Why Religion Really Matters

The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged Newham, RE Matters, Religion, Stereotype l April 20, 2012

One of the most exciting projects Near Neighbours has funded so far is called RE Matters. It’s based in the London Borough of Newham and works with children from schools across the area.

With so many stereotypes about religious people in the media the young people involved decided they wanted to investigate how much truth was behind the speculation and rumour.

Faith leaders came to talk and to listen.

RE Matters put on an exciting, interactive day conference for them to have the chance to meet faith leaders and other young people from diverse communities and faiths. They worked together to find out more about each other and challenge the assumptions they were making.

Journalist Ruth Gledhill from The Times has endorsed the project and spent some time with the young people herself.

Young people practice their mock TV advertising campaigns.

The hope is that the young people will now go back to each of their schools, families and communities and help to increase the knowledge and understanding of other faiths.

Andy Walton from Near Neighbours visited the project and spoke to faith leaders, tutors and young people. Listen to his report here:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/43761050″ iframe=”true” /]

Music Migrations

Reflections & Prayers for Easter 3

Prayer l April 16, 2012

The Gospel reading for this Sunday is Luke 24.35-48

The disciples began to relate their experiences on the [Emmaus] road and how Jesus was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread. While they were telling these things, He himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be to you.” But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of a broiled fish; and he took it and ate it before them.

This reading begins and ends with food! This underlines that the resurrection is of the body. Jesus is not simply a spirit. Resurrection life involves a transformation of things material as well as things spiritual. This is why our faith has a practical effect on the world around us. Christian Aid has the slogan: We believe in life before death. The Good News of Easter isn’t just something for the next life – it changes things here and now, in every part of our existence.

The ‘spiritual’ is not something separate from our ‘material’ live. Rather, we live spiritually when the material world becomes a gateway to a deeper communion with God and neighbour. That, of course, is what happens every time water is used at Baptism or bread and wine at Holy Communion. In these sacraments, physical things become a means of spiritual union with God and with his Church. They are part of a world that is sacramental; in which the way we treat one another can reveal God’s love, hospitality and justice.

Prayer Requests

This week, please pray for The Waterfall Project, one of the Church Urban Fund’s partners in Winchester. It is aiming to address the local shortage of women-only homes for drug rehab. (This is also a national problem). The Waterfall will be adopting a similar approach to that of successful models of Christian faith-based rehab programmes which have an 80% rate of clients remaining drug free after five years of completion.

The Church Urban Fund’s support is enabling the project to employ an Outreach Co-ordinator. Pray for this work as it develops, and for the lives it will touch and help to transform.

Pray also for the Contextual Theology Centre’s partner churches, and the process they are involved in to hold the candidates for Mayor of London to account. Along with other churches, mosques, synagogues and civic groups in London Citizens, they have developed a ‘People’s Agenda’ around the Living Wage, placements for unemployed young people, affordable housing and street safety. Pray for the 2500 people at the London Citizens Mayoral Accountability Asssembly on 25 April – and for those standing for Mayor as they respond to these issues.

Reflections & Prayers for Easter 2

Prayer l April 11, 2012

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is John 20.19-31

But Thomas, one of the twelve… was not with [the other disciples] when Jesus came. So they were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

After eight days his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see my hands; and reach here your hand and put it into my side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

We often talk about ‘doubting Thomas’, but perhaps we would be better calling him ‘honest Thomas,’ someone who says what he really thinks, rather than putting on a facade of holiness and right-thinking.

For Thomas’ confession is the most powerful in John’s Gospel, hailing Christ as his God. Honest wrestling with reality – the reality of God, and the reality of our doubts and fears – is an essential part of our journey. It’s important that it’s his wounds that identify Jesus. Easter doesn’t wipe out the cross, and turn the clock back. Jesus journey through the cross to resurrection takes us somewhere new. That’s an important part of a Christian understanding of forgiveness: our reconciliation to God and neighbour doesn’t turn the clock back, as if the sin had not happened. It can take us somewhere new, if we are all prepared to face our failings honestly, and learn from them.

Prayer requests

In your prayers on Sunday, and in the week ahead, please remember the work the Church Urban Fund is doing on Growing Churches through Social Action – helping churches to embody and proclaim the transforming message of Easter. Please also remember the work the Contextual Theology Centre is doing on Christian apologetics, including its developing partnerships with Theos think tank and St Mellitus College, London.

Neighbours in Shadwell meet and celebrate!

The Centre for Theology & Community l and tagged Shadwell, Telco l April 6, 2012

People from Shadwell came together to celebrate their community this week in a fun day organised by Near Neighbours and TELCO. Hundreds of people from different backgrounds gathered in Watney Market Piazza to show their love for this diverse part of East London.

The event was supported by St Paul’s Church and the Daurul Ummah Mosque, among others. St Paul’s and Daural Ummah have already beeen working closely together on a number of projects including a Near Neighbours-funded gardening scheme.

Local resident Stephen, who attends St Paul’s told us it had been a wonderful day, “The day was only made possible due to the strength of local relationships. Shadwell is a small area but within it there happens to be an abundance of churches, mosques, and schools. The church and mosque enjoy a strong relationship built up over time by working together in the community. Working together has led to strong individual friendships between worshippers who share a heart for the neighbourhood, and together we wanted to do something to bless the community. The day was a great success, I spoke to an elderly gentleman who had lived in Shadwell for 36 years since moving from Bangladesh and said he’d never seen anything like this in Shadwell before. There was a really good mix of the community present, old and young, Christian and Muslim, and plenty of volunteers from different faith and community groups. Plenty of people were asking when the next one would be, and it was heartening to hear that people were taking their ‘We ❤ Shadwell’ stickers home and sticking them up on their front doors around the local estates.

With balloons, face-painting, banners, stickers, henna, games, artwork and a tea party, there was plenty for everyone to do! There’s now demand for another event to take place in 2013 – watch this space…

Easter Day: Reflections on the Gospel

The Centre for Theology & Community l April 2, 2012

The Gospel reading for Easter Day is John 20.1-9

It is the women who are the first to discover the empty tomb – as they faithfully keep vigil, even when all hope seems to be lost. It seems as if they now face a double loss. To lose his body as well as his life compounds their grief.

The stories of the resurrection do not represent a neat ‘happy ending’ – a reversal of all that has gone wrong. They show that on the other side of the cross, God’s new life breaks in. It breaks in in ways that disturb and surprise us. When Mary Magdalen greets Jesus later in this chapter, she is told not to touch him. Resurrection is not simply the return of what has been lost: it is the beginning of something very different. Mary should not cling to the earthly Christ, for it is as he ascends to the Father that he can become present in a new way, in the Church which is born at Pentecost.

For us too, Easter is not so much a consolation as an invitation. It is an opportunity to stop clinging on to whatever comforts us, and sheltering fearfully from the future. For whatever the future holds, we face it with a Lord who has faced – and conquered – the forces of sin and of death.

Holy Week: Reflections on the Gospels

The Centre for Theology & Community l April 1, 2012

It is impossible for us to give, unless we have first received. That is obvious from the moment we’re born. It’s only because others have fed, clothed, nurtured and taught us that we can love others in turn. Human parents can fail us. But, as beings made by God, we also receive a love that is unceasing and unconditional.

As Holy Week begins, much church life—the clubs and councils, the committees and campaigns–falls silent. A space is created, so we can wait with Christ. We wait together—as he prays and sweats blood in Gethsemane, at the foot of his cross, in the garden on that first Easter morning. We wait, because our salvation is a divine gift, not a human achievement.

The Gospel Reading for Maundy Thursday is John 13.1-15 and for Good Friday is John 18 & 19

Powerlessness, suffering and injustice are experiences the human race knows very well. And they lie at the heart of these stories. Jesus is revealed, not as a far-off ruler, but as someone who is with us in the midst of these things.

He’s a human—and so bears these experiences alongside us. But he’s also divine—and so his bearing of judgment, hatred and violence also vanquishes them.

Jesus becomes our sacrifice. He’s scapegoated by humans unnerved and disappointed by his message. Some are unnerved because his truth-telling challenges their lies and their manipulation. Others are

disappointed, having expected Jesus to be a very different kind of Messiah.

They thought he would impose God’s Kingdom at the end of a sword. But, as Jesus tells his disciples, those who live by the sword die by the sword. A Kingdom imposed by violence and fear could not be God’s Kingdom.

The Kingdom Jesus brings in is one where domination, violence and judgment are conquered by self-giving love. This is his new creation, born in the water and the blood which flow from his side (John 19.34). As we are reminded in the Maundy Thursday liturgy, we taste and see this new creation both in the sacramental life of the church (as we celebrate the gift of Holy Communion) and in practical acts of love (as we re-enact Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet).

Prayer Diary: Day 40 of Lent

Prayer l April 1, 2012

Today we come to the end of our forty daily prayers for the projects of the Church Urban Fund and the Contextual Theology Centre. In Eastertide, we will be continuing this prayer blog on a weekly basis (beginning on the Sunday after Easter). We are also continuing our blog of reflections on the Gospel readings for Sundays and Major Feasts.

These prayer blogs grew out of a widespread and growing sense that something is wrong with our common life – that our political, social and economic order needs renewal; that its deficiencies speak of a spiritual as well as a structural malaise, and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ provides both a ‘Call to Change’ and the power and grace to make things different.

Today, we ask you to pray not only for our organisations and their projects, but for a new openness to the renewing work of the Holy Spirit – both in our local communities and in our national life.

Prayer Diary: Day 39 of Lent

Prayer l March 31, 2012

Pray for churches in London as they work to support people likely to be displaced by the new housing benefit cap. The Contextual Theology Centre and Housing Justice are both involved in helping churches to reflect and act on this urgent issue.

Pray also for central Birmingham churches who have been piloting a winter night shelter – in a strongly ecumenical project which is bringing churches in the area together. Supported by the Church Urban Fund, it is using the Housing Justice ‘roving shelter’ model where 5 churches will offer their space for 5 different nights of the week, with volunteers from the churches helping.

Pray for churches across the country as they grapple with these issues – praying, offering practical care, and challenging structural injustice.

Prayer Diary: Day 38 of Lent

Prayer l March 30, 2012

Pray for the Parish of the Risen Lord, Preston as it discerns how best to use an old mission building to proclaim and embody the Gospel today. St Matthew’s Mission is Victorian building from which various community groups currently operate (e.g. Street Pastors). With support from the Church Urban Fund, it is carrying out a feasibility study to see how it can best renovate the building for new projects addressing the needs of young people, at a time of very high unemployment. This phase of exploration and discernment will involve a practical pilot project involving a work club and a youth cafe.

In the 1920s and 1930s, St Mary’s Somers Town (now in the Parish of Old St Pancras) was home of Fr Basil Jellicoe’s ‘Magdalen College Mission’, which transformed the slums of the parish into affordable and decent housing. Here as in Preston, Christians are discerning how a historic vision of mission applies to todays challenges. The Contextual Theology Centre has founded the Jellicoe Community which seeks to embody Fr Jellicoe’s vision in a new generation of Christians, helping churches across north-east London engage in community organising. Dominic Keech’s blogpost explains the work he did as a Jellicoe Intern in Somers Town last summer. Pray for the Parish of Old St Pancras, and other churches which host Jellicoe Interns.

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