BLOGS

Community Organising: How to make Corporate Social Responsibility work…

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profile-DavidOur Faith in Public Life Officer David Barclay addressed a conference on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Ridley Hall, Cambridge this week. In this blog, adapted from his remarks, he examines community organising, CSR and the common good…

Over the last few years, I’ve used community organising methodology to influence behaviour in businesses in the financial sector from the outside. What I want to do today is explore what it might look like to reshape a business by using community organising from the inside.

The first element of the community organising is the most important – listening. We always start by listening for two reasons – to identity issues and to find potential leaders who are willing to take action. What’s really going on is a bit deeper – it is the exploration of what we call ‘self-interest’. We define self-interest as ‘that which motivates action’. Self-interest is not the same as selfishness, but neither is it selflessness. It is a complex mixture of beliefs, values, traditions and material concerns.

Resurrection! The Bishop of London on east London church planting

The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged , , l

Screen Shot 2016-03-26 at 12.43.43The Bishop of London, The Rt Revd Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres, writes an introduction to our new report, released today: Love, Sweat and Tears: Church planting in east London…

It is fitting that this report should be released at Easter, for it tells a story of renewal and resurrection. This careful study dispels some common myths about church planting and offers grounds for thankfulness and hope.

The narrative we are so often told by the media (and by some within the Church) is that our congregations are in terminal decline. Church planting is one of the ways in which across the diocese we’re telling a different story – that churches can have a new lease of life and flourish at the heart of London’s diverse communities. The following pages tell the story of how that has happened in a few square miles of east London.

Holy Week: The Cross revealing God to us

The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged , , , , l

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Our Chaplain, Sr Josephine Canny OA, offers a short reflection for Holy Week…

The wisdom of God is found in the cross.

Jesus heads towards Jerusalem – He is walking ahead of the Disciples.

They follow in a daze.

The crowd is bewildered.

He is heading for death – everyone knows that…

Wisdom lies in going towards our suffering – not running away from it.

Community Organising – strengthening the local church!

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Revd Vanessa Conant_preparing before the Licensing Service on 13_07_2015.jpg-pwrt3The Revd Vanessa Conant is Team Rector of Walthamstow. She has been one of the participants on our congregational development programme with Citizens UK this year. Here she blogs for us about how we’re helping her engage with her local community.

What have I learnt through the process? 

Coming new to a parish and beginning the course almost immediately meant that straight away, I had a framework through which to view the parish and make sense of it. The ‘seven marks of an organised congregation’ were a helpful foundation from which to build and to approach the task of giving direction and focus. I used those marks as the foundation for our vision and strategy in 2016 and so our activity is being shaped by the programme.

Unlikely bedfellows unite to keep Sunday special

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David Lawrence

David Lawrence is one of our Buxton interns. Here, he blogs for us about his first hand experience of unity across diversity in the battle to Keep Sunday Special…

I wasn’t alive when Margaret Thatcher was defeated in the House of Commons for the first and only time in 1986 – on the issue of Sunday trading. Yet I’ve heard stories of about how the Church, some Conservative MPs and trade unionists united in a desperate stand, clinching victory at the last minute over a strong government to keep Sundays special – at least for another decade. Perhaps those stories are slightly exaggerated. Sometimes, though, surprising alliances are formed as groups unite in pursuit of a shared cause, even when that cause – Sundays – is dismissed as irrelevant and old fashioned by those in charge. And just sometimes, those unlikely bedfellows win and we are reminded of the power of democracy.

Green shoots of growth springing in an east London parish…

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Our Director, Angus Ritchie, blogs about our exciting partnership with a historic east London parish – and what it means for the future…

Last May, CTC embarked on a pioneering partnership with St George-in-the-East – the church in whose crypt we are now based.

The parish was between priests and, owing to its declining congregation, the Bishop of Stepney decided to review its pattern and provision of ministry. St George’s shared some of our passions – being a place of prayer; working with and for its neighbours, and growing numerically – but the challenge of maintenance (of a Grade I listed building with a Sunday congregation sometimes under twenty) made it hard to engage in much mission.

A manifesto we can believe in: Jesus (and Nehemiah)

Community Organising, The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged , , l

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David Barclay blogs about the kind of change we can believe in…

We’ve become pretty immune to manifestos these days. I wonder how many people read any of the Parties’ manifestos before the General Election last year, let alone how many can remember what they said. Ed Miliband even carved half of his manifesto into a giant stone and people still didn’t take it seriously!

However if we’ve become jaded, we’d do well not to laugh off Jesus’ manifesto – in Luke 4. Fresh from his baptism and his time in the desert, having had 30 years to consider what his ministry might look like, Jesus chooses to kick it all off by making Isaiah’s words his own – “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Why, for Lent, I’m taking up cleaning…

The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged , , l

profile-Tim-TOur Development Director Tim Thorlby blogs about the progress being made with our ethical cleaning company, Clean For Good…

If I say the word ‘cleaning’ to you, I wonder what your first reaction is?

For many, it’s a hassle, perhaps something we’d rather not be doing with our time. A growing number of people ‘contract out’ their cleaning at home now for this very reason – it’s something we’re often happy for someone else to do.

And yet we all clean.

When I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do is to have a shower. I clean my teeth. I put on clothes I’ve washed earlier in the week. Cleanliness is an important and essential part of our lives. More than that, it is something which actually brings satisfaction to us – the minty fresh breath after cleaning my teeth, the well-scrubbed face staring back at me in the mirror.

Into the desert… How Jesus’ example can transform us this Lent

Prayer, The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged , , l

IMG_6892Our Chaplain, Sr Josephine Canny OA, helps to guide us into Lent with a brief reflection on Jesus’ time in the desert…

“Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit through the wilderness, being tempted there by the devil.” (Luke 4:1)

We sometimes speak about “going into the desert” as if it were some sort of “time out” or form of escapism in order to enjoy our spiritual life in a different way… and hopefully it becomes just that. But we need to remember that the desert is where Jesus encountered the “devil!”

Teaching (and learning from) social justice in Hong Kong

Community Organising, The Centre for Theology & Community l

Screen Shot 2015-02-18 at 11.09.48Our Director, Angus Ritchie, blogs on our efforts to teach (and learn from) other parts of the world…

London is one of the most diverse cities on earth, in terms of ethnicity and of religion. That’s one reason community organising is such a valuable practice – as David Barclay has argued, if we are going to build relationships across deep difference, we need to first build “political friendships” on issues of common concern.

Community Organising in so many different cultures and communities creates some exciting international opportunities. When people from various diaspora communities encounter the practice, a question often asked is: “what might this have to offer in our home country?”

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