The Southlands Methodist Trust (SMT) is a charity of the Methodist Church in Britain, which, through the auspices of the Susanna Wesley Foundation, supports research of significance to Church and Society. During the summer of 2025, the SMT will be awarding a number of grants of up to £5,000 to support individuals or groups within […]
Celebrating the Susanna Wesley Foundation
On 26th March, we gathered for an exhibition, symposium and dinner to mark ten years of the Susanna Wesley Foundation. The exhibition, entitled Remarkable Women: making a difference in education, featured portraits of leaders from Southlands College history. The symposium was around the theme of Learning to Make a Difference, and included posters from recent […]
Research Report: Reclaiming Local Lay Ministry for Mission
Replanting in the Same Pot: Reclaiming Local Lay Ministry for Mission is an action research project led by Erica Dunmow, an organisational development, fresh expressions, and urban mission practitioner, working with Dr Delroy Hall, pastor, counsellor and equalities practitioner. They had a vision that churches could be revived and made more missional through a focus […]
Podcast 17: Into the earth and into the light: practices around death and bereavement
Into the earth and into the light: practices around death and bereavement This conversation is part of a miniseries of three episodes that emerge from our recent report on death, dying and afterlife beliefs and practices which you can read here. In this first episode of the three, Emma Pavey is joined by funeral director […]
Podcast 16: Naming the Grace: faith learning in church communities
Naming the Grace: faith learning in church communities In this conversation, part of our Crafting Hope series, Emma Pavey is joined by Clare Watkins and Simon Sutcliffe to talk about faith learning in church communities and its relation to formation, discipleship, power dynamics…and compost. This episode relates to a major project around faith learning in […]
Article: “Does not wisdom call?”: faith learning in Methodist practice
An open-access article has been published in Anvil journal based on research by SWF Director Sue Miller, Stan Brown and Graham Jones. The article can be read here. Introduction The mission of the Methodist Church In its foundational documents, the Methodist Church in Britain “ever remembers that in the providence of God Methodism was raised […]
Book Review – Hope: the Dream we Carry
Tia DeNora, Hope: the dream we carry (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021) In brief: Emma Pavey reviews Hope: the dream we carry by Tia DeNora and finds many thoughtful starting points for developing thinking about crafting hope in faith communities. DeNora emphasizes hope as an active, creative, and socially situated endeavour, focusing on its role in various […]
New research: Cultural Fellowships and Language Congregations in the Methodist Church in Britain
Here, SWF’s Senior Research Officer Lia Shimada describes SWF’s latest research project. Anecdotally, we know that the Methodist Church in Britain (MCB) has never been more diverse – culturally, socially, linguistically. Across the Connexion, Methodists and other Christians worship in many ways and in an unknown number of languages. This collaborative project aims to: Research […]