LETTER FROM THE ECUMENICAL MODERATOR
christian declaration
MURDOCH MACKENZIE
september 2002
Dear Friends
Thirty days hath September, so what are we going to do with them ? As Methodists, and since convergence we are in a very real sense all Methodists now, September 1st is the beginning of a new church year. Thus we bid farewell to Revd Shaun Sanders as he moves to Hackney as Superintendent and we welcome Revd Neville Stewart as he joins the Mission Partnership from the Uniting Church in Australia. As it so happens on Friday 6th we welcome back to Milton Keynes Revd Paul Smith and his wife Jeanette as he is licensed by Bishop Mike to the churches of St Mary Magdalene Willen and Cross and Stable Downs Barn in Stantonbury Ecumenical Parish. On Tuesday 10th we bid farewell to Fr Kevin O'Driscoll from St Thomas Aquinas and All Saints Bletchley, who is moving to Slough, and we welcome Fr Michael Harrison in his place. On Sunday 15th at the AGM of the Milton Keynes Christian Training Course in Wolverton Methodist Church we will thank Revd Jan Appleby for two years of self-giving work and welcome Revd Peter Ballantine as the new Director of the Training Commission for the coming seven years.
September will never be the same because inevitably we will come to September 11th, a day on which some of us will be in Birmingham at Carrs Lane Church Centre, together with people of many faiths, considering those things which make for peace in this still relatively new millennium. This letter is being written on Hiroshima Day, 6th August, which is also the Feast of the Transfiguration, and together with some 3000 Christian leaders I signed the Christian Declaration relating to the morality and legality of a war against Iraq, which was delivered to 10 Downing Street. The core message read: ' It is deplorable that the world's most powerful nations continue to regard war and the threat of war as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy, in violation of the ethos of both the United Nations and Christian moral teaching. The way of peace does not lie through war but through the transformation of structures of injustice and of the politics of exclusion, and that is the cause to which the West should be devoting its technological, diplomatic and economic resources.' This message, together with prayers and songs for peace, was read out to the multitudes gathered at the Peace Pagoda remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But this is not all September has to offer. On Sunday 1st Revd Professor Michael Taylor will address the subject of 'Faith in the Global Economy' as part of Milton Keynes Global Fair. 8th September is Racial Justice Sunday, which will hopefully be celebrated in every church, and on 9th September Revd David Coffey, General Secretary of the Baptist Union, will deliver the 22nd Woughton Lecture on the subject of 'When Monday Comes' - supporting Christians in the Workplace. This month the new Prayer Cycle is also available through which we can pray regularly and systematically as a Mission Partnership for all of the above and much more. As we do this let us give thanks to God for all that we have received as churches together here in Milton Keynes. A recent letter from a minister who now works elsewhere reminds us that we can so easily take what we have too much for granted. He writes: ' It was only on leaving Milton Keynes that I fully came to realise the value of what we had. Here, ecumenical work seems to consist of a couple of social events every year and the odd march of witness. Apart from that we all stay securely behind our denominational barricades ! I wish you well and continue to pray that " he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. " '
May God's love, Christ's peace and the Spirit's encouragement be with us all this month.
Murdoch MacKenzie
Thirty days hath September, so what are we going to do with them ? As Methodists, and since convergence we are in a very real sense all Methodists now, September 1st is the beginning of a new church year. Thus we bid farewell to Revd Shaun Sanders as he moves to Hackney as Superintendent and we welcome Revd Neville Stewart as he joins the Mission Partnership from the Uniting Church in Australia. As it so happens on Friday 6th we welcome back to Milton Keynes Revd Paul Smith and his wife Jeanette as he is licensed by Bishop Mike to the churches of St Mary Magdalene Willen and Cross and Stable Downs Barn in Stantonbury Ecumenical Parish. On Tuesday 10th we bid farewell to Fr Kevin O'Driscoll from St Thomas Aquinas and All Saints Bletchley, who is moving to Slough, and we welcome Fr Michael Harrison in his place. On Sunday 15th at the AGM of the Milton Keynes Christian Training Course in Wolverton Methodist Church we will thank Revd Jan Appleby for two years of self-giving work and welcome Revd Peter Ballantine as the new Director of the Training Commission for the coming seven years.
September will never be the same because inevitably we will come to September 11th, a day on which some of us will be in Birmingham at Carrs Lane Church Centre, together with people of many faiths, considering those things which make for peace in this still relatively new millennium. This letter is being written on Hiroshima Day, 6th August, which is also the Feast of the Transfiguration, and together with some 3000 Christian leaders I signed the Christian Declaration relating to the morality and legality of a war against Iraq, which was delivered to 10 Downing Street. The core message read: ' It is deplorable that the world's most powerful nations continue to regard war and the threat of war as an acceptable instrument of foreign policy, in violation of the ethos of both the United Nations and Christian moral teaching. The way of peace does not lie through war but through the transformation of structures of injustice and of the politics of exclusion, and that is the cause to which the West should be devoting its technological, diplomatic and economic resources.' This message, together with prayers and songs for peace, was read out to the multitudes gathered at the Peace Pagoda remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But this is not all September has to offer. On Sunday 1st Revd Professor Michael Taylor will address the subject of 'Faith in the Global Economy' as part of Milton Keynes Global Fair. 8th September is Racial Justice Sunday, which will hopefully be celebrated in every church, and on 9th September Revd David Coffey, General Secretary of the Baptist Union, will deliver the 22nd Woughton Lecture on the subject of 'When Monday Comes' - supporting Christians in the Workplace. This month the new Prayer Cycle is also available through which we can pray regularly and systematically as a Mission Partnership for all of the above and much more. As we do this let us give thanks to God for all that we have received as churches together here in Milton Keynes. A recent letter from a minister who now works elsewhere reminds us that we can so easily take what we have too much for granted. He writes: ' It was only on leaving Milton Keynes that I fully came to realise the value of what we had. Here, ecumenical work seems to consist of a couple of social events every year and the odd march of witness. Apart from that we all stay securely behind our denominational barricades ! I wish you well and continue to pray that " he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. " '
May God's love, Christ's peace and the Spirit's encouragement be with us all this month.
Murdoch MacKenzie
