UK Methodism – taking stock… Andrew Pratt (10/8/2025)
The words of Ecclesiastes remind us that… ‘To everything there is a season’. Life goes on, season to season, year to year.
John Wesley referred to Methodists as… a ‘peculiar people’. So I’m prompted to reflect where we are heading.
Before we move on it’s worth giving thanks for what is past. Imagine, for a moment, or remember, where we’ve come from.
Here’s a bit of history. Bear with me (especially if you know this already). The Methodist Church of which we are a part came into being with a Conference on 20 September 1932 at the Royal Albert Hall. Three denominations joined together: Wesleyan, Primitive and United Methodists. The circuit I live in has buildings representative of all three. Nationally, at the time of union, there were 919099 members and 4370 ordained ministers. I’ll save you from doing the sums. This equates to 210 members/minister. There were around 15408 churches across the three denominations, just over 3.5 churches/minister.
I was ordained and came here in 1982. I had 5 churches with around 190 members. From memory, we had 4 Presbyters and 18 churches. I can’t recollect the total circuit membership. I know that some congregations have united, some churches closed.
Our current plan has 420 members listed. Not including our Deacons (who do not ordinarily have pastoral charge of congregations) or Supernumeraries there are two Presbyters, the equivalent today of the ordained ministers of 1933. Hmmm. Interesting. Two ministers in 1933 terms.
The membership per minister at the moment is par for the course. But 7 Churches/minister is double that of 1933.
When our forebears took the risky step of joining denominations together they anticipated that the number of churches (congregations or Societies) would ultimately reduce by a third. That was sensible and rational for denominations already threatened by decline, though there was some obfuscation in relation to disclosing the number and location of buildings.
Back to where I live. With seven churches/minister the plan is supplemented with ‘Local Arrangements’ and visiting preachers. Communion services are enabled with the addition of an authorised lay Lay Worker and two Supernumeraries aged in their 70s and 80s.
I feel sad and wonder how long it will take for the vision of 1933 to come to fruition. How long will it take us for Circuits to work as units in a way which makes us effective in serving our communities in the long term, and maintaining the health of us all, lay and ordained. How long can we sustain ‘our church’ when, as my brother-in-law would say, ‘we are the church’…? A few verses of scripture might give us food for thought. Speaking of the first Christians Acts relates:
46 Day by day, as they spent much time together …, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. (Acts 2:46-47)
Our word ‘church’ came from the Greek ‘ecclesia’ simply a gathering of people… Not a building in sight. no possession but shared stewardship and care of one another.
© Andrew Pratt 2025
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