Join Us for a Hybrid Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Use in Churches and Faith-Based Organisations

A Hybrid Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Use in Churches and Faith-Based Organisations

Date: Thursday, 13th March 2025

Time: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Location: Free Churches House, 27 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9HH

We’re excited to invite you to an engaging and thought-provoking seminar exploring the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within churches and faith-based organisations. This event will address how AI can transform faith-based work, from organising services and social action to optimising resources and improving outcomes for vulnerable and marginalised groups.

Keynote Speakers

We’re honoured to welcome:

Revd Professor David Wilkinson – ECLAS (Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science)

Sara Speicher – World Association for Christian Communication (WACC)

What to Expect

The integration of AI offers immense potential for churches and faith-based organisations. However, with these opportunities come critical ethical questions:

• How can AI be harnessed to uphold the values of human dignity and justice?

• What risks does it pose to vulnerable communities?

• How can faith-based organisations develop guidelines for ethical AI use?

Organised by Eurodiaconia, the Free Churches Group, and the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), this seminar will provide a platform for:

• Exploring the risks and opportunities of AI in faith-based social action.

• Discussing its implications for vulnerable communities.

• Reflecting on how churches can integrate AI ethically in their mission-driven work.

This seminar marks the beginning of a series designed to foster a shared understanding of AI and its implications for faith-based organisations.

Spaces are limited, so secure your place today! Join us in person or online for this timely discussion on the future of AI and ethics in faith-based contexts.

We look forward to seeing you there and building a collective vision for ethical AI in service to communities.

Revd Paul Rochester

General Secretary

Photo by Pixabay.

Induction Service for Revd Dr. Tessa Henry-Robinson, the next Moderator of the Free Churches Group, 13th April 2025

We are delighted to invite you to the induction Service for the Revd Dr. Tessa Henry-Robinson, who will succeed Revd Helen Cameron as the Moderator of the Free Churches Group.

This promises to be an inspiring service, during which we will formally welcome Revd Dr. Tessa to her new role, spend time in worship, offer prayers, and hear her first formal address as Moderator. We will also take the opportunity to express our gratitude to Revd Helen Cameron for her service and dedication as the Moderator of the Free Churches Group over the last few years.

We hope many from across the Free Churches community will join us for this special occasion. The Service of Induction will take place at the American International Church, 79a Tottenham Ct Rd, London W1T 4TD, on Sunday 13th April 2025, 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm.

Please register for this free event via Eventbrite page HERE.

We look forward to welcoming you. Should you have any questions, please contact Sabina Williams via email at: sabina.williams@freechurches.org.uk

NB: Photographs will be taken at the Reception and after the Service of Induction.

Revd Paul Rochester

General Secretary of the Free Churches Group

Reflections from Revd Paul Rochester, General Secretary of the Free Churches Group

We are grateful to God for bringing us to another Advent and Christmas season. As we approach the close of 2024, we find ourselves already looking ahead to 2025. Meetings are being scheduled, plans are taking shape, and we anticipate both the challenges and opportunities the new year will bring. There will undoubtedly be difficult moments, but also exciting events we eagerly await.

This year has brought significant changes to the world. Political and social shifts have occurred on a scale not seen in recent decades. At the same time, we have witnessed remarkable advances in technology, including the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI). These developments prompt us to consider their implications for society. AI has the potential to transform the way we live and work, raising concerns about job displacement across many industries. I recently came across a church encouraging career development in trades; assuming that these areas of work are less likely to be automated by AI. Only time will tell how these changes unfold.

Churches, too, will be impacted by technological advancements, including how ministry is organised and conducted. In the New Year, we will host a seminar in London exploring AI and ethics within the context of local churches. Please stay tuned for more information and save the date—it promises to be an important discussion.

Christmas is a time to reflect on how the world was forever changed by the birth of Jesus Christ. He entered a world in darkness, alienated from God, to bring light and restore the relationship broken by sin. Today, disruptive politics and technology are reshaping our world, revealing both great opportunities and significant pitfalls. While we cannot halt change, we can strive to influence it for good. Regardless of our political beliefs, we should aim for peace, justice, and the flourishing of all humanity; not one group thriving at the expense of others, but a coming together, even amidst deeply held differences. Kindness and love must guide our actions, with faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to proclaim and establish the kingdom of God, and He remains with His people, through the Holy Spirit, to see that mission fulfilled. As His followers, we are called to continue preaching the kingdom and living by its principles in a world that often cannot grasp the truth of Christ. Christmas reminds us of His birth, yet it is sorrowful that so many still do not understand the profound significance of His coming and how it can transform lives and society for good. The mystery of Christ remains hidden to many. I am praying that God will open the eyes of people across the world to see the truth of Jesus, the Son of God and the Saviour of the world.

The world will continue to change, as it always has. However, amid these changes, may we remain steadfast in keeping Jesus at the centre of all we do. He has come to bridge the gap between humanity and the Father and to bring us back into a restored relationship with God.

Stephen Seamands, in his book Ministry in the Image of God, asserts that it is not more therapists and moralists we need. He speaks of our greatest need being authentic Christian communities - communities where the “heart of God is home, where the humble and wise learn to shepherd those on the path behind them, where trusting strugglers lock arms with others as together they journey on.”

There is something profound about connecting people to God and aligning our hearts with His. This authentic experience of God is what we all need, and Christmas reminds us this was made possible through the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God bless always,

Paul Rochester

Reflections from Revd Bob Wilson, Secretary for the Prison Chaplaincy & Free Churches Faith Advisor

Christmas is …

What words come to mind to you when someone says this? “For the children”, “Too expensive”, “So commercialised”? Or maybe some more positive remarks, “a time for family”, “a time of peace”, or “a time of giving”. I would say that the most common one I hear in prison is “hard”!

Christmas, the time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus as a baby, to Mary and Joseph, in temporary accommodation, in an occupied country, is a wonderful time, but it can be a hard time. It is hard to remember what we don’t have, what we have lost, where we would rather be. All true for Mary and Joseph, and maybe true for us too. Many of us will have lost friends, family, maybe our liberty this year.

But “To us a child is born, to us a son is given” and that birth was unlike any other birth in the history. The child born is the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour of the world. A birth that will change time itself. Not a birth that turns back time, but a birth that gives us hope that time is no longer our enemy; neither hard times, nor good times. We no longer need to see the hands of time as a countdown to be feared, but we see that today, this is the time for life.

Christmas, above everything, is a time for change. A change that God can bring, a change that will bring a whole new order in our lives, a change to how we see everything.

Our Prison Chaplains this year will see many who are struggling in their lives to see beyond the gloom and darkness that is real and everywhere. They will be encouraging thousands of men, women and children to take a little time to pray, a little time to look for and at the Christ child. Maybe we all need to do this anew. Pray as I alone know how to pray, in my own words. Pray that the God who gave us the gift of a saviour at Christmas will step into my life again to lighten the darkness, to scatter the gloom. Maybe we can pray, along with our chaplains, our prisoners, our brothers and sisters that, just as a child was born to Mary, something new and life-changing might be born in our lives this year.

Or maybe just pray that, while Christmas will be hard, you will be able to see a way through to the other side!

And maybe then, rethink the ending to the sentence …

Christmas is …

A happy and peaceful Christmas to everyone

Revd Bob Wilson

Free Churches Faith Advisor to HMPPS

Reflections from Revd Sarah Crane, Healthcare Chaplaincy Steering Committee

Like many of us I am a bit surprised to find myself in December. This year has gone so quickly!

The Healthcare Chaplaincy Steering Committee (HCSC) sits under the Free Churches Group (FCG) Board and is responsible for supporting and shaping the work of Revd Dr Mark Newitt, Secretary for Healthcare Chaplaincy at FCG.

For the Healthcare Chaplaincy Steering Committee it has been a really full and positive year. We have welcomed a number of new members to the group, Linford Davis and Terry Bentley, both bringing a wealth of experience within healthcare and social care chaplaincy as well, as a broader perspective from other denominations within FCG. Our goal is to as representative as possible of the breadth of our member denominations so we are delighted to have made these appointments. This year we also said a big thank you to Mark Burleigh and Kate Le Sueur, who stood down at the end of their respective terms.

As always in 2024 we have been grateful to Mark for his passion and enthusiasm for the support and development of healthcare chaplains within the FCG and beyond. Through the year, either individual or in partnership with others the FCG has offered:

• Our Annual Study Day in June exploring being on the margins through art, research and story.

• Three Nourishing Roots days shared with chaplains from other contexts providing space to meet and reflect together on our spiritual wellbeing.

• Monthly Pop-Up Reflective Practice providing hour-long sessions for chaplains to come together and reflect on their practice.

• A monthly Research First Journal Club building research literacy through critiquing a recent journal article.

• the Narrative newsletter, and information digest which goes out monthly to more than 600 chaplains within the FCG and beyond.

We are also very pleased to see more members of the committee representing healthcare chaplaincy in other places. Janelle Kingham, Mark Newitt and I have all become directors of the UKBHC in the past six months. (Janelle has also become Vice Chair of the Network for Pastoral, Spiritual and Religious Care in Health.) It is good to know that Free Church healthcare chaplaincy is part of the broader work and conversations which take place across the four nations of the UK and within the representative bodies and other stakeholders.

We look forward to the year ahead in confidence of being able to continue to support chaplains and to influence practice in ways which promote public safety, professionalism, and person-centred care within all healthcare chaplaincy contexts.

Just as chaplaincy requires us to sit with faltering and stilted humanity in moments of raw struggle and real human experience, may we this Advent and Christmas know that the child in the manger comes to do the same for us. As we prepare for Jesus’ coming, we can hold fast to the promises of the Kingdom of God, both now and in all its fullness.

Sarah Crane

Chair, Healthcare Chaplaincy Steering Committee