Where To Now?

I've been mulling over my final blog entry for this trip, primarily because I wanted it to be profound. So, since I'm still waking up at 5 AM I figured I might as well go ahead and try my hand at it. Today, I go back to work in the church that descended from John Wesley's work. After a pilgrimage such as the one we've just had, I find myself wondering what I've learned that may impact my outlook on life and work moving forward. I started this trip (the first day, if you recall) wondering about the likability of John Wesley. Awfully presumptuous of me, I guess, to judge the man who impacted the lives of so many. I find myself now thinking more of John Wesley in context. In the same way that we read the Bible with the time period in mind, I remind myself that Wesley's way of sharing life with others was very different for his time period. We modern Methodists perhaps don't appreciate how different it really was. We are "mainstream" now... no long...

Thursday was our day of touring London with a guide on our bus. I've been to many of the key places in London, so I was glad to get a tour that told more about the different areas of the city and how they are changing. The area where our hotel is located is known as the "Silicon Valley" area of London... so you can imagine the people we've seen commuting by foot to work around here. All young(ish). I won't go over all of the places we drove through... if you've been to London you know and if you haven't you can imagine. We stopped at the Methodist Central Hall across from Westminster Abbey for a toilet break and hoping to see the inside. Unfortunately, the hall was booked for a conference and so all we did was have a coffee in the Wesley Cafe and use the toilet. This was one place I didn't get to go the last time I was in London, so I was happy to read a little more about it and go inside, even just for a minute. Central Hall was built ...

Today was to be our "big walking tour" of Wesley sites in London. And big it was. Although it could have been worse... it was certainly the most walking we've done in a single day. We started out walking toward the Wesley Chapel and John Wesley's House. On our way we stopped by the place where the Foundry was, the first building that John Wesley purchased for class meetings (they had outgrown peoples' homes). No photos of that (it doesn't exist anymore and the plaque has been removed). We will tour the Wesley sites tomorrow, so today we just stopped outside to note their location before going across the street to Bunhill Fields, the cemetery where Susannah Wesley and numerous other famous names are buried... Daniel DeFoe (Robinson Crusoe), John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress), Isaac Watts (Hymn writer). You couldn't really get to Susannah Wesley's grave to take a proper photo, but it's about center of this picture, back by the tree that...

Before leaving the beautiful town of Salisbury, we stopped in to visit the Methodist Church there. They were preparing to host a guest lecturer for the local arts council, and also receiving their Tuesday mother's day out children, so it was quite a busy hub of activity. They also open up the church daily from 10 AM to noon for tea and coffee, so there were some people taking advantage of that as well. It was good to see the church building busy and being used. John Wesley first visited Salisbury in 1738, then purchased the plot of land where the church stands now in order to build a preaching house in 1759. The current church building was built in 1810, then enlarged in 1835 (you can see in the photo where the enlargement took place). The most recent renovation was in 1992, at which time they changed the orientation of the worship space, removed the traditional altar and pews, and hung a beautiful creation embroidery. The organ remains in the rear balcony. The place is als...

We drove through Somerset this morning headed for South Petherton. Annette and Jesse had done a pulpit exchange here in the 80's. We stopped at Ilminster for a potty stop and a bit of shopping before arriving at South Petherton and Coke Memorial Methodist Church a little bit earlier than expected. Thomas Coke was a curate (like an associate pastor) at the Parish Church (Church of England) at South Petherton before he went off with those dissenters and became a Methodist. We walked by his home, as well as toured the Parish Church, which has had a church on the same site since Norman times (10th or 11th century... yes, that's over 1,000 years). The bells were playing and we got to go up into the bell tower to see how they pull the bells. That was very interesting, but I didn't feel safe up there. The bells are "up" when not in use, which also means if something went wrong, they could come crashing down. Scary. We didn't actually see the bells, b...

Today's primary objective was to travel to the far southwest tip of England and visit Gwennap Pit near Redruth in Cornwall, one of John Wesley's favorite places to preach. It is also a World Heritage Site, as part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. John Wesley preached to the tin miners here many times and tried to make at least one trip down per year. It is now an amphitheatre (renovated as such in 1806 and has been functioning that way ever since). We were hosted by Ian and Margaret Haile, learned about the pit, had worship together, and then a cuppa. Ian had powerful words to share with us about being at peace with everyone and sharing in the work of God with others from all traditions and backgrounds. Jesse shared about loving one another, and doing good for "the least of these" out of thankfulness for God's grace rather than as a way of earning favor. Group pic! Lovely monument and mosaic at the entrance of the pit Jesse preachin...