The president of the Methodist Church in Ireland and his wife, the Rev Roy and Joy Cooper, recently visited the Methodist Church in Poland, which numbers 5,000 members.
It has 38 parishes and 20 other preaching places, served by 21 active ministers, seven retired ministers and five ministers "on probation" (completing their training). They were able to visit several centres of work, and met a number of people who had maintained their Methodist practice through the years of communist rule. These expressed their happiness at the number of young people who have recently joined the church.
The General Council of the Methodist Women of Ireland, comprising its eight presidents and seven general officers, holds its annual meeting today. On Saturday next, the Irish Unit of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women will meet in Belfast.
Its business will be a review of progress towards its millennium goals in relation to world development.
The first meeting of the new session of the Retired Ministers' Fellowship will be held at Ballinafeigh in Belfast on Tuesday next, and will be addressed by Tom Millar on "Pleasures and frustrations of lay leadership within the church".
In recent years Methodist districts, circuits and churches have been organising residential weekends or days of reflection to enable members to meet, reflect on their faith and renew their Christian commitment.
The Whitehead church in Co Antrim is holding a day of reflection on Saturday, October 20th, at which Marie Lacy will introduce The Songs of Solomon.
Tomorrow, the president, Roy Cooper will preach at the harvest services in the church at Gorey, of which he was minister a few years ago. On Monday evening, he will address the harvest service in the church at Wicklow.
The following three days will be spent at the autumn meetings of the church's administrative committees.
Harvest services will take him to Aghyaran in Tyrone and Ballyclare in Antrim on the morning and evening of Sunday, October 14th.