Posted on by David Steers

Reflections on Prayer

I added this short video to our YouTube channel featuring the church and some of the grounds at Dunmurry built around a short passage on prayer written by Valentine David Davis. V.D. Davis trained for the ministry at Manchester College when it was still in London and James Martineau was Principal. He was one of the last links between that generation of ministers and the mid-twentieth century. His little book The Lord’s Prayer An Interpretation. Together with an Address on The Offering of Prayer was published by the Lindsey Press in 1938.

Click on the video to see ‘Reflections on Prayer’ from Dunmurry

His book on prayer is full of insight. He is perhaps someone who is rather overlooked in our history. On leaving Manchester College he went to Christ Church, Nottingham as minister for a few years before moving on to the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth for eleven years. This was followed by a further ministry at Wallasey. In Merseyside he was greatly influenced by John Hamilton Thom whose devotional Services and Prayers he later edited along with a selection of J.H. Thom’s writings in a A Minister of God. Ministry in Liverpool and Wallasey was followed by eleven years as editor of The Inquirer before returning to the ministry in Bournemouth where he served for twenty years up to retirement. He made some more important contributions to devotional publishing and to history, producing A Book of Daily Strength as well as A History of Manchester College and a history of the London Domestic Mission Society. He was editor also of Hymns of Worship, first published in 1927, reprinted a number of times, then republished with a Supplement (1951), and later still republished in a revised format in 1962. Even Hymns of Faith and Freedom, published in 1991, described itself as a radical revision of Hymns of Worship. So as one of the first fruits of the collaboration that led to the new General Assembly and ‘offered, in the interest of unity and comprehension, with the prayer that it may be blessed in its ministry to the fellowship of our churches’ it proved remarkably successful.

We also uploaded to YouTube our full Easter Day service at Dunmurry recently. The full service, including hymns, prayers and readings can be seen here:

Easter Sunday Service, Dunmurry

Posted on by David Steers

General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches 2024

I was very pleased to be able to attend this year’s General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches held in Daventry. There were many stand out moments. One was the Unitarian Christian Association meeting at which Dr Lizzie Kingston Harrison gave an excellent talk entitled Joseph Priestley: radical roots and new beginnings. A wonderful presentation which showed how professional historical research can be alive with reflections for our present age in the hands of an expert. We look forward to publishing Lizzie’s paper in a future issue of Faith and Freedom.

The meetings were notable also for the large contingent of seven Non-Subscribing Presbyterians from Northern Ireland who were also able to be there for the welcoming onto the GA Roll of the Rev Lynda Kane. Now the minister of Ballyclare, Cairncastle and Ballymoney, Lynda was one of three new ministers recognised at the General Assembly Service.

Rev Lynda Kane with some of the ministers from Northern Ireland present at the GA (Photo: Sue Steers)
Rev Rory Castle Jones, Rev Lynda Kane, Rev Ant Howe, new ministers Rev Arek Malecki and Rev Jennifer Sanders, Liz Slade, Rev Melda Grantham and GA President Vince McCully, after the GA Service. (Photo: Sue Steers).

The Rev Ant Howe delivered a most inspiring sermon at the GA Service, and at the meetings Dot Hewerdine and the Rev John Midgley and the Rev Celia Midgely were all made honorary members of the GA.

We also held the annual meeting of the Unitarian Historical Society. There was a good turnout of people for the AGM and to hear Professor Grayson Ditchfield’s paper Essex Street Chapel in the Later Eighteenth Century. Unfortunately, because of disruption to the train services, Professor Ditchfield couldn’t be with us in person, and so his excellent paper was read for us by Rev Daniel Costley. There was a great deal of new information and new insight in the paper which will feature in next year’s Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society.

Derek McAuley (President), Howard Hague (Secretary) with Rev Daniel Costley (left), who read Professor Ditchfield’s paper, at the meeting of the Unitarian Historical Society in Daventry. Saturday, 6th April.