For Methodists, the New Year starts not on January 1 or April 6 or even on Advent Sunday, but on September 1. That is the date when new ministers and church treasurers take up their appointments and when the regular cycle of committee meetings at church, circuit and district level begins again, culminating in the Connexional Conference next July.
Chilwell Road Methodist Church will mark its New Year this week by welcoming a new minister, Rev Colin Barrett, who has returned from an appointment as mission partner in Brand Erbisdorf in Germany near Dresden on the border with the Czech Republic. He will bring new insights and perspectives as he leads the church through a period in which a major emphasis will be working more closely together with the four other Methodist churches in the area.
We celebrate the occasion on the very first Sunday with our annual Covenant Service in which the Methodist society at Chilwell Road renews its covenant with God. We convey the essence of this commitment using John Wesley’s profound words: Put me to doing, put me to suffering; Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you. Let me be full, let me be empty; Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
So it’s not necessarily going to be a “happy” new year for all of us. But we will be strengthened and renewed in our Christian pilgrimage through life as we sing this hymn of Charles Wesley: Come let us anew, our journey pursue. Roll round with the year, and never stand still till the Master appear.
