The Unlikely Evangelist

This might be nothing but ...

... having just returned from four days at the United Reformed Church General Assembly in Manchester I find myself feeling ... well, that's the thing, I'm not quite sure, but it's something to do with being a Mancunian and feeling an alien in my own city. As the title of this post says, it just didn't feel like we were in Manchester and to me, that didn’t feel quite right. It’s true Assembly is a national church event. It's true General Assembly always feels like its in a bit of a vacuum as all these large conference facilities all look and feel the same and there is little opportunity to venture out of the complex each year. It’s also true that I’ve been to many Assemblies now, and this has never bothered me before, but I've never been to an Assembly so close to home before, so it struck me for the first time how 'South East' it all felt. Not that I wish to imply there is anything wrong with the South East, just we were in the GREAT city of Manchester. Having Assembly in my home city meant a lot to me, but now I just feel sad and even a little angry about how I feel. When Assembly is in Wales or Scotland there is always special effort to ensure the assembly has a Welsh or Scottish feel, and rightly so, but unless I missed it I don't even recall a single person with a Manchester accent being involved in the Assembly, which I found particularly noticeable during the worship.

Wherever Assembly is in the future, maybe the chaplain and the host Synod could work together to include some local voices?

What does anyone else think? Have people from other regions felt the same when you have hosted an Assembly?

Finally, at the end of an Assembly where inclusion became a big issue, this is perhaps just a minor point, but it's helped me at least just to voice it somewhere.