Scarborough Spa Complex 3 July to 10 July 2008

Host Districts of Leeds, Sheffield, West Yorkshire and York and Hull.

There was an air of anticipation this morning as we arrived in the Conference hall to see the nominations for the next President and Vice-President – results will be announced tomorrow morning.

Prayers this morning were led by representatives from the Asia and Pacific region.

Last night's closed session included a sensitive debate on the situation in Zimbabwe and this morning we received the resolution which we had agreed. The pace of business is speeding up and we seem to have got through a lot today - including a report from mph (Methodist Publishing House), whose publishing activities we agreed to integrate into the Connexional Team; a report from the Fresh Ways working group developing ‘Fresh Expressions' of church and more from the Youth Conference representatives who began their presentation with a film giving us a flavour of what Youth Conference last year was like.

Their resolutions, which we agreed, included a request that churches have Bibles available to give to new Christians and those seeking to know more about the Christian faith, and to establish and set up a project to investigate the roles that local churches can play in addressing the issues surrounding youth violence.

We dealt with the business of the Law and Polity committee – which included the technicalities of some changes to our Standing Orders, clarification that people of other faiths are precluded from using Methodist premises for religious purposes and issues relating to charity law reform affecting trustees through from local church councils up to the Conference - we agreed the major report that has been the work of the Stationing Review Group over the last two years, and the terminology of our ordained ministers in the report ‘Signalling Vocation, Clarifying Identity'. As a result we are to use the term ‘Presbyter' when referring to those ordained into the order of Presbyter – i.e. to the ministry of word, sacraments and pastoral responsibility, to use the term ‘Deacon' when referring to those ordained to the order of Deacon – i.e. to the ministry of witness through service and therefore members of the Methodist Diaconal Order, and to only use the term ‘minister' when the reference is inclusive of both Presbyters and Deacons.

Ministers seeking flexible retirement will have to wait until 2010 for the first opportunity for this provision as Standing Order are to be brought to next year's Conference, and we were encouraged in the report ‘Methodist Heritage and Contemporary Mission' to see how we can use our sites of Connexional significance (Wesley's Chapel and Museum of Methodism, London; the New Room and Charles Wesley' House, Bristol; Epworth Old Rectory and Englesea Brook) more effectively for mission.

After lunch we changed gear and had what was termed as a ‘Resourced Debate' on the question ‘What has the Church to offer today's rapidly changing society?' Three speakers introduced issues in the areas of the contemporary urban scene; youth and gang culture and the breakdown of urban life. We then had the opportunity to discuss issues this raised in small groups and a plenary feeding back main points to Conference. This led to a most animated discussion and it was a good opportunity to become more outward-looking rather than bogged down with internal church concerns.

Then back to Conference business mode – as we discussed the triennial membership returns and statistics for mission for 2005-07. This was, in part, encouraging as we were able to see growth in some areas of Church life (especially regarding confirmations and baptisms of those aged over 13 years) and issued a challenge to us regarding mission as, according to some recent research, 85% of the population dropped into a place of worship on at least one occasion or another during the last year.

We discussion the work of the Joint Implementation Commission (JIC) progressing the work of the Anglican/Methodist Covenant and commended their report ‘Embracing the Covenant' to churches for study, action and response. It was in the context of this topic that scrutineers were finally required to count a vote, on whether the co-chair of the new JIC should be either a former President or Vice-President. We voted in favour of this being looked into further and reported back to Conference. It's good to give the scrutineers this exercise! We then continued on the theme of ecumenical matters, this time with the United Reformed Church, as we discussed a Resolution brought from the Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury District Synod directing us to engage in further conversations with the URC as to how we can work more closely together. This we agreed and it will be put to the URC General Assembly on Monday.

We then had the report of the Methodist Minister's Pension Scheme and the Connexional Treasurer advised the Conference that those who deal with budgets which include minister's stipends should look to make provision of additional contributions of 5% in next year's budgets – recognising that this advice may be too much but it also may not be enough, this will affect service after 2009.

Today's cake was supplied by MHA - this time iced sponge – celebrating their 65th anniversary, many thanks to them for this. We will wait and see what tomorrow will bring and who will be our next elected President and Vice-President.

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