The Rev Ken Todd will be installed as president of the Methodist Church in Ireland on Friday. The installation takes place at Fisherwick Church on the Malone Road in Belfast during the annual Methodist conference.
For a churchman who has spent the past number of years serving a small flock in Cork, it will mark the beginning of the most hectic year in his ministry.
In the liberal Methodist ethos, clergy and lay people combine to elect their leader. Mr Todd was designated to become the next Methodist president at the annual conference in Cork last June. Did it come as a shock to him? Not really, his name had been mentioned for higher office before and he was runner-up on a previous occasion.
For the next year - Methodist presidents are elected for one year only - he will lead the 70,000 Methodists in Ireland, North and South. Speaking at his home in the Douglas suburb of Cork, his mind was beginning to focus on what the coming 12 months will bring to someone who says his only ambition is to be a faithful preacher of the Gospel.
Does it say something, he wondered, that he and his immediate predecessor, the Rev Dr Ken Wilson of Bray, have been the only two Methodist leaders elected from posts in the Republic during the last quarter century? It may be a sign of the times, he thinks.
He is passionate about the Gospel and living its message, as enunciated by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. His theme for the year will be "beyond the boundaries we have created", which in the Irish context means crossing the boundaries created by the churches themselves.
Mr Todd has no illusions about the falloff in church appeal, especially among young people. Church buildings, he says, are increasingly places virtually unknown to huge numbers of people. If the four main churches in Ireland are to spread the Christian message effectively, they will have to move outside the church walls rather than waiting for the people to come to them.
The churches in the new age, he adds, may have to concentrate less on the trappings and more on the real needs of people. This does not have to mean compromising the core message, rather, delivering it in a more meaningful way. And there are signs, he believes, that through the ecumenical movement, the people are teaching this lesson to their religious leaders.
In Cork and throughout the State, the clamour for increased inter-church activity is "cascading upwards to the leaders instead of trickling down from them, as used to be the case." The laity, according to Mr Todd, are knocking on doors. "They are telling us they want to do things together, through community work and many other ways. They want to pray and share together more than in the past. We must listen to them."
He was speaking on the day when Bishop John Buckley of the Cork and Ross Dioceses handed over a cheque for more than £67,000 to the Church of Ireland in Cork - a contribution by the Catholics of the city and county towards the restoration work under way at St Fin Barre's Cathedral. Such a gesture, with the full backing of Bishop Buckley, would have been difficult to imagine in the not too distant past.
Mr Todd is concerned at the rise of racism in the Republic since the arrival of refugees and asylum-seekers. Here, he is convinced, is a practical opportunity for the barriers he speaks about to be broken down. Housing the refugees is one thing, treating them equally within our boundaries is quite another.
"There is cause for concern. Voices that could lead to ethnic exclusion have been raised. As Christians, we have to remember God is an internationalist, not a nationalist," said Mr Todd. "It is up to the churches to lead in this matter and to make their voices heard loud and clear. We must face up to the problem. "Perhaps it's the case that the tiger economy has made us greedy. The Methodist Church fully backs the right of asylum-seekers and refugees to work and we would also be in favour of the whole system being speeded up. "I'm of the opinion that if the people who have come to our shore asking for help were integrated fully, with dignity and full rights, they would have a lot more to offer their adopted country, and would be all the more welcome. If we fail in this, however, we could be sowing the seeds of a serious social problem up ahead," he said.
Close contact between the main church leaders will be high on Mr Todd's agenda in the year ahead. He will be one of those whose opinion is sought on political issues, particularly concerning Northern Ireland. On the Wednesday before the crucial UUC vote in Belfast which paved the way once again for devolved powers, he was asked at a news conference how he felt unionists should vote. He had no hesitation in calling for a vote in favour of David Trimble. "There's no longer time for fence-sitting on these issues. I gave my honest opinion and afterwards, I received only two angry telephone calls - that was heartening; how different it might have been only a few years ago. The point is the churches will have to be in the market place expressing themselves.
"Jesus crossed the boundaries of race, creed and gender. In the new millennium we are called to move across all the old boundaries we have created, whether ecclesiastically, socially or politically. I thank God the process in Northern Ireland is back on track. Now we can move on and the churches can play an important part in forging new partnerships," he said.
On September 18th, Mr Todd will be the guest of the President, Mrs McAleese, at Aras an Uachtarain and in October, he will visit Buckingham Palace as a guest of Queen Elizabeth. He has been invited by the Department of Defence to visit the Irish troops in the Lebanon next month and will be paying courtesy calls on the RUC Chief Constable, as well as the Garda Commissioner.
Methodism, traditionally, was a champion of the trade-union movement, going back to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the agricultural labourers of Dorset who were organised by the Methodist preacher, George Loveless, in 1833. First deported for taking illegal oaths, they were transported but later pardoned.
During his tenure, Mr Todd expects to meet trade union leaders, and he makes the point that during the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, the trade unions worked hard at plotting the middle ground.
Mr Todd has edited Keep Going, an inter-denominational collection of essays on the Christian ministry just published by the Columba Press. In the foreword, he sets out his thinking on what is often seen as the somewhat pompous outer facade of the churches. He asks: "How did we acquire the honorific titles that abide and abound in the church and speak of Lords rather than servants? Even some of my humble friends who contribute to this book have had thrust upon them - very unwillingly - superior titles . . . The whole concept of monarchy and hierarchy in the church has more to do with Constantine than it has with Christ. I sense that the egalitarianism of this age will see less attention to such titles and it will be no bad thing".
Aged 56, and born in Armagh and educated at Queens, Mr Todd and his wife, Frances, who is a nurse, served for 12 years in Sierra Leone. Their three children were born there in a jungle hospital. The experience on the missions taught him to appreciate "that God is not white."
He moved from Africa to Dublin in 1986, and to Cork in 1994. Of necessity, during the coming year, he will be spending at least six months in Northern Ireland and plans that he and his wife will move temporarily to Lisburn, where one of his daughters is living.
He is a keen golfer, playing off a handicap of 13.