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A glorious day to start the rule of six. What will be the impact? Places of worship will continue to be allowed to open, and it’s clear that our upcoming circuit meetings can be classed as work, worship and prayer meetings. Although it’s always good to meet up with people I must admit that I’ve never quite seen circuit meetings as social entertainment! In the midst of the positivity of a return to ‘live’ worship and other activities, the column this week takes just a moment to remind churches that have to operate safeguarding contracts, that it’s important not to be swayed by the fact that the Covid-19 arrangements involve a high degree of scrutiny and the exercise of personal responsibility on and around church premises to keep safe. It may be required to adjust contracts if necessary, but not of course, to set them aside because of a view that Covid-19 arrangements somehow ‘trump’ their terms. The clauses in any contract were put there for a reason, and even though opportunities not to comply with detailed provisions may be severely limited, it’s often more about their intention to give a clear message of understanding of what is required behaviour under any set of circumstances. Let’s not be influenced by the present situation or the emotion of the moment to let our standards drop. Those of you reading this, for whom this does not have any obvious relevance, you are happily in the majority. This is about when a person with a caution or conviction for a particular type of offence wishes to attend worship and a contract is drawn up that enables them to do so in safe way. So what can the majority of readers take from this? Covid-19 is instilling in us a set of behaviours that six months ago we would never have thought imaginable. However, when it comes to safeguarding it’s best not simply to rely on the measures that stem from our virus risk assessments. As we generally do already, it’s going to be essential to keep up our ‘watching over one another in love’ to make sure that a series of new, and old, more familiar, boundaries are not crossed unexpectedly.

Sunday’s lectionary reading was one of those hard passages from the old testament about keeping a watch out for sinful behaviour and all the potentially dire consequences of calling it out or not. In addition to quoting examples from the secular world, our preacher drew attention to times when the church has not called out behaviour that was wrong even though it may have been aware of it, made excuses about it or minimised it. Ezekiel made it clear that if we don’t do the right thing and something bad happens, we will be held responsible in God’s sight. Adopting a safeguarding mentality requires us to be like Ezekiel’s ‘watch’ men and women, setting aside any aspect of friendship or misplaced loyalty, and any concerns about the personal costs. However, to call out the sin, and report it is not easy, when faced with the weight of the factors pulling you in a different direction – it was only once, it was just a small thing, I might have been mistaken, I don’t want to make a fuss or get someone into trouble, it might cost me a friendship. So how can people who have a concern about what they have seen, heard or directly experienced be supported to do the right thing? Not feeling that you are totally on your own with this is a key consideration and so that’s why the Methodist Church has very recently sent a glossy poster to every church in the Connexion to remind people of our policy and standards. The posters also supply the local details of who can be approached for a conversation to help make sense of what may be concerning. We need to make it as safe and as simple as possible to call out bad behaviour and making it easier to know who to talk to is a good first step. But it doesn’t stop there of course and so we will continue to review what we do at each stage in our safeguarding procedures to make sure we all keep a careful watch.

The 1st of September. That significant staging point that comes around every year, drummed into us by school and for us Methodists, the start of the new Connexional year. This year will feel very different to any before with sanitisers, social distance measures and one way flows. I don’t know how wartime affected this annual event in 1914 and 1939, but of course in 1939 we were poised to go to war and children were beginning to be evacuated to the countryside. So this year schools, churches and many other institutions will have planned with great care to make ‘la rentree’ as the French term it, as safe as possible. Nothing will be the same but we will want it to be as near ‘normal’ as it can be made. The theme of evacuation to escape what may befall us is a long standing tradition and has been a key social force in history, in, and since biblical times. Bob Marley sang about ‘Exodus – movement of Jah People’. Irish and Scottish folk songs reference the emigration that followed potato famines and the Highland clearances. It’s a driving factor that we see in the perilous journeys of present day asylum seekers. But as we also know forced evacuation or government planned and promoted schemes of both immigration and emigration can be fraught with a wide range of issues that will include safeguarding children in particular. Our history books and oral history accounts testify to the physical and sexual abuse experienced by some evacuees in this country during the second world war and the IICSA hearings told us more about the horrific experiences of those often-orphaned children who were shipped off to Australia, Canada and South Africa through church sponsored passage schemes. At the moment we often seem to sign off our emails with a cheery ‘stay safe’ or something similar. As some of us are now travelling on holiday or venturing to work places, restaurants, museums and yes, churches, perhaps we should replace ‘stay’ with ‘travel’. So planning to ensure the safety of children, and vulnerable adults as they move about our country and the world is something that we should perhaps endorse as part of our safeguarding agenda for the year ahead.

Gracious God, We give thanks for London, for its people and for this District – made up of circuits, churches and disciples of Jesus Christ. Help us as we share each other’s stories of faith to be courageous in telling those stories to people beyond the life of the Church. Help us to love our neighbours, so that by our actions people will recognise your love within us and be intrigued by the Gospel story at the heart of all we do. We pray for the challenging places in our city, for places of crime and fear, for those who work too hard and those who have no work and for those who are lonely and isolated in the midst of our crowded streets. May your blessings abound as we celebrate being your children in this diverse and exciting city, that others may hear our stories and the world be transformed. For Christ’s sake. Amen.

Last week the focus was on Alex Salmond and his acquittal on all 13 charges of a variety of sexual assault types, brought by 9 different women employed by the Scottish Government. Last night it was the story of Carl Beech who alleged the existence of a high level, establishment paedophile ring that had murdered three children in the 1970s and 1980s. He was later found to have been a ‘fantasist’ and was himself convicted of child abuse charges in 2019 relating to the possession of indecent images. There were similarities between both cases, as they both followed key social developments. The fall-out from the Jimmy Savile case led to a string of revelations about public figures, and Beech’s allegations first made public in 2014 seemed to chime with a sense of a culture of institutional child abuse the current IICSA inquiry is trying to assess and understand. The police made it clear early on that they believed his accounts were credible, and an extensive set of enquiries were launched, but which in due course were closed down. In Salmond’s case, in the wake of the emerging ‘Me too’ movement, the Scottish Government had invited its staff to report current and past concerns about inappropriate behaviour. From these reports a criminal case was constructed about Salmond’s alleged behaviour and he stood trial in March this year. The defence was predicated on persuading the jury that the acts graphically described in the press, were not in fact criminal. A Radio 4 documentary, also last week, seemed to locate the case in the context of an internal Scottish National Party power struggle. ‘Me too’ and the post-Savile climate have enabled many people who were abused or mistreated to come forward and tell their stories, to seek justice and recognition, and as necessary care and support. The Past Cases Review was an example of how the Methodist Church endeavoured to encourage reporting and import some transparency into an often murky mixture of rumours, half knowledge and quiet personal suffering. The overarching aim of all such initiatives is to prevent something similar happening in the future. But where does Salmond’s acquittal and Beech’s exposure and conviction leave ‘the truth’? How have these two cases affected those who still may want to come forward to tell their stories of hurt and pain? One commentator last night said ‘(the Beech case) has set back the survivor cause by many years’. A fear of not being believed is a powerful incentive to keep quiet. The Church will always need to work hard to make itself a safe space to listen and act decisively on what it has heard.

We pray for young people growing up in Lambeth and across London who are facing great opportunities but also many challenges. We ask especially for strength to those in danger of being caught up in knife crime and violence and those who live in fear even when making regular journeys to school or church. We thank God for the contribution that young people make to the life of our churches – for their faith and optimism and for their hope for the future. We pray for the various initiatives which are enabling young people to be heard, grow in confidence and become experienced in advocacy, leadership and community building. Amen. PLEASE PRAY FOR: 1. The circuit’s 60/40 project which we run in partnership with the Ascension Trust which reaches out to young people in the circuit and also across the borough 2. For the Community Land Trust project in Lambeth which seeks to provide 27 genuinely affordable homes for local people and for our circuit’s wider involvement in Lambeth Citizens. 3. For our talks with the Clapham Circuit and our hopes and dreams to be one circuit across the whole of the wonderful borough of Lambeth

It would be difficult to avoid the elephant in the room of exam results this week. It’s not for this column to comment on the machinations of government and Ofqal over the last few days, but the emotional impact on the lives of some older teenagers has been profound. This column has however recently encouraged a focus on identifying the needs of young people emerging from lockdown and how the current circumstances have affected the joy of being young and thinking the world is their oyster. All those ambitions to be someone or make a mark to some extent thwarted. The Office of National Statistics have just released figures that suggest a doubling in the number of diagnoses of depression in adults since the middle of March. So this week’s blog returns to this theme of thinking how best we can support all those young people with a mission to change their world for the better. Fontaines D.C. are an Irish post punk band who have just released that ‘difficult’ second album. It’s a lively, exuberant celebration of youth but peppered with darker minor key sections that provide a different, bleaker narrative. The title of this piece is a line from a song on the album. One reviewer described it as ‘capturing being young in all its excitement and challenge, its confidence and despair’. I like the reviewer’s next phrase: ‘the years where it feels like you are trying to find a foothold with your hands’. I guess that’s how many young people feel just now. So with our safeguarding hats on what’s to be done? It was good to be back in non-singing, socially-distanced church on Sunday. But the Church’s sustained contact with young people will probably be on line for a while yet, and so the guidance developed and published over recent weeks and months is still relevant. This advice and guidance was initially predicated on the need to keep safe online by managing contacts and keeping on line spaces safe, but the need has perhaps shifted to a greater emphasis on spotting where there is concern about wellbeing, especially at this critical point of going back to school, moving to college or university. The concern may have been prompted by the emotional roller coaster of the last few days (hopefully this will now be avoided later this week with the publication of GCSE results), the usual anxiety about change as well as worry about the virus and how it can be contained and people kept safe in new settings. It may require some extraordinary resilience on the part of young people and their parents to navigate this unusual storm. We can’t prescribe individual solutions but our churches should be on the look out to see where we can provide hope and encouragement where there is may be a sudden emptiness.

Not in the unkind word, but in the honest sharing Not in the act of hatred, but in the moment of caring Not in the vengeance but in the costly forgiving: Reconciling God, we find you. Not in the uncomfortable silence, but in the real peace Not in the carelessness of our rushing, but in the noticing Not in the gossip, slander or lies, but in the word of truth, comfort and love: Christ with us, we find you. In the act of sitting with those we find hard to like In the carefully chosen word where we disagree In the laying down, letting go, moving on, accepting forgiveness: Holy Spirit, we find you. Amen.

For Methodist ministers on the move this month it’s a hectic time. Removal vans coordinated, and storage arranged if the timings are not very neat. Settling in and meeting (a few) new people in these strange times. Those with families and children wondering about moves to new schools. Planning for welcome services this year is no doubt complicated by ‘shall we/shan’t we have a face to face service or will it be Zoom again?’ conversations. And in this sapping heat as well. Whether it’s the minister packing up to leave, or the new one arriving who is exploring, this can sometimes be the time when a sealed brown envelope is found in a dusty filing cabinet or at the back of a church safe. The envelope is likely to be marked strictly confidential and only to be passed on to the new minister, because what it contains is probably a story about a person or an event that ‘you need to know about’. Something in the church’s history, recent or otherwise, that has had an impact or perhaps remains unresolved. Something not talked about, but sometimes a story that everyone else seems to know about. Thankfully, now that safeguarding practice is better embedded and more robust, such fresh discoveries are getting rarer. The church safeguarding officer and probably the District Safeguarding Officer will have some knowledge of such circumstances and appropriate actions will hopefully have been taken to ensure all are safe. But taking action and drawing a matter to a conclusion is only one part of the story, and so the brown envelope, suitably reconfigured into a confidential briefing, may well help the new minister to understand better and be sensitive to the strong feelings that safeguarding concerns can arouse. These can be matters that have caused deep personal or collective hurt or provoked a strong sense of betrayal, which can in some cases last for many years. Having such knowledge will help the new minister to understand certain behaviour and attitudes that can shape the culture of the church. There may be work that can be done to bring about healing, so these ‘brown envelopes’ are not necessarily intended to be dormant documents to be reviewed once every five years. Nor should this imply criticism of previous ministers who may for a number of good reasons have felt unable to address painful issues or help make progress. But where there is a story that continues to echo through the years, that still shapes how the local church feels about itself, for new ministers this may be a good time not just to dust off and open the ‘envelope’, but to seek some advice about how best to deal with what’s inside.

Compassionate Lord You know we sit in ease and comparative safety here in our churches in the Western world, free to give voice openly to our prayers and beliefs; So we pray for all those who worship in secret, afraid to speak their faith out loud and for all those who keep their Bibles hidden. We think of those who have spoken out and have been given long prison sentences for daring to worship you. We pray for their families. Dear Lord, we ask that you soften the hearts of people in countries where injustice against Christians reign. Give your faithful servants in those places courage to withstand the pain and hardships they face. We pray that they will know your unfailing love for them and be given strength to carry on, feeling your arms around them for comfort and support in the darkness of their lives. Amen PLEASE PRAY FOR: 1. For persecuted Christians everywhere 2. For the families of those in prison

Trained and ready to go The current Covid 19 crisis doesn’t mean that we can forget about keeping up to date with our safeguarding training. We will just have to plan to deliver it in a different way. This will mean making more use of online resources, and last month the Connexional Safeguarding Committee gave the go-ahead for a new way of presenting the Foundation Module, which is our basic course for all who work with children and young people, pastoral visitors and local church leaders. So with some quick joint work over the summer between Learning Network and Safeguarding Team colleagues, we hope to be rolling out a course from the early autumn that you can access from home, which will be interactive and led by a trainer that will replicate as far as possible the key features of a face to face course. Keep your eye on District communications about when the new course is coming to your front room. Regular readers will recall the growing body of evidence that underlines why having our key church personnel kept up to speed with best practice and the freshest thinking is vital. Still walking On the hottest day of the year we walked near, but not through, the throng on Margate beach to reach the Turner Contemporary Gallery. And it was well worth it, after a 5 month wait, to visit ‘We Will Walk’, a stunning collection of protest art from the Mississippi Delta, and the state of Alabama in particular. Spanning a time line from the arrival of the first slaves until now, the exhibition featured quilts, paintings and examples of ‘yard art’. This was a form of sculpture or the placing of everyday objects in the backyard to form powerful statements of identity and belief. These artworks were matched with contemporary photos from the 1960s that focused on the freedom marches that were a central feature if the Civil Rights movement – Selma to Montgomery and on to Washington. With music, poetry and huge current political relevance, this is an exhibition that comes highly recommended. The story of Gee’s Bend, a small community renowned for its quilt making is one for today. When voting was made universal, the ferry that linked this tiny community to the nearest town where you could register to vote was cut, and not re-instated from the mid-1960s for 40 years. The obstacles to voter registration may look different today, but the long walk remains the same.

Lord God, we pray for the regional team as they undergo a time of transition. We give thanks for the appointment of Jessica Dalton as a learning and development officer and the continued work of Sharon Nugent. We also pray for the whole team, including acting coordinator Dave Friswell, whilst Jonathan Mead takes six months off for shared parental leave. We continue to pray for the continued work of enabling learning and development across the Methodist District. Lord God, you call us to be disciples of Jesus Christ, people always open to learning, so that we may better serve you. Open our hearts and minds that we may receive all that you would teach us and so bring glory to you name. Amen