| Please pray for the Penzance food bank, set up last October by the local Churches Together group. With demand growing rapidly, the Church Urban Fund is helping it to expand its capacity.
Pray also for the work the Contextual Theology Centre is doing – in its research and in its work in the media – to challenge common stereotypes, and identify some of the root causes of food poverty in the UK. |
Today’s Gospel reading is John’s account of the cleansing of the Temple: in which we see Jesus being angry. Pray for all those who are angry at injustice – that they may learn from the Gospels how to place anger at the service of love, mercy and justice.
As part of the Call to Change by The Contextual Theology Centre and Church Urban Fund, the Centre has produced Urgent Patience – a reflection on the spirituality of Christian social action, which includes a meditation on the positive role of anger.
Pray also for the High Cross URC Youth and Community Project. The first phase of this award-winning project, on ‘Anger Management and Finding Peaceful Ways of Resolving Conflict’, helped young people to help with volatile situations and those dealing with anger issues.
Following the riots in August 2011, the young people have requested a new phase of workshops on ‘Dealing with Anger; out of control behaviour, resolving conflict in peaceful ways, and exploring new activities for young people in the community’. The Church Urban Fund is supporting this initiative – in which people from High Cross and other local churches will be part of an anger management workshop series, equipping them to become peacemakers, and giving them a chance to do research in the community and have a young leader’s weekend away. Their research may result in future activities being run for young people in August 2012.
| Please pray for U-Turn Women’s Project which works with vulnerable women who did not have positive childhoods and who therefore missed out on education. The Church Urban Fund is supporting its Second Chance Education Project. Having produced poetry books and a concert for local people, many of the women with whom U-Turn is working now feel they can take part in formal education. The Second Chance Education Project is working with Raines Secondary School to run a course with the women, where they will have up to 3 years to study for GCSEs.
Pray also for the work being done by the Contextual Theology Centre and schools in Citizens UK – developing a Schools Caucus, to take a more holistic view of the way schools, families and the wider community (including local churches) can work together to enable more children to have positive childhoods. |
| Please pray for Seed of Hope Family Organisation in London. Concerned about local family breakdown and its effect on anti-social behaviour and economic inactivity, it is working with the Church Urban Fund to deliver a a parenting workshop and training course. ‘Strengthening Families Strengthening Communities’ includes 20 weeks of 3 hour workshops on bringing different cultures together to discuss improving their community; 20 two-hour weekly sessions on parent/ child practical workshops, 4 sports activity events, and 2 cultural events or trips.
Pray also for ‘Will the first be last?’ – a research partnership between the Contextual Theology Centre and The Children’s Society on (i) the impact of inequality and the related impact of poverty on children and young people; (ii) a Christian vision of the common good; and (iii) the practical contribution the Church can make to a more just social order. |
Today’s prayer requests are for two projects working with refugees and migrants:
Please pray for the work being done by Caitlin Burbridge – one of the Contextual Theology Centre’s Jellicoe interns. Caitlin is working with London Citizens to engage the Congolese diaspora in community organising. She has blogged on this work (at http://jellicoecommunity.blogspot.com/2011/12/diaspora-democracy-and-citizenship.html)
Pray also for East Area Asylum Seekers’ Supporters Group, which works with local churches in Newcastle. The Church Urban Fund is helping it establish a new drop-in at a local church, following changes to where those seeking sanctuary are housed in the city.
Please pray for all those participating in the Church Urban Fund Lent course, ‘Are we washing our hands of England’s poor?’ (Online at http://www.cuf.org.uk/resources-churches – Tim Bissett has blogged on his local course at http://www.cuf.org.uk/category/blog-content-tags/church-urban-fund-lent-course)
Pray also for those using the resources the Contextual Theology Centre has produced for Lent – the ‘Call to Change’ course on community organising and ‘Urgent Patience’ – a reflection on the spirituality of Christian social action (both online at http://calltochange.org).
Please pray for Art Beyond Belief (http://www.art-beyond-belief.com/)- an interfaith organisation in Slough which has Church of England and Church Urban Fund support. It aims to help marginalised people and those with mental health issues or disabilities through art.
Pray also for the Greater London Presence and Engagement Network (http://www.londonpen.org), a project of the Contextual Theology Centre for the Church of England – equipping parishes and chaplaincies for mission and ministry in multi-faith contexts.
Making a whip out of some cord, Jesus drove [the traders and money changers] out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’
The Church of England and the Church Universal have a proper interest in the ethics of the financial world and in the question of whether our financial practices serve those who need to be served – or have simply become idols that themselves demand uncritical service.
Recalling our marketplaces to their true vocation under God – that of ‘serving those who need to be served’ – will require courage in our day as it did in Jesus’. We need to be prepared for resistance and controversy. In the words of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero:
A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens – as when a light turned on awakes and of course annoys a sleeper – that is the preaching of Christ, calling: Wake up! Be converted! That is the Church’s authentic teaching. Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is miscalled prestige, must disturb…
What does this mean for us? The vocations website of the Roman Catholic Church puts it well:
A priest is unlikely to have to repeat Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple … but his words will demand the overturning of people’s lives if it is the Gospel he preaches.
In a society such as ours, the words of the Gospel demand a radical transformation of the way we think, act and live. One example is the question of peace and justice. The priest’s ministry includes a full presentation of the Church’s social teaching, taking seriously the Gospel as a message of freedom, of liberation from everything that oppresses God’s people.
This is a challenge for members of every denomination. Male and female, lay and ordained, we are called to embody the challenge of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple – and the hope of a more just economic order.
Resources for engaging churches in prayer, listening and action on these issues is online at calltochange.org
