Blogs

Trey Hall calls his life ‘a haphazard journey of trying to serve God’, and since it began growing up in Memphis Tennessee, and has led, via being part of setting up ‘radically inclusive’ churches in Chicago, and Birmingham (UK), to his current job as Director of Evangelism and Growth for the Methodist Church in Britain, you can see what he means!

Debbie Thrower was a regular face on TV when I was growing up - reading the main BBC news, presenting Science programmes, consumer programmes and Songs of Praise - and I remember hearing her voice coming out of my radio, on Radio 4 and Radio 2.

Not surprisingly, James Cary loves sitcoms. 

Hazel Southam is deep in preparation for the 2020 RHS Chelsea Flower Show….a year and several months late. The pandemic has meant delay after delay, which, when you’re the project manager for one of the show gardens, does not make for a straightforward life.

For over 25 years, John Sutherland served as an officer in the Metropolitan Police, loving every day of his job - the only thing he ever wanted to do - and he rose to the rank of Chief Superintendent, working as Borough Commander in Camden, and then Southwark. But 6 months into the Southwark job, he had a breakdown, suddenly experiencing overwhelming exhaustion, malevolent anxiety and depression. He puts it […]

I’m not sure what a ‘normal’ childhood looks like for someone who becomes a Bishop in the Church of England, but it’s certainly true that most people’s stories aren’t like the Rt Revd Guli Francis-Dehqani’s, the new Bishop of Chelmsford.

When Paula Stringer saw an advert to work for debt counselling charity Christians against Poverty (CAP), she was working as Head of Production and Operations for BBC Sport, overseeing the coverage of huge events like the Olympics, and she wasn’t really looking to change jobs. But to her and her husband it felt that this was very much a divine nudge, coming, as it did, at a point where they […]

Lia Shimada is a conflict mediator, community practitioner, and researcher, using her skills in a range of organisations, faith-based and secular. She’s fascinated by how migration shapes the lives of communities, last year editing a book called ‘Mapping Faith’, pulling together stories and experiences from writers, poets and artists - very much a book for our times. 

Nigel Cowgill is one of the District Chairs for London Methodists, but never in a million years would he have expected to be at that level of church leadership, and I think, even after a good many years in post, he’s still a bit surprised to find himself there!