Words from Bede Circuit
Dear Friends,
As many of you will know by now, Last week the District Probationers committee recommended that I am to be put forward for ordination this year (Subject to Connexional Committee and Conference approval) on the 27th June at Coventry Central Hall.
This date will be a significant one and will mark the end of a long journey to ordination and the start of a new one as an ordained minister in the worldwide church of God.
The committee across both years of probation look at competencies in many areas including vocation, call and commitment, learning and understanding, ministry in Gods church, ministry in Gods world.
The journey to the point of ordination can feel like you are being tested beyond what you thought you were capable of. It has been my experience that this includes days where you feel as though you are having a mountain top experience with God but also days when you feel as though your faith is tested to its very core.
In the Lenten season we are asked to reflect on Jesus’ testing in the wilderness. This year as a circuit we are looking at The Methodist Way of Life, which focuses on our calling as the Methodist people, as we live amongst the people of the world.
Our testing in this last year as the people of God has been of epic proportions. We may well have had points when have questioned the very existence of God.
Yet, it is in these very testing times, that we often find God silently at work within the world in ways we did not expect.
We may well have all felt well and truly tested, but it is my prayer that each of us through this testing will know the God who seeks us first. That we will be people of faith who despite having been tested to the core can firmly say that we are routed firmly in the God of surprises, rooted in the God who seeks us and loves us and rooted in the God who Journeys with us even if that journeying is at times unseen. I have taken comfort in my own testing this year, that God reassures us that God will never leave us or forsake us. Indeed, God knows us better than we know ourselves.
STF 728 v 1 & 2
O God, you search me and you know me. All my thoughts lie open to your gaze. When I walk or lie down, you are before me, Ever the maker and keeper of my days. You know my resting and my rising. You discern my purpose from afar, and with love everlasting you besiege me: In every moment of life or death, you are.
Sunday Worship continues on Zoom at 10.30am
Zoom Bible Studies on ‘A Methodist Way of Life’ on Monday evenings at 7pm and Thursday mornings at 10.30am
Zoom Wednesday Morning Prayers are at 10am
There are also Sunday services using Why pay telephone conferencing and a Sunday worship sheet. Please contact the Senior Church Steward (Brenda Wallace) for more details: wesleymemchurch.pr@gmail.com
With good wishes and prayers on behalf of the Bede Circuit staff team,
Rev Matt Sheard