Today’s Church Urban Fund conference in East London has seen a powerful call by Archbishop Justin Welby for Christians to engage in politics – and Maurice Glasman praise community organising as an effective means of doing so.  In this post, we look at some exciting events and publications which will equip local churches to put these ideas into practice.

CTC’s Senior Tutor refers to community organising as an example of “small ‘p’ politics” – seeking the good of the polis (city) in which God has placed us, in response to the command of the Bible (Jeremiah 29.7).  Today, many of the CTC team are at the Church Urban Fund’s “Tackling Poverty Together” conference, in which Archbishop Welby and Lord Glasman (a Fellow of CTC) have called on local churches to engage in these kinds of “small ‘p’ politics”.

In the next few weeks, CTC is holding two events which can help Christian leaders do just that – an event with Citizens UK on Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and the current Economic Crisis, with talks by Damian Howard SJ and Fr Simon Cuff, and opportunities to relate CST to the issues facing local churches of all denominations, and a Clergy Learning Day on 2nd December with St Paul’s Cathedral on Good People, Good Money and Good Banks, with speakers including the Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby (former Bishop of Worcester), Bishop Moses Owusu-Sekyere (House of Faith Mission), Bruce Connell (Holy Trinity Brompton) and Canon Dr Angus Ritchie, David Barclay and Selina Stone from CTC.

CTC recently published Just Church (a well-received report on the theology and practice of local congregations transforming their communities), and these events will see the launch a follow-up pamphlet called God and the Moneylenders.  This exciting collection of essays will explore the theology and practice of the Church’s battle against exploitative lending – a key issue highlighted this morning.