Volume 43 Number 3

Following the riots in London during August, the London District Chairs produced the following message, which is still relevant some weeks later

 

Chairs message

The calling of the Methodist Church is to respond to the gospel of God's love in Christ and to live out its discipleship in· worship and mission. The churches within the London District have been doing this together with our ecumenical partners and other community groups over many years and will continue to do so long after the riots and looting have ceased to be headline news. I have today contacted each circuit and heard of meetings which are happening in many places as Methodist ministers and members seek to meet with ecumenical, other faith, community and council leaders in order to respond in a united way to the destructive events on our streets. A number of our people live close to the hot spots and have spoken of their shock at what they have witnessed, but are responding in positive ways by helping with clean up operations, calling together people for prayer and positive action and contacting church members to ensure that they are OK.

Many people across London and elsewhere are counting the cost of the destruction on our streets. Our churches, which are at the heart of the communities affected, want to play their part in partnership with others to bring healing and peace to those areas, and demonstrate that this city is a place of peaceful, diverse and vibrant communities.

The London District is making small grants available to those churches and circuits seeking to respond with local initiatives and is calling on the people in our churches and circuits topray for all who are caught up in and affected by what is happening on our streets and to pray for peace and healing.

Prayer for the city

Pray for the peace of the city, may peace be within your homes and security on your streets. Pray for everyone who has been traumatised by the events of the week -the policemen who have been injured, and their families -those who have lost homes and businesses -those who have lost their sense of living in a friendly and safe place. Pray for fire fighters and police officers, for protection from the violence around them, and for those needing to devise new strategies to cope with the breakdown of law and order. Pray for our police, that there will be among them exceptional men and women, able to understand the hopes and fears of all the different individuals and groups they deal with, able to uphold the law with wisdom, integrity and discretion, able to step over prejudice, their own and other people's. Pray for entrepreneurs and business people with drive and energy to create sustainable, worthwhile jobs for folk living in deprived areas across our country ... Pray for mothers and fathers and grandparents to stand steady and faithful at the heart of their families, and offer the disciplines of love, truth and example. May they model how to seek justice without violence. Pray for the young, that they will listen to the voices calling them to live courageously and freely, and will turn away from those influences calling them to alienation and victimhood. Pray for the future when resources may be scarce, jobs and homes hard to come by, May we be those who demonstrate a genuine concern for our neighbours, the salt that resists the tendency to care only for ourselves, the light that reveals all the many dimensions of well being that do not depend on affluence.

For the sake ofmy family and my friends I wi/l say, "Peace be within you". Amen