Circuit Plan December ’24 to February ’25
The inside of the circuit plan is available here for you to download, service details can also be found via the individual church pages on this site.
Dear Friends,
I pray that your ministry is a blessing to you in which you find meaning, peace, and even joy. This calling is, at once, an ordinary privilege and a divine opportunity. May we never be so familiar with the mechanics of preparation and delivery that we fail to notices the divine spark we carry as we share the news of Jesus nestled in the manger – the hope of the incarnation transforming our world.
John Wesley, had a lot of advice for his preachers. Some of it more useful than the rest. His instructions to the preachers in ‘The Large Minutes’ include “Let your whole deportment before the congregation be serious, weighty, and solemn. [and] Do not usually pray above eight or ten minutes, before or after the sermon. Make of that what you will, but listen to this:
“Keep holiness whole. Insist on inward and outward holiness.” Inward and outward holiness must never be separated. When Wesley proclaimed that “there is no holiness but social holiness” he meant that holiness of heart must be expressed in how we live with, and relate to, others. Spiritual holiness and religious actions must be incarnated as holy living, just action and mercy-filled, gracious kindness. “This holiness proceeds from a transformed heart.” Without inner transformation, our outward behaviour will never reach the fullness of life we can know, which for Wesley included both restraint from evil and participation in acts of mercy and justice. Methodist preaching has always been aimed at the heart for the formation of holy lives and healed communities.
Thank-you for your preaching, leading worship and leadership within the circuit. You are a blessing to all who attend our services, and through them to their families, friends and communities, and in all you do you are shining a light into a darkening world and the advance guard of God’s kingdom coming ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.
Adrian