Irish schools have resumed work after the holidays, among them two secondary schools that are under Methodist management. They are Methodist College in Belfast and Wesley College in Dublin. By an unusual coincidence both have newly appointed chaplains this year.
The Rev David Neilands is the new chaplain at Methodist College. He is a graduate of Queen's University Belfast. After several years of circuit ministry in Northern Ireland and the Republic, in 1992 he became general secretary of the church's Department of Youth and Children's Work. There he has given nine years of energetic and imaginative leadership. As chaplain of Methodist College he will be responsible for the college's religious programme and for the pastoral needs of the pupils.
In Wesley College the new chaplain is the Rev Nigel Mackey who is a native of Derry and a graduate of the University of Ulster and of Queen's. For the last four years he has been serving as one of the ministers of the Dublin South circuit and is no stranger to the college. He looks forward, as does Mr Neilands, to the challenges of a new style of ministry.
Within the next couple of weeks the Rev Dr William Perkins of the United Methodist Church in the US will return to Ireland to undertake a few months of service in the Wicklow and Arklow circuit. Dr Perkins and his wife, Mrs Carol Perkins, have been frequent visitors to the Irish Methodist Church in recent years, doing preaching and pastoral duties in one place or another for a few months at a time. He retired from active ministry in America a few years ago. His visit adds a further link to the chain of relationships through the years which have formed a bond between the Irish and American Methodist Churches.
That bond has led Irish Methodists to feel very deeply the shock and horror of the recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. As the President of the church, the Rev Harold Good wrote in a recent letter of sympathy:
"Naturally our thoughts and prayers will be very especially with all those families for whom the tragedy of this day will be so very personal. Given the strong historical and family links between our two peoples, your pain will be our pain and your grief will be our grief."
This afternoon Mr Good will be in Newtownards for the opening and dedication of a suite of new halls built on the site of halls that had outlived their usefulness. Tomorrow he will be the guest preacher at the morning service in Newtownards and in the evening will be in his own circuit of Belfast South. On Sunday next, October 7th, he will begin a tour of the Cork area preaching at Cork and Kinsale that day, at Dunmanway on Monday 8th and at Bandon on Tuesday 9th.
ECONI has announced a conference on Saturday, October 20th, on the theme "Embodying Forgiveness". It will be addressed by Dr Gregory Jones of Duke Divinity School, North Carolina, and will take place in Grosvenor House, Glengall Street, Belfast from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.