We live in tough times. As queues at Food Banks grow and benefits are cut, more and more people in Britain are finding that there’s ‘far too much month left at the end of their money’. At the same time gambling shops are sucking £5bn a year from poor communities, over a million Britons are without access to basic banking services, and payday lenders are raking in enormous profits by trapping people in spirals of debt. With Lent nearly upon us, CTC is calling on churches to become pro-active in combating these depressing signs of our unjust economic system.

 

If the Church wants to offer hope to those around, it needs to find ways to talk about these issues. That’s why the Contextual Theology Centre has partnered with the Church Urban Fund to produce a five-week Lent Course to help churches explore the deep Biblical tradition on money and connect it to the experiences of ordinary people today. The course is called Seeing Change and combines studies of the story of Nehemiah with an event called a Money Talk which is designed to help gather evidence of local people’s experiences of the economic situation and what they’d like to see the Church do about it.

Go to www.theology-centre.org/ to download the Leader’s Guide and a Guide to Holding a Money Talk. If you have any questions about the course and how your Church might use it, please get in touch with David Barclay, the Faith in Public Life Officer at the Contextual Theology Centre, at davidb@theology-centre.org or on 07791633117.