WEEKLY
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Church Council.
The Church Council met on Tuesday, 18 February. It was a lengthy but productive meeting. From the many subjects dealt with it selected three for mention here, which illustrate the breadth of its responsibilities.
No vote was taken, but it was noted that although Local Churches have no direct access to the Conference there will be votes in the spring district Synods on the Conference resolutions giving effect to the main recommendations of the report, and that Circuit Meetings can submit memorials. If the Conference this year confirms last year’s decisions they will come into effect and our Church Council will then need to decide whether to register the chapel as above.
The council adopted Allison’s recommendations in principle. Much detail remains to be worked out, especially in the case of property management, but broadly they are that there be a separate bank account for lettings income, so that the financial as well as the administrative aspects of the lettings process can be managed from the reception office, and that the church take overall responsibility for the property management of 19 Thayer Street, including the office rooms.
John Hicks, council secretary.
The Church Council met on Tuesday, 18 February. It was a lengthy but productive meeting. From the many subjects dealt with it selected three for mention here, which illustrate the breadth of its responsibilities.
- ‘God in Love Unites Us’. Peter Cornick tabled and introduced a short summary of this Conference report on marriage and relationships and there was an extended conversation. The report is best known for its recommendation that each Methodist Church Council should be free, if it chooses, to licence its chapel for the conduct of same-sex marriages as well as those between a man and a woman, but as Peter pointed out it places that in the context of a lengthy discussion of relationships between Christians in general, and in particular of the way in which we should treat each other when we differ on deeply felt matters of belief or practice. In the conversation which followed there was a recognition of the likelihood that the response of local churches in this country will vary widely by reference to the neighbourhoods and cultures within which they are set, and of the fact that recent decisions on this subject in some national churches elsewhere had been a cause of serious disruption, which we hope may be avoided here, drawing some comfort from the way in which Methodism in Britain has handled differences such as those about pacifism and those behind earlier debates about sexuality.
No vote was taken, but it was noted that although Local Churches have no direct access to the Conference there will be votes in the spring district Synods on the Conference resolutions giving effect to the main recommendations of the report, and that Circuit Meetings can submit memorials. If the Conference this year confirms last year’s decisions they will come into effect and our Church Council will then need to decide whether to register the chapel as above.
- Lettings process and property management. Allison Nau introduced her report on these subjects, which identified a number of shortcomings and inefficiencies in the way in which at present we deal with lettings of the worship space, the hall and the basement rooms to ‘twelve-step’ groups and others, and also drew attention to complexities and confusion about the respective roles of the church, the circuit and the WLM staff in the management of 19 Thayer Street.
The council adopted Allison’s recommendations in principle. Much detail remains to be worked out, especially in the case of property management, but broadly they are that there be a separate bank account for lettings income, so that the financial as well as the administrative aspects of the lettings process can be managed from the reception office, and that the church take overall responsibility for the property management of 19 Thayer Street, including the office rooms.
- ‘A safe place to work and meet’. Richard Shepley, on behalf of the Property Committee, presented this document, which after discussion was adopted by the council, and which sets out a security policy for all those who live, meet or work, as staff or as members of the church community, in the building which comprises the chapel and 19 Thayer Street. It notes that there have from time to time been security problems, but that they have been few and far between, and we therefore need to pursue a strategy which is neither too casual nor too extreme. It sets out in some detail policies for lone working, working in reception, our use of CCTV cameras, lost property and dealing with a general emergency in the area.
John Hicks, council secretary.
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