The female touch

NON-CONFORMING to type, it barely seems five minutes since a column began by explaining how the Methodists go about their business. A bit further up the presbyterial pecking order, it is necessary to do so again.

The Methodists don’t have dioceses they have districts, about the same size, and they don’t have bishops they have district chairmen – or as latterly they have become known, chairs.

Unlike a Roman Catholic or Church of England bishop, a chair may – happily – be male or female, though it would take a more politically correct column than this one to resist the suggestion that lady chairs may have nicer legs.

The Darlington district – covering the southern half of County Durham, Teesside and the North Yorkshire dales – has its first female leader. The Reverend Ruth Gee, aged 53 and just 13 years a minister, ceremonially assumed office on Monday evening.

Another happy development, the service was in Durham Cathedral. A bishop would have been consecrated, with all the legal and ecclesiastical baggage that accompanies the established church.

For Mrs Gee it was simply a “Welcome service” and on such an evening, a very warm welcome, indeed.

The cathedral thronged, almost every seat taken except those next to me. Funny how often that happens.

The evening sweltered, the chap in front swigging surreptitiously from a sparkling mineral bottle – that’s what it said on the label, anyway.

Had the great cathedral still been run by monks, they would certainly have been a shirtsleeve order last Monday evening.

SHE was born in Dorset, her father a Methodist local preacher, read theology at the University of Hull and wondered if it might qualify as North-East. Deep south, we suggest.

The idea of becoming a minister, she says, had begun particularly to nag after a visit to the religious community at Taize, France, when she was 19 – but she became a religious studies teacher instead.

“I put it to one side quite firmly, thoroughly enjoyed teaching and was wholly fulfilled,” she says.

Her husband Robert is also a Methodist minister, has taken a post in the Thirsk and Northallerton circuit – in the York and Hull district – but was ordained after she was.

Overcome by her example? “He responded to the call after I did,” she says.

There have been other female chairs, but never in the North-East.

A woman has also twice been president of the Methodist Conference, an annually elected office.

Though there are Roman Catholic priests ordained after the war who after 13 years still hadn’t served their curacy, she’s reluctant to be seen as a high-flier. “I think my experience as a teacher may have been very important.

“I wouldn’t use the word daunting, but there’s certainly an excitement and a challenge about it. I just think I’m very privileged to be here.”

MUSIC before the service is provided by Leyburn Brass Band, a bit out of their patch, the second time in as many weeks that the column has had the pleasure of their accompaniment.

Last time it was Thornton Watlass parish church. Since Durham Cathedral’s a bit bigger, they’re really able to give it what fettle.

Officially it’s the first day of the Methodist year and it’s thronged like Trafalgar Square at midnight.

Among the new year greetings is one from a Kenyan church linked to the Darlington district – “You couldn’t have asked to be chair of a better district,” says their minister.

They sing in their native tongue, too. Translated, it probably means “For she’s a jolly good fellow”.

The hymns are well chosen, the singing terrific. We even have “And Can It Be That I Should gain”, than which few hymns are more uplifting.

Peter Whittaker, chair of the West Yorkshire district in which Mrs Gee formerly served, talks in his sermon of the need for change – “I’ve had it with Methodist nostalgia” – and of the transformation business.

“The challenge should be less about what we have been and more about what God calls us to be,” he says.

He’s parked, adds Mr Whittaker by way of aside, at the Prince Bishops car park – “the most exotic name for a car park I’ve ever heard.”

Martyn Atkins, secretary of the Methodist Conference, invites the new chair to take some “terrible and awesome promises”, a pretty hefty list which includes being a “diligent pastor” to all the other ministers on her patch but also overseeing their “character and fidelity”.

She’s greeted by senior representatives of other churches and by delegates from the circuits in the Darlington district, each asked to carry a “symbol” down the cathedral’s centre aisle. Most are banners: a bit like the miners’ service on Big Meeting Day.

Afterwards she’s also greeted, enthusiastically, by many of those present, the queue stretching back to the chancel steps. Someone, the real nitty-gritty, even wants to talk about all the meetings she faces in the next few weeks. It’s among the things that chairs have to do: may she sit here very comfortably.