methodist Church Nigeria
Rev. Dr. Jean Hawxhurst – United Methodist Church, USA

Council members were encouraged to give serious consideration in the ensuing quinquennium to those who might be called to serve the Council in the future.

Appendix 1
Statement from Youth and Young Adults

The biggest obstacle is ourselves.

Challenge- for every member church to move away from tokenistic youth work and towards real participation where young people have a say in the processes that directly affect them.

Young people deal with racism every day of their lives. Young people deal with gender inequality every day of their lives. Young people deal with the challenges of climate change every day of their lives. These same young people are instrumental in bringing about change in their local situation: It is the young students of Mexico who spearheaded the protests of injustices of their government, risking their own lives.  It is the young people of Egypt that initiated the Arab spring, the #occupywallstreet movement and in South Africa, it is the young people who are spearheading the decolonisation process with #feesmustfall. Churches struggle to contribute constructively in these conversations. It is tragic that the young people who can affect change in broader civil society are unable to effectively affect the ecclesial space. Young people very rarely are included in the systems that inform the policies, theologies and spiritualities of the very churches who are struggling to speak meaningfully and prophetically to the larger socio-economic realities of the world.

This has to change.

Not just for the future of the church but for the present reality of the church. Young people have a faith, young people have a God and young people are changing the tide of injustice in the world. But we have to change the manner in which we include young people in the matters of faith. We must move away from tokenistic engagement that places the voices of young people and young adults into conferences and arenas that meet outside the ‘main’ event. Young people need to be involved in the processes of that make up the very heart of our denominations.  

There is a particular challenge also to the global south. The global south boast that it has the fastest and largest presence of Christianity in the world. The Global South also has the largest concentration of 18-35 year olds in the world and yet these young people have no say in the decisions which impact the daily expression of their faith. Young people in the global South are almost never part of the policy making within their churches. So here is the challenge to the global South and to the rest of us gathered here. We have to change the way we include young people. In the next quinqennium, young persons must be included within delegations to council. 

Appendix 2
Statement Rejecting Religious Extremism

Our world appears more polarised, divided and divisive than ever and we are confronted with extremism and violence in new and terrifying ways. In the face of this extremism and violence, we believe there is a heightened urgency to reach the world for Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and we urge Christians of all Traditions to commit themselves to grace filled action in relation to our sisters and brothers in other faith traditions. Further we reject all forms of violent extremism, recognising that human life is sacred and no one should be victimised, nor lives taken, by anyone in the name of religion.

Galveston

Houston is about an hour from the Gulf and Galveston Island, so we decided to spend the day at the beach. The first half of the journey was the same as going to NASA. The freeway was still reasonably quiet which was great.

The historic city of Galveston was made up of beautiful old buildings. Even better there was free parking on the street. The one issue in the USA is finding public toilets. They had some but it did mean walking the length of the town. After exploring the shops, but not spending anything we had a very pleasant lunch at a restaurant on the water front. Across the harbour there were three oil rigs parked up.

The next stop was the ocean side of the island. There was a lot more accommodation here, and parking meters along the whole length of the road. We drove to the very end to the mouth of the harbour. It was busy with a number of ships in view. A few miles back along the beach there was a pier. We thought we would explore it and paid for a car park only to discover that you had to pay a small fortune just to get on the pier. So we walked along the beach front instead. It was a very hot day so we did not walk too far.

Back in the car we drove along the beach for several miles before turning for home. We decide we would go to Dairy Queen for an ice cream. They make great ice creams by mixing in interesting flavours and bits such as peanut butter cups and oreos. We bought a small size and it was massive. If we had bought a large one we would probably still be there trying to finish it.

We had passed some factory shops on the freeway so returned to have a look. By the time we got there the heavens had opened with a thunder storm. We got quite wet getting from the car to the shops. Once again we assisted the US economy.

Oil rigs Galveston 

Run Forest Run - Outside Bubba Gumps Galvston Pier

One of the colourful seats at Galveston

We called in to a neighbouring food mart to get something for dinner as by now it was getting too late to go out for a meal when we got back to the hotel.

A messy day

Monday morning we had a relaxed start to the day and because we still had a car we hunted out a laundry to replenish our stock of clean clothes. As we came back into the hotel on the information screen it said the Steering Committee was going to meet at 1pm. This was a bit of a nuisance as we had hoped to go to the Mall and to take a couple of other New Zealanders with us.

We did drive to the mall to show everyone how to get their on the bus, and then back to the hotel. The frustration was that only three of us turned up. It was a room booking 'just in case' rather than a definite booking. So I went back to the room and collected Lynda and Aimee and we went to the underground tunnels to get some lunch. It is possible to get around under Houston by using the tunnels all in air conditioned comfort. It was over 100 F outside.

After lunch we went to one of the only stores in town, a $1.29 and under store. A place for some interesting and cheap purchases. On the way back we stopped at a donut store and bought one each. They were yummy.

Papas Texas BBQ

In the evening we returned to get some more Texas BBQ. David's ribs were so big he could not eat them all. Then a swim in the hotel pool to finish the day. The pool is on the top floor [24] and gives great views across the city. The pool is really good too.

Diane Laughton, Lynda and Aimee at the Hilton Pool

NASA - The Johnson Space Centre

Part of the reason we hired a car in Houston was to get ourselves to the NASA Johnson Space Centre. The freeway was not too crowded early on on a Saturday morning for the 35 minute journey. I had booked tickets for the tram tour on-line, but I need not have worried as there was plenty of room. The first tour to Mission Control took us to that very familiar room from the 60's and 70's space programme. The most impressive part of the tour was the Saturn 5 rocket lying on its side . What an awesome piece of engineering. What amazing power to lift it all off the ground. It is incredible how much rocket was required to lift a relatively small capsule into space.

Mission Control at Johnson Space Centre, Houston

Saturn 5 rocket at NASA

Back at the main museum we walked through the Space Shuttle which is mounted on its 747 transport plane. A huge difference in the amount of usable room compared to the Apollo programmes.

Space Shuttle on its 747 Transport

Back in the museum we looked at the interesting displays, which included a piece of moon rock, which you could touch. It it well touched.

Lynda touching a piece of rock from the moon.

After lunch we caught the second tram tour to the engineering workshop where they have the mock-ups of space craft fore Astronauts to train in. These include the international space station which is part of the current programme and the mock up for the next space mission which will see manned trips to the moon and to Mars.

It was very very hot outside. On the way home we called in to a pharmacy and bought two large packs of 24 bottles of water. This was a good move as it met our needs for the whole time we were in Houston. The tap water tasted a bit like a chemical factory.

Matthew had told Aimee that she needed to eat barbecue in Texas. A Google search revealed that there was a place not too far away. We got a bit lost on the way and walked a lot further than we needed to or wanted to in the heat, but the ribs were worth it. They were massive and very very tasty. Three ribs was more than enough. The walk back was much easier because we now knew the shortest route.

It had been a very good day. NASA was especially interesting.