We’re excited to release the first in a new series of Just Church podcasts – the fruit of a new collaboration between CTC, the Church of England and Citizens UK. You can listen here or find it wherever you get your podcasts from.
In January, we launched a new project helping churches harness the potential of community organising for growing in discipleship, number and impact. The lockdown has made the work more challenging – but we believe it is as important as ever, and are keen to share ideas with the wider Church to generate further conversation from which we too can learn.
An increasing body of evidence shows that social action and church growth are not “either/or” alternatives. When churches reach out to work with their neighbours to work for the common good and also are more intentional about supporting and welcoming those who want to journey in, growth seems to be more deeply rooted in place – and more representative of the demography of the neighbourhood.
In its first phase, the project is working with two churches who have already made significant progress in harnessing the potential of community organising – St Mary’s Walthamstow and St John’s Hoxton.
In this first podcast, their two Rectors, Vanessa Conant and Graham Hunter speak to Josh Harris and Angus Ritchie from CTC, reflecting together on the challenges of Reaching Out and Journeying In.
Next week, Citizens UK organisers Paul Amuzie and Froilan Legaspi will be talking to Josh and Angus about Acting for Justice in the Midst of a Pandemic.
Notes on the podcast
You can see how St Mary’s are using Shorthand Stories here
You can see St John’s Hoxton’s use of Facebook Live here
Josh has blogged on reaching those who are not online here
His parish has established a phone line on which people can listen to the weekly podcast. As he indicates, uptake has been slow. The church is now going to use letterboxdistribution.com to leaflet the parish, so that those who are not online become aware of the phone line.
We have blogged on setting up phone trees here
Notes on the project
This new project has been developed in collaboration with the Barking Episcopal Area of the Diocese of Chelmsford and the Stepney Episcopal Area of the Diocese of London – and is being funded by the Church of England’s Strategic Development Fund
Podcast Credits
Podcast produced by the Centre for Theology and Community.
Music: Carefree Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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