FROM THE METHODIST MINISTER

Within the Christian Church today we are constantly coming up against the word "relevant", in connection with what we are doing and it is a time when much thought is being given to the relevance of what we think and do as Christians.

Three things suggest themselves to me as important for us to be seeking.

1. The relevance of our own faith and practice as individual Christians. Habit is a necessary requisite of community living, but as Christians we need from time to time to examine our faith and our practice to see if it "makes sense" to ourselves. It will certainly never make sense to others if it doesn't.

2. The relevance of our church today. It is all too evident, whether we are Anglicans or Methodists, that most people who have lost contact with us see little in our present institutions and practices that have to do with them. It may be that they are right, but let us firmly state that our message or rather our Gospel is as relevant to them as persons as food is to them as physical beings.

3. The relevance of The Church today, The animated discussions going on both between Anglicans and Methodists and within the two churches themselves are revealing that the time has come for "spring-cleaning" within our churches. If we do come together it must not be so much on the basis of an agreed doctrinal formula but on the inevitable "down to earth" fact that God can no longer fulfil His will for men with separate groups of Christians. Here is the chance to let God cleanse the vital springs of His Church and through it speak to the needs of men today.

DONALD WHITE.

PARISH NOTES

Lent Saving

Through the traditional media of missionary boxes has brought a final figure of £8 15s. 9d. A good effort, though not quite so much as last year. A cheque will shortly be sent to the Church Missionary Society.

Missions

Were also the theme of a Service in the Methodist Chapel on 22nd April, attended by over 80 people from the village and the Medway towns. The address was given by Rev. David Coombs, a native of Gillingham and recently returned from the Bahama Islands. He described present-day life in the islands as placid but dangerous owing to the threat of hurricanes. £17 was raised for Women's Work Overseas.