Hello and welcome to the blog! If you haven’t met me before I’m the minister at the Methodist church on the High St in Witney, though really I serve the Methodist
lockdown, an event I’m really looking forward to seeing the back of!
My hope in creating this blog is that many people will contribute, and it will be a place of learning and sharing. Though this is a blog on a church website, all people are invited to contribute, and it doesn’t matter if you have a different faith or non at all! There will obviously be rules that require respect, courtesy and dignity to be given to all people and we reserve the right to remove any posts that would harm individuals or the community. Having said that this blog should also be a safe place to be able to give your honest view, just make sure you do it in a loving way!
The Methodist church has served the town for a long time and has been significant in the life of Witney. Traditional is a funny word in the world of church, sometimes it’s a positive, sometimes it isn’t. One of the traditions I am proud of is the Methodist heritage of justice and striving to make the world a better place.
Our social media theme for this month is the climate, and I personally couldn’t think of a better topic for us to kick-start our blog with. The climate emergence is just that, an emergency. I was reading an article just this last week informing that we are woefully behind the promises made under the Paris agreement. To protect our climate requires each and everyone of us to do our bit. This subject is far bigger than a being a monthly blog theme, it is one that requires us all to change the way we live.
One of the elements of the environment I think we’ve all had our eyes opened to the problems of single use plastic and what it is doing to our oceans. So, what can we do to change this problem? I am so delighted that our first contributor to this blog is our neighbours from Wesley Walk, Wast0..
Shops like Wast0 are helping us make positive changes to how we shop, and they are an amazing resource to have in the town. We are so grateful to them for what they contribute to our community! Later on this month I’ll contribute a blog on why I turned vegan over 3 years ago. As a Christian I know that I have a duty to steward creation well, it’s on the first page of the bible! These are issues I encourage every Christian to reflect on and ask of themselves what their response should be. For me, the question is not ‘why am I vegan’, but rather, ‘why are you not vegan?’. As well as Wast0 I also want to celebrate Eden Café and their commitment to climate and animal welfare.
I want to encourage you all to register for the website and contribute to the blog, as well as commenting on the other articles that will be appearing.
Many thanks! Jason