What better way to begin celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of John Wesley than at a Methodist church with 300 members?

IT'S a big year for the Methodists, 300 years on June 17 since the birth of John Wesley, the founder. We haven't heard the last of him. It seemed only right, therefore, to start 2003 at a thriving Methodist church. "Go to Guisborough," suggested Graham Carter, chairman of the far-flung Darlington District, and, on a snowy Sunday morning, we did.

Guisborough's in east Cleveland, overlooked by a white clad Roseberry Topping and proclaimed by roadside signs to be a priory town.

Forty years ago, Guisborough Methodist Church had 30 members. Now it has 300, a tenfold increase over which Wesley himself would have been ecstatic.

Since proceedings are generally upbeat, as we shall hear, they even began a church "plant" in nearby Maltby Court so that older or more traditional members mightn't - whatever the mercury - feel left out in the cold.

Its success, says Kathleen Bowe - superintendent minister of Guisborough and 15 surrounding churches for eight and a half years - is chiefly due to the number of "managerial" families, "ready made leadership", who've moved into the ever-expanding town. About half the membership is also in fellowship groups.

"The great thing about this church is that I needn't keep my finger on everything, because I'm not a control freak.

"It's a church without any cliques or power groups and I'd never come across a church without power groups. Everybody simply plays their part."

Originally Primitive Methodist, the church was built in 1907. Guisborough may indeed be one of the few places in England to which the ubiquitous Wesley never flogged a long-suffering horse.

The worship area is on the first floor, tiered at the front like a Waldorf wedding cake. A balcony - the gods, as it were - is above that, meeting rooms below.

Notices in the foyer indicate the vast range of the church's activities - shoppers' service, pram service, women's fellowship, child minders' support group, mothers and toddlers, youth club, house fellowships.

The music group is vibrant, too, though forced to change its tune a little after New Year burglars stole some of their equipment from a locked church.

A notice at the front proclaims that Jesus is for life, and not just for Christmas.

Around 180 are present, drawn from all age ranges but fewer than normal, they reckon. "It was so icy it took me ten minutes to get off the estate this morning," someone explains.

Among them is former Crook superintendent minister Bill Middlemiss, retired last summer to his native Cleveland but on the road again as from tomorrow, at Wolsingham. The founder, on the go well into his 80s, would undoubtedly have approved.

A chap in the same pew is also making notes, a case perhaps of the spy being spied upon. Or perhaps he's CID.

It's the annual Covenant Service, a Methodist new year tradition at which promises are renewed. "Some of you may feel that the prayer in the order of service asks too much of you," the minister tells them.

"If so, don't worry, don't pray it."

Her sermon addresses the covenant. "God isn't a peddler of insurance offering us protection from the hardships of being human. God offers us pure, accepting, overwhelming love - and it's perfectly free."

More people take the offering than might be present in some Methodist chapels; organising the upstairs downstairs holy communion is the sort of exercise for which sergeants win their stripes in the Royal Logistic Corps.

The music remains upbeat, infectious, the mood exhilarating - if not quite a happy clappy new year, then manifestly a happy one. The family service is the really noisy event says Kathleen, from a farming family in Bedale.

"It's a very worshipful church, not one that people attend for the sake of attending," she adds.

The column complains, however, when the last hymn - a drumbeat Be Thou My Vision - is cut to three verses. "I get a bit worried when that clock gets past 12," she says.

The service last an hour and 35 minutes, followed downstairs by coffee and good company. John Wesley would have been delighted with what he started.

* Principal Sunday service at Guisborough Methodist Church is at 10.30am. The Rev Kathleen Bowe is on (01287) 632770.