Uncharted territory

Today we literally went into uncharted territory. A small group started out from our church building and distributed the official Methodist Church leaflet "make a journey of faith" together with a more local newsletter.

The uncharted territory included two entire new estates that had been built on the site of the former Mitchells and Butlers brewery. These new streets still have to appear on any maps either hard copy or online.

We had hoped to distribute the leaflets to 2000 homes. In the event we managed 1400. It was interesting to leaflet an area which contains some of the most deprived housing in the UK. I think I realised how little I knew about our immediate catchment area.

Conversely I was amazed at some of the wealth we found. There was one home which housed a magnificent grand piano. There were others where the drives were choc-a-block with Range Rovers and Mercedes cars.

Our prayers for a fine day were answered but as darkness gathered we became aware of the miserable impact of "Halloween" on some communities. Groups of youths in masks, some dressed as the grim reaper, were knocking on doors. Some people hearing our leaflet going through their door assumed we were "trick or treaters" and shouted abuse at us.

All in all, a very useful exercise. I doubt very much whether any Methodist Church in the UK has recently tried a similar exercise. We actually made contact with many people and were especially interested to find that many of our ethnically Asian neigbours were keen to tell us that they were Christian.

Great things are happening here in our little corner of Birmingham. We pray and prayers are answered. We ask and we receive, though not always in the way we requested. We open our hearts and are surprised by joy as lives and perspectives change.

We may be a little church that has been battered by the less attractive aspects of Methodism but we know that the Methodist theology of going out and speaking to people about faith actually works. Lets have less bureaucracy and more vision, less complacency and more confidence that Jesus wants a successful Methodist Church.

Out on the streets

Today marks a new phase of our programme to regenerate City Road Methodist Church. Things have been tough in recent years: we've had a hard time spiritually and attendances have dropped.

We now have a new leadership team focused on proclaiming God's Good News in one of the most deprived and difficult urban areas of the United Kingdom.

A few weeks ago we reviewed our signage. We replaced the legendary notice proclaiming that "Jesus cares about Rotton Park" and put an equally large sign with our website address. We've been delighted with the positive response both in terms of comments and hits on the website.

We also realised that the 1980s design of the front foyer makes an excellent shop window. A copy of the Bible is on display opened to John 3:16 and we have created a special display encouraging passers by to attend next week's Remembrance Sunday Service.

Today though we try something completely new when we distribute leaflets to 2000 local homes. The recipients will get a national leaflet produced by Methodist Church House (and supplied free!) together with a short two sided A4 local newsletter. Our prayer is that we have at least a 0.01% response rate with two new families joining the Church.

So you can help by remembering us in prayer today. We need good weather, several helpers and a big smile. We are scheduled to start at 14.00 GMT. Please remember us as you pray today, especially for the new families that God will bring to us.

The fascinating story of the "onion Johnnies" and a visit to Roscoff

We've just had a relaxing few days over in Roscoff, a ferry journey from Plymouth across the English Channel.

For me the highlight of the visit - apart from some excellent food - was a visit to the "Maison des Johnnies". This is a building a few streets back from the quay which chronicles the lives of the "onion Johnnies" who still come from Brittany in France to sell onions door to door in Great Britain.

It isn't a museum because the trade still continues with about 20 Bretons still working in the UK.

Like many English people I assumed that the onion Johnnies were from anywhere in France and sold any sort of onion. Not so.

The trade began in the late 1820s when the first Bretons arrived in Plymouth to sell their produce. In fact the story has much in common with many of the issues of contemporary European agriculture.

The Bretons could have simply continued trying to sell their produce locally or in the overcrowded French market. Instead they created a unique distribution system and a good quality, long lasting, product.

The distribution system meant that each year up to 1500 men, mainly from the small fishing and market town of Roscoff would spend up to ten months each year pedalling a cycle around a defined area of England asking "Onions, do you want some onions". This must have been hard for the men and their families but at least it added value to local farm produce.

The distinctiveness of their product quickly became recognised by the British housewife. The "rose onions" from the particular soil around Roscoff were especially sweet flavoured, a flavour that could not be bought from the English high street greengrocer.

Finally tying the onions into tresses or strings meant that less oxygen passed into the bulb enabling each onion to remain fresh and usable for many months.

A video had the Johnnies speak of their work. One remarked that the English thought of them as French, "but they didn't realise that we were not French, we were Bretons".

All in all a fascinating story a piece of British life that many of us hardly noticed, perhaps even taking for granted the French onion seller peddling from street to street.

I must warn Anglophones that the talk was in French though the guide spoke good English and may make allowances as appropriate (I was the only non Francophone present and the family provided interpretation). A family ticket cost 10 Euros, which I though was good value.

Talking of costs, anyone going to the Eurozone should be aware that the £ and the Euro are almost at parity when it comes to the tourist exchange rates. We found we had to be careful with the money as it disappeared very quickly.

All the more reason to choose your eating places very carefully. Many of the restaurants in Roscoff specialise in seafood and seek to provide a gastronomic experience. They also tend to be expensive. We found two very family friendly places - the Pizzeria Marie Stuart and our favourite the Creperie de la Poste. Both were comparatively inexpensive.

The Creperie does more than crepes and I certainly enjoyed my steak and frittes which I needed after surviving on inexpensive sandwiches throughout the day!

Now there was just one jarring note for us Brits. The Union Flag flying over the entrance of the Talabadon Hotel where we stayed was upside down! Naturally I told the management ( and naturally the rest of the family disappeared with embarrassment as I complained in broken French).

They said it happened all the time. Apparently Brits walk in off the street and point out that the flag is upside down. I tried to explain that it was a sign of distress and that no British hotel would ever dream of flying the French flag upside down. The Union Jack was still upside down when we left two days later.

We arrived on a Monday morning so had little opportunity to look at the religious side of things. The town is dominated by a huge Catholic Church the interior of which is dominated in turn by a completely out of proportion and gaudy alter area.

Just round the corner is a tiny Baptist church that was founded by two Welshmen in the 1920s. During the summer we understand it is used each Sunday as a visiting cleric stays in the accommodation at the back, when we were there nearly twenty years ago it was the turn of a French army chaplain and his family. For the rest of the year there are morning services on the third Sunday of each month provided in conjunction with the Baptist Church in nearby Morlaix.

One final point: if you want a free drink on the French gambling industry go to Le Jardin Exotic. As part of a promotion adult tickets to Le Jardin include a free drink at the nearby Casino. All the other visitors looked like very intense botanists so us good Methodists decided to take advantage of the offer. We had to show our passports, were disappointed that the drinks on offer were very limited, took a good look at the roulette table and spent not a penny. Evenso we left, like many who leave casinos, a little disappointed. The whole place seemed so sleazy.

Half term beckons

We will be celebrating the great secular festival of Autumn Half Term during the next few days, so no blogging.

Before I pause however I am playing Paul Anka's 1957 hit Diana. The many thousands who read Fat Prophet's book which I reviewed earlier this week will understand the significance. I remember miming to this at a holiday camp talent contest on the Isle of Sheppy. I was about ten at the time.

Just one other thing, welcome to the several hundred visitors who have arrived here following the repeat of the Island Parish series. I hope you find something of interest here. Just put "Island Parish" into the search box at the top and you will get a full list of the posts I made last year when the series was first shown.

Back soon!

Time to get a grip

About eight weeks ago I took over as church treasuer. In the past I've taken on these roles and it was relatively easy to change signatures on the bank account.

Was I in for a surprise. If a signatory is not "known" to the bank they have to go through the whole rigmarol of supplying confirmation of identity, date of birth, proof of address and not to forget listing what they have for breakfast (I made that last bit up).

I have been to my chaotic local bank of a High Street Bank about five times with forms - somehow or other there was always something wrong with them.

Finally the Bank "Manager" contacted me and explained that because of 9/11 the rules had been tightened up.

Somehow I can't see City Road Methodist Church operating as drop box for laundering terrorist funds. Yet now it seems that we are deemed to be guilty until proved to be innocent. I think its time we got a grip of ourselves and stopped letting the terrorists disrupt our basic trust in one another.

A Bang or a Whimper: New book from Fat Prophet

I really needed something to make me smile this week and Ian Southall, a Methodist local preacher based in Walsall, who blogs as Fat Prophet, has certainly helped.

Until last Saturday I had never met Ian, not even spoken to him on the phone. I sent him an email saying I'd buy a signed copy of his book and he dropped one off on his way back from a trip into Brum.

I must admit to some trepidation after reading the first page about his Castle Street home for nineteen years being subject to a slum clearance order. My nightmare was that it would become a first contribution to a Black Country version of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch. Imagine Ian, myself, Bob Piper and Bob the Black County Brummie talking about our respective childhoods.

However, and fortunately, it was not to be. The Fat Prophet quickly explained how much he liked the house, especially the cellar where he played with his scalectric toy cars (to which my reaction was to say "You had scalectric cars - we had to make do with matchbox cars!").

Then the Fat Prophet takes us through a wonderful kaleidoscope of a world that has now disappeared. He was born in the Hill Top district of West Bromwich, right in the heart of the Black Country. He now lives a few miles away in Walsall. Apart from his seaside holiday in Portmadoc the entire book is set in just a few square miles of West Bromwich. He even refers to the Yew Tree Estate, also in West Bromwich being seen as a "foreign land".

Some of the detail is fascinating. He is able to give a house by house description of nearly every inhabitant in Castle Street, something that most children would struggle to do today of their own street.

He refers to people removing hats as a funeral cortege passes. Nowadays few wear hats and I notice that as I remove my cap, I'm the only one doing so.

His descriptions of childhood games is magic. I was fascinated to see that there was a season for certain games. The same thing happened a hundred and twenty miles away in London where I lived at the same time. I don't know who devised the system but primary school children seem to have a sense that a new season had begun.

Several times his irritation at health and safety legislation comes out. He did things, as we did, in the 1950s and 1960s that are simply not permissible for today's children.

However this book is valuable in creating a benchmark to show how much our communities have changed. Where Ian covers employment - "walk out of one job on Friday and start a new job on Monday" - and refers to the big manufacturing firms in the Black Country you understand how industry and the pattern of employment has changed.

There's an interesting point about the makeup of the small Sunday School at the Bethesda Chapel that he attended. The teachers were very local people with jobs such as railway signalman, dry cleaners, postman and factory workers. Such people are rarely found today holding any position of responsibility in any denomination. Few churches even have Sunday Schools.

Ian's descriptions of popular culture - television programmes, wrestling, and pop records - are certainly enjoyable for those who were there with him at the time and stirred many a happy memory.

I suspect that this book will sell well in West Bromwich. I'm sure it is the sort of thing that the local schools and libraries will stock and no doubt Ian will get invitations to go and talk about his years in Hill Top. In fact, who knows, there may even be a "Fat Prophet Tour" as he shows the sites of his various escapades?

This book will create interest beyond West Bromwich. I can imagine it being a source for researchers at the London Museum of Childhood, and I hope they get a copy.

I must warn readers though that pages 30 and 31 contain material of a rather "adult nature" as he describes activities in the park, though certainly not offensive, more eye brow raising!

Now there is a dominant theme through much of the book and we get plenty of clues as to why Ian is known in Walsall Methodism and the blogging community as "Fat Prophet".

Ian likes his food! Even descriptions of routine shopping expeditions rate the highlight as a visit to various cafes. It seems that every few pages there are references to fish and chip shops. In fact there is a whole chapter devoted to fish and chips and another to sweets!

Once again the descriptions of fish and chip shops are detailed with nuances about both the chips and the fish. Once again an interesting social point: the names of the fish and chip shop owners were Price, Wills, Tandy, Codger, Guest and Mitchell. That just won't be the case today. Twenty or thirty years ago English names of chip shop owners in West Bromwich gave way to Greek names, these in turn have given away to Asian and even Polish names as new migrants take on responsibility for providing this great British institution.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I hope Ian sells a pile. Those who read it and persevere will be blessed. He obviously had a happy childhood and it is good to see family and community life portrayed so positively.


A bang or a Whimper: A Hill Top Kid Remembers by Ian Southall 2009; self published, details available from Fat Prophet website.

Other reviews by Methodist Preacher:
Wreckers and Builders? A History of Labour MEPs 1979-1999 by Anita Pollack
The roots of terrorism by Geoffrey Whitfield
Shades of Grey by Dudley Coates
Where are the Prophets? by Terry Wynn MEP
No time for Romance by Lucilla Andrews

Flying the flag

It has been a bit of a difficult week - family crisis.

So something very light.

Does anyone know where or what this flag represents?

The answer can be found on this unusually interesting feature on the aol website. Well I found it interesting.

Good food in Hammersmith

Not often I talk about food, but if you are in west London and feel like a tasty meal pop into Antonia's on the Broadway.

Melissa and her team have just been nominated for the Ethical Good Food Award. They certainly deserve some recognition. Hammersmith Broadway is hardly the epicentre of great cuisine. And then - there's Antonia's.

For me they were a lifeline as I worked among the buildings dominated by the UK and European headquarters of Disney and Coke.

Beyond the glad bag

For about the last 100 years the principal means of raising cash at our church to support the Methodist Home Mission fund has been the "glad bag".

This is a little bag made from waste cloth with a short and cheery poem on a name tag.

The idea is that the donor places a coin, usually a penny into the bag each day and then brings it into the church towards the end of the year. The Treasurer would count the coins, bank them and a cheque sent on to the Fund for Home Mission.

No doubt many years ago this was a good idea: a simple way of helping relatively poor people make a sizable donation. A glad bag could easily hold £1.10s in old pennies. Today, with smaller coins, it probably holds about £4.00.

If individuals are happy to continue collecting money in that way then I believe they should continue to do so. However in recent years I have noticed that fewer and fewer glad bags are being handed in. Some people do have problems with this sort of fund raising. Others, not from Methodist families, are unaware of the custom.

However the Fund for Home Mission still needs contributions. It pays for some very important work, not least of which was the provision of 2000 full colour leaflets that we will be distributing around Rotton park in future weeks.

So in order to give opportunities for people to contribute in a modern setting I (as church treasurer) have set up an online fundraising page. It hasn't cost us anything and will enable UK taxpayers to reclaim tax through Gift Aid. I've put a widget on the side bar of this blog and on the church's website.

If you want to make a donation to the Home Mission work feel free to use our fundraising page on www.justgiving.com/cityroad.

Let's spend the night together!

Once again during the "dead blogging" period of Saturday I will indulge my interest in 1960s music.

Now today's offering is one that really caused a big problem in our East London church youth club. To put it into words of one syllable - it was banned!

Even though it was the number one single we weren't allowed to play it on the gramophone. I used to dance like Mick Jagger sang and really enjoyed the Stones. I could dance all night just to the Stones (well I did then). I imagine that here in the Black Country Fat Prophet danced in a similar style. I shall be reading his new book to find out!

Apparently the vicar had read an article about in The Church Times and decided that it was advocating fornication.

I must admit that when I first heard it my assumption that it was the sort of thing that two married people would say to one another after they had had a flaming but non-terminal row.

Mind you at that point it hadn't really occurred to me that it was even about sex, mainly because I had only a very hazy notion about that sort of thing.

Apparently on American television the words were changed to "Let's spend some time together" and I think it would have been just as popular were Jagger to have used that formula. Then we could have danced to it on a Friday night!

With the passing of forty years or more I'm wondering if it still offends and outrages in the way that it did then? I'd be interested to know if it would be banned into today's church youth clubs, that is where they still exist. Another dying part of our community fabric.

Sunday @ City Road

If you are anywhere near Birmingham this week you are welcome to pop along to City Road Methodist Church.

We don't have a planned preacher so I am leading a service where we try to explain "How to begin to pray".

I have written about this before, so if you can't make it, but want to know something about prayer go here. Neither the previous post nor Sunday's service will be exhaustive, but we always aim to encourage.

I know we have to be nice about Americans, but...

O K. I know we have to be nice to Americans. But how are we really supposed to interpret this little bit of halloween lunacy?

Wreckers or builders? A history of Labour MEPs 1979-1999

It is the policy of this blog only to review books with which I have some sort of link. Sometimes I must confess the link seems a little tenuous.

Then along comes my former colleague in the European Parliament, Anita Pollack, with the full monty of a book that even has me as a multiple entry in the index!

This is an interesting project. Anita had a grandstand view of the European Parliament from its election and inception in 1979 as the world's first multi-national legislature through to the increasingly influential body of today. During much of the first ten years Anita worked as an assistant for the charismatic leader of the Labour group of MEPs, Barbara Castle. From 1989 until 1999 she served as an MEP in her own right. Co-incidentally she is the one and only Australian citizen ever to win membership.

At first her title "Wreckers or builders" perplexed me a little. However the detailed pettiness of the bickering among the first tranche of the Labour members elected in 1979 shows how close Labour came to becoming a full blooded anti-European Union party.

Anita picks up a point I made when a candidate in the second European elections in 1984. I drove a round journey of 50 miles at my own expense to speak to a branch meeting. I spent half an hour speaking and nearly an hour being questioned. They then passed a resolution congratulating me on my enthusiasm but decided that they would not be campaigning! Sadly this was typical of how the European Parliament was seen by many Labour party members.

However as the story progresses into the long night of Thatcherism that became the 1980s a different story emerges. Labour MEPs found that they could effect legislation on a whole range of issues having a direct impact on the people they represented.

Sadly the bickering within the group of MEPs continued but the overall approach was becoming more positive.

By the time I arrived in 1994 there had been a sea change in Labour's attitude to the European Union and certainly I felt that I and other new colleagues were elected to do a serious and positive job. However it would have been useful to have read the first three quarters of Anita's book then, as it even now, fifteen years later, it puts many things into perspective.

I was in the European Parliament from 1994 to 1999. It was a turbulent period with very serious controversy about the Labour Party's ideological Clause IV, the BSE crisis and the painful transition to election by proportional representation. I know that Anita and I differed sharply on several issues but I must say that she has dealt with each fairly and this must give the work additional credibility.

One point she picked up on was my work as President of the Parliament's Prayer Breakfast. She seems fascinated that I would often meet Ian Paisley for a conversation, a course of action she acknowledges as risky at that time.

The other Methodist preacher in the Parliament with me, Terry Wynn, gets ample coverage from his impressive work on the EU budget to his defence of Uncle Joe's mint balls.

What is impressive about this book is that it actually gives a good picture of what MEPs, especially Labour MEPs, actually do. It demonstrates the long hours, the frustrations but the pleasure at getting a positive result. It does record the colourful social life available to those that wanted one, but also the sadness as marriages collapsed from the pressure.

This book may not make the big time - though parts of it would make a wonderful documentary film or even a drama - but it will be read by politicians, wannabe politicians, students and researchers for many years to come.

Was I really a "loose cannon"? You'll have to buy it and turn to page 239 to find out!

Wrecker or Builder? A History of Labour MEPs 1979-1999 by Anita Pollack; John Harper Publishing.

Other reviews by Methodist Preacher:
The roots of terrorism by Geoffrey Whitfield
Shades of Grey by Dudley Coates
Where are the Prophets? by Terry Wynn MEP
No time for Romance by Lucilla Andrews

Sign up for more research into mental health

Thanks to my friend Moira for drawing this to my attention.

A declaration will be launched at Number 11 Downing Street this evening. It calls on the Government, the National Health Service, funding bodies, research institutions and the general public to treble the level of investment to £200m a year over the next five years.
The declaration has widespread support from a number of leading scientists and public figures including:
Alistair Campbell
Ruby Wax
Tracey Emin
Stephen Fry
Melanie C
Jo Brand
Mercury award winner Speech Debelle

The organisers hope to get ten thousand online signatures. Sign up NOW!

Launch event

Just had a brilliant evening at the launch of Anita Pollak's wonderful little book on the role of Labour Members of the European Parliament.

Well worth a read, especially if you want to see Methodists in action, impacting on the big issues of the day.

A full review will appear in a few days time.

Picture: that's me at the launch with former EU commissioner Neil Kinnock, a truly great man who wrote the foreword.

Nationwide shake up

It was interesting to read this clipping from a newspaper somewhere up north.

We hear that

METHODIST churches across Calderdale are to merge in a nationwide shake-up.

The churches in the district are currently divided into four circuits. But under plans discussed at the Methodist Conference the 29 churches will now be brought together into one large group.

I must admit I wasn't aware that there was currently a "nationwide shake-up" (though there was some daft proposal to put our church in with the middle class eccentrics down in Selly Oak) so it was interesting to see how it was portrayed in the secular press.

The superintendent Minister Ian Coverdale makes a disarmingly honest statement which I'm sure was meant well but was hardly re-assuring:

"I don't think it will affect the average churchgoer greatly. It just affects how we organise ourselves. It's all just part of making ourselves more outward looking."

He then is quoted as citing reducing congregations and the dwindling Ministerial workforce.

But isn't that the whole point? We make changes but want to reassure the "average churchgoer" that there will be no change.

Sorry ladies and gentlemen, a dwindling customer base and uncertain resources would force any other business to ensure that customers, suppliers and other stakeholders knew that change was afoot and critical to the survival of the business.

It is time that the Methodist Connexion says to "the average churchgoer" that being "average" is no longer good enough.

Exceptional churches will win people for Christ. Exceptional churches will grow and encourage revival.

What is now an "average" Methodist Church with its 50 aging members and its falling income will just not survive.

I'm sure Ian Coverdale meant well and I hope this isn't seen as a personal attack but it is no part of leadership to reassure Christians that they can continue being "average churchgoers" and won't be affected by change.

Unless we take urgent action the "average Church goer" may soon meet the biggest change of all - closure

Beware who you write off

This video will bring tears to your eyes. So positive.

And a real encouragement to those with a disability that puts them on life's bench.

Not for the faint hearted

Today's News of the World carries grisly details of the war in Afghanistan.

The gist of the review of Task Farce Helmand by a former serving officer Doug Beattie MC is that the locally recruited army don't really want to fight.

If there isn't local support for the NATO intervention what real chance is there of subduing the opposition?

Time for a re-think and possibly neighbouring Pakistan may have a greater long term strategic importance.

Judgement and catastrophe

This morning I joined our near neighbours at Christ Church Summerfield for their monthly breakfast meeting.

The "draw" for me was Bob Dunnett the former vice-principal of the Birimingham Bible Institute.

Bob is always a challenging speaker and I haven't heard him, apart from at a funeral, for about ten years.

His message was unusually sombre. For nearly thirty years he had preached about revival and then in 2000 his perspective changed and he began to think and preach about judgment.

Just in case I misrepresent what he says please go to his website http://www.understandingthetimes.org.uk/ for a fuller explanation of his views.

Bob's basic argument is that Britain and the west have been judged in much the same way that the people of Israel were judged in the time of Amos. We now await catastrophe. This could be some decades in the future. Lest we feel that the Old Testament has been superseded entirely by the New Testament, Bob reminded us of Jesus's predictions about the impending fate of Jerusalem - overrun in AD70 and totally destroyed in AD131.

He sees hope in two ways. Firstly we can pray for revival, and there is much evidence that revival often precedes catastrophe for example the 1906 revival was followed by the Great War and the 1859 revival by the American Civil War. Secondly we can ask God in his wrath to remember mercy. Bob referred us to the final book of Habakkuk.

Prophecy isn't normally on my beat (in fact I run a mile when people start quoting the Books of Daniel and Revelation, but Bob quoted neither this morning), however Bob's quiet delivery, his deep understanding of scripture and his sense of urgency, made me realise that he has something very profound to say to today's Church and the surrounding society.

Have I the right?

Well its Saturday morning, no one apart from the Fat Prophet in Walsall comes anywhere near the blog so I'm posting yet another pop song from my legendary and largely misspent youth.

Have I the Right? was performed by the Honeycombs and produced by the legendary Joe Meek. They had met at the Mildmay Tavern in the Balls Pond Road, just a quarter of a mile from my home at the time.

Apart from being an outstanding piece of music most of us in adolescence drooled over the woman drummer. Nowadays no one bats an eyelid but in the 1960s that was seen as being groundbreaking.

The chorus was especially useful on cold nights at speedway matches down at Hackney Wick as we stamped along with it, just like we did to Glad All Over.

Why do people bear a grudge against a church?

There's an old Jewish joke: "If two Jews were shipwrecked on a desert island they'd have to build three synagogues. One for each of them to worship in their own way, and a third that neither would be seen dead in."

Just recently I have again come across the phenomena of grudge bearing about a particular church.

I first came across this nearly a quarter of a century ago when I noticed that a local preacher lived next door to one of our circuit's Methodist churches. "That's handy", I said, "not far to walk." Her response surprised me "I will never set foot in that place again". As far as I know, she never did.

Now as people grow, move home, have families, and so on, its natural that they move church. Different churches cater for slightly different congregations.

I can also understand that some will leave a church because they fall out with a particular Minister or individual. But Ministers, especially Methodists move on, and any single church is always larger than one individual.

What I find puzzling is that some former members of a church can have a view that verges on hatred, certainly of contempt, for those that remain in the congregation.

I know of one case where a man felt he had been racially abused by the Minister sometime in the 1960s. Absolutely no one who was a member of that church then is still in membership, in fact most are dead. No amount of reassurance will get him to cross the threshold.

What I find disturbing is when former members of a Church to which they were welcomed and in which they were loved, can develop such bitterness and anger that they actively brief others against that particular body of believers.

As a post-graduate marketing student we were warned about cognitive dissonance. Yes you may be able to sell a product or service, but if the customer feels that it hasn't lived up to expectations or the seller's claims then the customer gets distinctly unhappy. The higher the price, the greater the commitment, the greater level of cognitive dissonance.

A lot of customer experience research suggests that a happy and satisfied customer will tell at least two people how pleased they were with the product or service.

About 10% of unhappy customers will tell at least five others, about 80% will tell up to 10, the remaining 10% will tell an infinate number of people about their negative experience.

Now Church membership is often a "high value" purchase. When we join a church, especially if it coincides with a growth in ort faith, we are investing a great deal in a particular body of believers. We may invest up to a tenth of our income, a great deal of time, sometimes even status and earning potential.

So when we begin to feel uncomfortable in a church, especially if we have been committed enough to hold office and get involved in the inevitable church politics, we feel particularly hurt and angry.

If we get to the tipping point of actually leaving, together with the disruption to personal habits, friendship groups, and so on, we have a very high level of cognitive dissonance.

There seems to be two issues here: firstly how should the person leaving behave? Secondly how should the church react?

We have elaborate ceremonies and procedures for those joining a church, but little thought seems to be given for the process of departure. I know of several people who have simply stopped attending a church, sometimes even supported by a letter of resignation, and then never heard again from the Minister or congregation unless they bump into someone from the church in Tescos.

Those leaving a body of believers need to have the capacity to pray and ask for God's guidance. If we once felt called to a certain body, does God actually change His mind? In other words we shouldn't move from a church, but move to a new situation.

And when we do move, we need to ask ourselves "have I really left the problems behind"? Are we simply taking the problems from Church A to Church B and see the process start all over again? And as we leave, we need to be careful that our letters of resignation, what we say about the church we leave are based on love, not spite, contempt nor sarcasm.

Above all we need to recognise that those who stay behind may be having the same problems as you - particularly for example if the Connexion has stationed a batty Minister there - but facing them in a different way. Talking down the church to all and sundry is not helpful to those who choose to remain.

Leavers also need the insight to understand that churches change. I occasionally meet people who left our church twenty years ago over some long forgotten issue speaking with great authority about where we are going wrong. Thanks, but we can do without the advice: time has moved on.

How should a church handle those leaving? Firstly people shouldn't leave and feel that no one cares. Their contribution to the church should be recognised and celebrated, perhaps even by a small gift depending on the sensitivities involved. We should rejoice that they are moving to a new situation, especially if we accept that they are answering the call of God.

I work in a variety of employment situations. I find it helpful, in all circumstances both good and bad, to have an "exit interview". Certainly as an employer I have found these invaluable. When people are "demob happy" they can often cast a light on situations that may not otherwise have come to light. Going back to my marketing theory - the customer who takes the trouble to complain is often the most valuable customer.

However if we discover that our leavers are just leaving, going nowhere, then the church must retain a pastoral responsibility for them. This does not mean harassing them back into attendance but contacting them and encouraging them to find a new church, possibly even putting them in touch with somewhere or someone more suitable. Falling out with a church should not mean falling out with God.

Former members can be a resource. Setting up a page on Friends Reunited or Facebook, combined with an occasional newsletter can be very cost effective way of retaining long term contact. Even those who leave with a burden will inevitably have good memories and friends with which they would want to connect.

If we find we are the destination church we should handle with care.

It is very flattering to be told that you are not like the Reverend So-and-so up the road who doesn't listen to the congregation/isn't a great Bible teacher/is too fundamentalist/etc/etc, but we need to see and understand those comments in context. Even listening to gossip from ex-members of another church can be destructive by giving it credibility. We should always question whether the problems from the church down the road may be portable to the new situation.

Over the last ten years I have been in a church where I have been very ill at ease with a number of factors. However we felt that this was our calling and continued in membership. What has made it particularly difficult has been to find that others, no longer connected to the church, were briefing against us. If people can't say a good thing about a church, it is best that they say nothing. If they have something to say, they should say it privately to the leadership. They certainly should not make negative comments about a church with which they have lost any meaningful contact.

Gambling problems on the rise

Catching up with yesterday's Racing Post I read that problem gambling is on the rise:

THE number of people seeking help for gambling problems in Britain has soared according to the charity GamCare, which reports a huge increase in the volume of calls to its telephone advice lines.

An annual review of GamCare's activity and effectiveness as an advice, support and counselling service, shows that enquiries to its helpline and NetLine were up 21 per cent in 2008 and the number of counselling sessions up by 30 per cent over the same year. The number of calls answered was up 300 per cent.

GamCare said its advisers were now dealing with around 100 callers every day and that more than 300 people are in treatment around the country, receiving individual counselling.

GamCare is actually funded by the gambling industry and boasts it "takes a non-judgemental approach to gambling. We do not wish to restrict the choices or opportunities for anyone to operate or engage in gambling opportunities that are available legally and operated responsibly".

I have tried their so called "helpline" and was diverted to a mobile in someone's pocket - hardly designed to inspire confidence that my call for help would be handled in a private, confidential or professional manner.

No, sadly just like the hopeless Gambling Commission and its ever pliable members, one of whom is a house trained Methodist luminary, GamCare is all about protecting the gambling "industry".

The simplest way of reducing the level of problem gambling is to reduce the number of opportunities to gamble.

In you don't believe that there are many people who have a real problem with gambling just pop into your local betting shop or amusement arcade and see the people, many of them under age, sitting there for hours on end hoping for better "luck".

No! No! No! I shouldn't laugh

I know that us preachers are supposed to set an example. But I just laughed when I read this story from Swansea and saw the cctv footage on youtube.

The theology of central heating

I spent most of yesterday at the Church. We're having to sort out a number of issues with the building and it was the turn of the central heating system. This is both expensive to run and seems to be ineffective.

"Ah" said the central heating technician, "I can see one of the problems you've got here: too much dust, inside the radiators."

Sure enough, as I looked down through the vents I could see the insides of each unit coated with cobwebs, fluff and dust.

As far as I know, and from the technician's experience, it had probably not be cleaned internally since installation in the mid 1980s. Heat was being generated but the dust was preventing its circulation and therefore reducing the effectiveness of the entire system.

So I spent a happy two hours armed with a long handled brush and a vacuum cleaner cleaning out the dust accumulated over more than a quarter of a century It was a dirty job and even this morning I still find dust particles in my mouth and nose.

Well the lesson seems obvious. How much dust have we allowed to accumulate in our personal and church lives? We still produce the heat, but it doesn't circulate and is rendered ineffective by an unseen collection of rubbish. From time to time individuals and institutions need dusting down, even on the inside.

Courts shouldn't "forgive"

A sad story in today's newspapers highlights the invidious position of a court faced with a victim's family attempting to influence the outcome of the case. Usually such cases revolve around arguments that the punishment should be more severe. In this case however, a Christian family asked that the court take into account their "forgiveness":

A judge is being investigated after he freed a child rapist who kidnapped and assaulted another youngster just eight days later.

Judge Adrian Smith spared the 16-year-old jail after the first victim’s family apparently forgave the teenager because of their Christian faith.

He was given a community order despite protests from prosecutors and police and went on to rape a five-year-old.

The story goes on to say:

Judge Smith, 58, is thought to have allowed him to go free after hearing statements from the victim’s father, who said his ‘religious faith’ had allowed him to forgive the attacker.

By all means Christians must learn to forgive on a personal basis. However scripture makes it clear that justice should be impartial. Allowing victims and their families to influence the outcome of a court case is undermining the role of the community in meting out punishment.

We seem to be on a slippery slope to making justice personal, rather than judicial.

No post

I will be spending most of Sunday driving one of my offspring to a university city a long way from home. So update on Monday.

Am I my nephew's keeper?

What is it about public life that makes the holder of public office somehow responsible for the failings of all other family members?

In December of last year I asked this very question about a Conservative politician that I didn't much care for.

Now I wince at the attacks on Baroness Scotland, a Black woman who has scaled the dizzy heights. She seems to be "fair game" at the moment.

Today's News of the World digs out a sad story about her jailbird nephew. So what? My Dad was in prison. Does that make me any less a Methodist preacher?

For those of us of a certain age

Well its Saturday morning when traffic falls to zero so I thought a little self indulgence would be in order after a comparatively serious week.

I found this wonderful recording of Kathy Kirby singing "Secret Love" on YouTube. I think I saw the original performace on Juke Box Jury. It will probably appeal to men who were a certain age in the 1960s. I have never completely understood why her career didn't take off to even greater heights, though Bruce Forsyth seems to have something to do with it.

The interesting thing about Kathy was that in the 1960s she was definitely retro, with her clothes, makeup and singing style having more than a passing resemblance to 1940s and 1950s women performers such as Doris Day and Marilyn Monroe.

How to get really upset

OK I know that we all have views about the war in Afghanistan.

But if you really want to be upset, read this sad and disgusting story from the streets of Birmingham.