November in Irish Methodism is home mission month. The thoughts and prayers of the Methodist people are specially focused on the mission of the church in this country, and ministers and lay people will be travelling from one circuit to another to share experiences and encouragement.
This year the home mission department is under new leadership. The Rev Desmond Bain has served in Cork, West Cork, Limerick and Dublin. He was superintendent of the Dublin Central Mission and oversaw the planning of the Mount Tabor Nursing Home before moving to his present work as ministerial secretary and treasurer of the home mission department.
His colleague as lay treasurer is Mr Osmond Mulligan, a retired consultant surgeon living in Portadown. Mr Mulligan spent some years as a surgeon with the Methodist Missionary Society in Nigeria. Both men are sons of Methodist ministers.
The home mission department administers the fund which supports small circuits in many parts of the country, and in this way plays a significant role in the simple maintenance of Methodist churches.
However, its activities are varied and its initiatives at times most imaginative. It helps to support the work of chaplains to students and staff in third-level colleges and universities. It participates in the funding of the Team on Mission - a fresh group of young people recruited annually for mission work throughout the country - as well as the Methodist youth evangelist, Julian Hamilton.
This year Rob Frost seed teams will work in the churches at Clontarf, Dublin, and Ballynafeigh, Belfast. The small Methodist group that has been meeting in a house in Tallaght for some years has expanded under the leadership of Craig and Heather Maiden, and is now meeting for worship in the Church of Ireland school.
Tomorrow morning the president of the church, the Rev David J. Kerr, will preach at the 40th anniversary service of the Methodist church at Seymour Hill near Lisburn. In the evening at Grosvenor Hall, Belfast, he will conduct studies in mission. On Sunday morning, November 8th, he will preach at Glastry in the Ards Peninsula. On Monday, November 9th, he will share in an Ecumenical School Service of Remembrance for Omagh, at Drogheda.
RTE Radio 1 will broadcast morning worship on Sunday, November 8th, on medium wave from the Methodist Church, Sutton, Dublin. The service will be led by the Rev Noel Fallows and members of the Sutton, Clontarf and Skerries churches.
An interesting series of lectures will take place in Dublin during the next two weeks on Jewish and Christian relations. On November 5th, Prof Robert Chazan will speak in TCD on Jewish and Christian cultures at the time of the Crusades.
On November 10th and 11th the Royal Irish Academy and Marsh's Library are hosting a symposium on Biblical and Near Eastern Studies in Ireland, 16001850. On November 12th, Prof Jurgen Moltmann of Tubingen will speak in the Ussher Theatre, TCD, on the Jewish-Christian dialogue after Auschwitz.