The Methodist Conference has elected the Revd Dr Barbara Glasson to serve as President and Professor Clive Marsh to serve as Vice-President, starting their year of office when the Representative Session of the Methodist Conference meets in Birmingham next year.
Barbara’s ministry with the Bread Church working with diverse people in Liverpool, Touchstone, a Methodist interfaith project in Bradford, and with people who have experienced abuse following the Past Cases Review, shows her work with ‘prophetic communities for transformation’.
The Revd Glasson said: “It is a privilege to be elected to serve as President. My interest is in enabling and honouring Connexional communities that are courageous and rooted in prayer. God is transforming the old and calling us into new things that are a joyful outcome of our Methodist inheritance. I believe that if the Church is authentic and inclusive it will also grow numerically and spiritually.”
Professor Clive Marsh’s 35 years as a Methodist has shaped his work profoundly. He has sought to help people think creatively about how faith, life and popular culture interweave, and what happens to theology as a result.
Clive has taught in theological colleges and universities and is currently Head of the University of Leicester’s Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning and an International Research Consultant at the Queen’s Foundation. He is a church member, local preacher and tutor in the Leicester Trinity Circuit. Clive was also Faith and Order Committee Secretary from 2000-2007.
On hearing of his election, he said: “It is an honour to be elected Vice-President. I have a deep commitment to encouraging others in learning, no matter what their stage of life or what previous experience they have. My calling as a Methodist leads me to prompt people to think creatively about their life experience and the world around them, in developing a practical, theologically-informed faith.”
The role of President of the Methodist Conference is reserved for presbyters and that of Vice-President for lay people or Deacons.
Images of Barbara and Clive can be found on the Methodist Flickr page.
