Statement from the North West England District Senior Leadership Team
Update on the health of our Chair of District, Revd Dr James Tebbutt
On behalf of the District Senior Leadership Team please find below an important statement for your information. Please share the information more widely within churches and circuits as appropriate, but you are asked not to include details on social media, thank you.
“Following the major heart attack James suffered in April, and the consequent complex recovery, related risks and unknown nature of what lies ahead, James has thought it most helpful – both for the District and for himself and his family – to seek to curtail his appointment as Chair of the North West England District from 31st August 2027 (having then completed three of the original six years of the nominated appointment).
The NWE District Policy Committee, deeply saddened to be considering this request at its meeting on 11th June 2026, agreed to accept James’s offer to curtail his appointment.
In the coming weeks and months the SLT and DPC will be following all due process, in collaboration with the Conference Office, towards the nomination and appointment of a Chair from September 2027.
The SLT (Hub Leads and MALS / Deputy Chairs) wishes to thank everyone for their ongoing prayerful support and best wishes for James, Nicola and Eleanor – appreciating that you will continue to offer these – and also for ourselves and the wider team across the District.
We convey and share with you all our sadness that James’s time in the District is to be shortened in this way, ever grateful for James’s considerable efforts, commitment and dedication in the setting up and establishing of our North West England District, and of James’s colleagueship and friendship to so many of us.
After further considerations the SLT and DPC will share with you shortly a fuller plan of how our District business will be managed in this intervening period. In the meantime, James remains medically signed off work, but if a phased return becomes possible, then we will advise you of this.
Caroline Ainger, Alan Bradley, Heather Fergusson,
Phil Gough, David Newlove, Sharon Read, Katie Smith
(North West England Methodist District Leadership Team) JUNE 24th 2026
James has asked that the following personal statement from him is also included here, which we are pleased to do:
Dear Friends and Colleagues in the North West England District,
Thank you so much for all your prayers, cards and kindness following my heart attack on Easter Sunday evening which I have so appreciated, not least through what became 39 nights in hospital in two stints given some immediate complications. It has been a long haul, and will continue to be so. I feel that I am unlikely to regain my former capacities, and that there would be delays and risks even if that were possible. Hence I thought it better to offer and request to curtail my appointment from August 2027, to avoid an extended period of uncertainty and possible absence, and to allow the District to move forwards in seeking a permanent successor from the natural earliest opportunity, i.e. from September 2027.
To curtail and not complete my appointment beyond then brings me great sadness: we are well on the way to establishing the new District, but there will be so many more chapters to come and working with a collaborative team has been a joy. I am sorry that for me this process will be cut short, even as I have complete confidence in the team and gratitude for my colleagues picking up my various responsibilities. I am sure that ever more fully the District will develop its support of the circuits and churches.
I also want to emphasise that above all what I will miss in the role is the meeting of you all ‘on the ground’, whenever visiting circuits or leading worship, attending meetings or consultations, or paying a pastoral visit. This ministry of encounter and encouragement has been a deep privilege and joy for me as the District Chair, to hear of your joys and sorrows, your hopes and challenges. Over the years in Cumbria I was able to get to know many people; that process has been underway in the North West England District for some two years, but, given our size, inevitably I have far from met everyone as yet. Whilst I hope that at some point in the coming months I shall be able to return sufficiently to re-encounter many of you, my curtailment from the end of the next connexional year means that inevitably I will not be able to meet and get to know as many of you, nor as fully as might have been the case, as I would have done through a full six-year appointment. That loss is my greatest regret!
Thus this comes with my gratitude for all your care and concern and with my continued good wishes for the flourishing of the District, its circuits and churches, but it also comes with my regret, rooted in my deep appreciation for you. God Bless you, each and everyone,
James
Revd Dr James N Tebbutt, Chair of the North West England District.