On this day of worship and of rest, give thanks for the work the Contextual Theology Centre is doing to ground Christian social action more deeply in stillness and prayer.  Materials from our recent afternoon Silence: The Contemplative Way are now online.  Pray that they will be useful to many.  Pray also for our home at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine (a Christian Conference & Retreat Centre), and for its new Master, the Revd Mark Aitken, as he develops its ministries of worship, hospitality and service.

Pray also for SixtyEightFive, a project in Middlesborough which aims to promote and support the role of fathers while providing positive male role models to men and boys who have been raised in a fatherless environment. The Church Urban Fund is helping those involved in the project to befriend and mentor young offenders prior to their release from prison – so that they can have a support network and opportunities to aid their resettlement.

Give thanks for Matthew 25 Mission, a Christian Charity based at Christ Church in Eastbourne. The Church Urban Fund is helping it to begin a job club for ex offenders after discussions with the local council, job centre and CAB. Volunteers from the church will be encouraged to be involved and trained, and together with a trained careers advisor, will give advice on writing CVs, completing forms, writing letters to employers, interview techniques, careers guidance, retraining and education, and setting up businesses.

Pray for the Shoreditch Group, (a project of CTC) as its seeks to build congregational capacity to engage with the Caring for Ex Offenders programme.

Pray for WORD – a project in  Norwich set up by an orphan and widow to tackle the causes of poverty for widows, single parents, and orphans in deprived communities. The Church Urban Fund is helping it to set up a parenting course with 50 parents, which will also provide IT training to disadvantaged asylum seekers and refugee parents.

Pray also for the Contextual Theology Centre’s partnership with The Children’s Society – to help churches reflect theologically, and act effectively, to support children and families in deprived communities across the UK.   Some of these resources are online now – pray for Angus Ritchie and Caitlin Burbridge as they work on further materials.

Pray for SPACE Project – which works with young vulnerable women as part of Soul Survivor Harrow’s outreach. It provides one to one listening, mentoring and signposting, and True2U (an 8 week programme that improves the self esteem of girls at risk of disengagement with education, risky sexual behaviour, and mental health problems).  The Church Urban Fund is supporting an expansion in the programme.

Pray also for the staff and the partner churches of the Contextual Theology Centre, as they discuss how their community organising work can engage with and support vulnerable women in east London – especially those who are commercially exploited.

Pray for the Pilgrims Heart Trust, a new partnership between churches and charities in Slough and Reading which is being supported by the Church Urban Fund.  It will enable more effective support of homeless people in the towns, including arts training and mentoring workshops, to help people move towards work.

Pray also for the work CTC is doing with churches in Shoreditch and Forest Gate, to explore the ways in which social enterprises can support young people seeking work.  Last Friday, CTC co-ordinated a ‘Tech Jam’ training young people in web development and social media. Pray for those who participated, and for Helen Moules and Daniel Stone as they evaluate this and explore future work with Freeformers (the social enterprise which delivered the event).

Pray for Tim Thorlby, Development Director of the Contextual Theology Centre.  Pray that work he has been doing with Affordable Christian Housing, the Eden Network and the Diocese of London to develop a Missional Housing Bond may bear fruit – generating more affordable accommodation for missional workers in London’s poorest neighbourhoods.  It was launched yesterday evening at an event with the Bishop of London, who stressed the distinctive  and transformative role played by workers who live, work and pray in inner-city neighbourhoods, rather than ‘intervening from outside’.

The projects supported by the Church Urban Fund’s Mustard Seed Grants exemplify this point – growing out of the ongoing presence and engagement of the local church.  Today, please pray for About Time, a project in Plymouth which is working with Stoke Damerel Parish Church to provide a Time Bank and English Language Classes to refugees and asylum seekers.

Pray for West Cumbria Money Advice (WCMA), who are responding to need idenitified by Allerdale Borough Council and deliver financial and budget training to local vulnerable groups. Support from the Church Urban Fund is enabling WCMA to purchase materials to deliver the training sessions.

Pray also for the Community Bible Studies CTC is organising in different parts of London this year – taking the Word of God into the wider community, and enabling a deeper engagement between Scripture and the inner-city contexts of its partner churches.

One of the outcomes of the Contending Modernities project (see yesterday’s prayer post) is a deeper understanding of the experience of diaspora communities, and ways in which they can be more deeply engaged in action with other groups for the common good.  Pray for the work of the New Citizens Organising Team in London Citizens, and especially for the churches and chaplaincies involved in its work

Pray also for the parish of St Benet Fink, which is employing a Community Mission Apprentice (CMA) to form community partnerships to expand, establish and run projects for disadvantaged young people, the elderly, and establish involvement in Haringey Churches Winter Night Shelter. The CMA will build on partnerships that are being established with YMCA and Age UK to begin this work, doing the background preparation and work with volunteers necessary in setting up these projects. The youth and elderly work is particularly important in an area that has recently seen the loss of a local authority youth centre and has been affected by the 2011 riots, and has lost 7 elderly day centres.