Christian witness for peace and justice will be strengthened thanks to a newly-announced partnership between the Iona Community and the Joint Public Issues Team (JPIT) of the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches. As “resourcing partners”, the two groups have committed to “walking together and supporting each other” in their common
commitment to “work and witness for peace and justice”.
Read more about the partnership.
On 22nd January 2026, the UK Government confirmed the end of Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS).
The most important message for now is that churches will not be able to claim VAT back from the LPWGS after 31 March this year. Methodist churches with any eligible invoices for works at their listed church buildings are urged to submit their claims as soon as possible. The budget for claims for this year was £23 million, with less than 5 million remaining at the time of writing. Please use this online tracker to check how much money is still in the pot: → Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme funding tracker.
For the future, churches in Scotland and Wales are encouraged to consider other national funds such as the Heritage Fund’s Places of Worship Fund.
Resources for Racial Justice Sunday, on the theme of Love your Neighbour are available for download.
A New Year, A Shared Prayer: Voices for Haiti
We are delighted to launch Voices for Haiti, the first Methodist Church in Britain prayer campaign focused on one of our global church partners.
As a church committed to mission through partnership, prayer is a vital way we stand in solidarity, learn from one another, and seek God’s justice in the world.
This campaign invites us to listen carefully to Haitian voices and pray faithfully in the midst of ongoing crisis and hope. Please sign up, pray with us, and help widen this circle by sharing the invitation with others.
Share your prayers with us. We will be compiling the submitted prayers into a short film of prayers that will be shared with the Haiti District of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas. More information below.
On 12 January, we mark 16 years since the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The country still needs our prayers.
Today, the country faces a new crisis—rampant gang violence that threatens lives and communities, not to mention the impact of last year’s hurricane Melissa. But hope remains.
Join Methodists across the UK and the Caribbean as we raise our Voices For Haiti in prayer and solidarity. Our campaign launches on 12 January.
Over six weeks, Haitians will share raw, personal stories from the current crisis—testimonies of resilience, resistance, and unwavering faith.
Click here to sign up today to be part of this journey from the very beginning. Receive weekly emails and commit to praying for Haiti with each story. Act now to ensure you don’t miss week one.
🙏Stand in solidarity by submitting your own prayer for Haiti
⛪Pray together with your church or small group using our downloadable prayer resource
👉 📲 🌐 Follow the campaign on our Facebook and Instagram. Like, share and spread the word with our #VoicesforHaiti posts.
Let’s stand with Haiti, lift up our voices and pray in faith, hope and love.
The Methodist Church has produced resources for Lent and Easter 2026.
Encounter 2026 a Methodist exploration of discipleship & vocation
Make 2026 the year in which you join with others to explore your gifts and faith
“Encounter was a transformative journey, offering meaningful insights into ministry pathways within Methodism and helping me to discern how I might serve within this community.” Munawar, Encounter 2024
Encounter is…
Taster sessions in January 2026
Thursday 15th, Monday 19th, Tuesday 27th all @7pm
Find out more and book your taster session – methodist.org.uk/encounter
Text of poster: Philippians Training Day 14 March 2026 10:00 to 15:00.
For Ministers, Local Preachers, Worship Leaders, Children and Youth Leader.
Local churches across the UK will already have well-developed plans for celebrating Christmas – both in our church buildings and with our wider communities. Each of us will have had a lifetime of sharing the message at the heart of Christmas, ‘good news of great joy… for all’.
But this year, we have seen a ‘turning up of the volume’ of far Right politics and the co-option of Christian language and symbols – including Christmas – for a nationalist agenda, overtly hostile to asylum-seekers and Muslims, and more covertly threatening to many more of us in our churches and neighbourhoods.
This includes an event planned for central London on 13th December, led by ‘Tommy Robinson’ and ‘Unite the Kingdom’, with the explicit aim of ‘putting Christ back into Christmas’, but associated closely with aggressive patriotism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. We’ll be all too aware that within our church communities, and our wider neighbourhoods, there will be some people who find these events threatening or scary, some who will want to fiercely reject them, others who will be drawn to them for a variety of reasons, and still many others who will feel confused and bewildered by the mixed messages that they find themselves having to make sense of.
JPIT offers here a ‘rapid response’ resource for local churches wanting to navigate these complexities and discern faithful ways forward: to celebrate Christmas with a clear message of love for all our neighbours and (in small but significant ways) resisting agendas of division and hostility, while recognising that even within our own church communities there will very likely be a wide diversity of experiences, hopes and fears, and political views.
