Goodbye to all that...

Yes, it's goodbye to all this.

This is a picture of the office at Central Methodist Church Burnley where I used to work on a Wednesday.

It shows Adrian Heys, Manager of the Basement Project in the background and Marjorie Coyles, Administrator of the Burnley Circuit in the foreground. I will miss them both.

Why do I put it in now, several weeks after I last worked there? Because this weekend I ceased to be paid by the Methodist Church.

I am now non-employed. I can't say "unemployed" because I don't consider myself fit for employment. That's why I applied yesterday for Incapacity Benefit. The form's in the post.

Strangely enough, although this sort of thing occurs quite a bit in my life, Sunday 1 July was exactly 25 years since Audrey and I moved to Ingleton from Epping. I was a minister down there for three years and came up North on 1 July 1982 to seek God's will in Ingleton.

One of the first things I did was to speak for Ingleton Methodist Church after an adult baptism service . The baptism itself was held at the Ingleton Swimming Pool and the aftermeeting was in the Sunday School Room. Looking back in my mind's eye, I estimate there might have been about 20 of us there at that meeting. I talked about "Fellowship". I remember that because I made a joke about fellowship not being a boat full of men.

What was actually happening in that meeting, although I did not realise it at the time, was that God was showing me my future for the next 25 years. Audrey and I became part of that fellowship the following Easter and have seen it grow to over a hundred meeting on a Sunday morning and lots of kids too.

On Friday I showed a group from Huntington Methodist Church in York around the new(ish) building. It was good to remind myself again of all that God has done in the last 25 years at Ingleton Methodist Church - IMC.

All praise be to Him.

But what does the next 25 years hold for me, Audrey and IMC?