Pioneering work in Religious Education: Anti-racist RE

The Free Churches Group is working with RE Today Services and Methodist Schools to create a free resource for Anti-racist RE.

Lat Blaylock from RE Today Services, the lead developer of the resource, said, 

“I’m really pleased to be working with the Free Churches Group, the Methodist Church and a wide range of teachers of RE from black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities on a resource project for anti-racist RE. It has been really pleasing to gain the interest of many hundreds of schools already in this work. We’ve begun developing resources that will challenge learners in RE lessons to think more carefully about race. We hope to engage with questions of justice, religious perspectives and ways to reduce prejudice and the harms it causes. RE has a very long commitment to enabling learning from diversity, but I do think we are currently needing refreshed approaches to the challenges posed by questions about racial justice.”

The resource will be available for schools from September and will be free to download and use from the Free Churches Group website.

The project follows the success of Reforming Christianity, a resource that the same team developed, and which is available on the Free Churches Group website https://www.freechurches.org.uk/reforming-christianity

Both projects have been funded by the Westhill Endowment, meeting the need to provide more resources in RE that reflect Free Church perspectives.

(image below from RE Today Services, cover photo by Agence Olloweb at Unsplash)

Care in the Classroom...

Spinnaker “support primary schools with assemblies, clubs and RE lessons" and are based in the South East, but their resources and support materials are available for all schools, churches and children’s groups to use and share.

They are very pleased to be able to offer this 'Pastoral Primer' to any and all Teachers and Learning Support Staff. “Caring in the Classroom”.

You can find out more about their work HERE.

Spinnaker - engaging, inspiring, equipping

(image below from Spinnaker, cover photo courtesy of Khadeeja Yasser at Unsplash)

Praying alongside the Prison Fellowship...

Will you join us to pray alongside Prison Fellowship this Sunday and in the days ahead?

Prison Fellowship’s mission is to “show Christ’s love to prisoners by coming alongside them and supporting them”… for the last 40 years they have been working with, supporting and praying with and for prisoners across England and Wales.

The Free Churches Group and our work in prison chaplaincy have worked with The Prison Fellowship (PF) for many years.

Did you know that there are two Church of England bishops who serve as what is known as ‘prison bishops’? They are Bishop James of Rochester and Bishop Rachel of Gloucester. The Bishop to Her Majesty's Prisons is an episcopal post relating to the church's chaplaincy to Her Majesty's Prison Service.

This Sunday we are encouraged to pray with Prison Fellowship for the work these ministers undertake advocating for prisoners.

Prayer for Sunday 19th July

We pray for Bishop James of Rochester and Bishop Rachel of Gloucester who are the “prison bishops” for the Church of England. Thank you God, for the passion you have given them for this work. Would you bless their ministry and their advocacy for those inside

Amen

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers…

Find out more about their work HERE. You can read and pray through their July Prayer Diary HERE.

(image courtesy of at Om Prakash Sethia Unsplash)

Racial Inequalities – what can your church do? Webinar on 23rd July

Webinar is coming up on the topic of: “Racial Inequalities – what can your church do”.

This will be on Thursday July 23rd; 2:00pm – 3:30pm.

Registration details via EventBrite

This webinar is the first in a series of four entitled “Racial Inequalities: What can your Church Do?” and is intended to equip the church in the widest sense to address some of the recommendations raised by the Lammy Report into racial disparities within the Criminal Justice system. This is a CPD Event for Free Churches Prison Chaplains

The series is intended to provide faith community leaders with practical but informed ideas for churches to take action that can help to reverse the worrying trends and see fairer outcomes for BAME people in the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

We have examined the Lammy report, and suggested the focus for the webinar series, ‘ChangingTACK’ – on how churches can build Trust, Accountability, Community and Knowledge which will help them improve outcomes for BME people in the criminal justice system”.

For this, the first webinar, we are looking at building Trust: how the church can build trusting relationships with the community it serves, with criminal justice bodies and the police/police and crime commissioner and with individual troubled young people. The format will be: three participants each talking for 7-10 minutes; up to ten minutes’ discussion between the participants; with the remaining time allocated to questions. We are pleased that the contributors for this first webinar will be

•                Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin (Bishop of Dover)

•                DCC Vanessa Jardine (Deputy Chief Constable West Midlands Police)

•                Revd Paul Rochester (General Secretary of Free Churches Group)

(photo courtesy of Hannah Busing at Unsplash)

Tea and cake - a get together for healthcare chaplains - Fridays @ 4!

Revd Meg Burton, the Free Churches Secretary for Healthcare, has got the kettle on! Meg would like to invite you to bring a cuppa and have a get-together each Friday at 4pm through Zoom. Healthcare chaplains welcome!

There’s a lot going on for us all at the moment and finding space to chat and relax together can be challenging. Often things come up in our working week we want to share or we might just appreciate a friendly face and a cuppa on a Friday… so here’s the link. Join us if you can!

Zoom Meeting ID:870 5327 8978  Password: 669993

Meg says, “I will be there between 4pm and 5pm if anyone would like to join me

for an informal chat about anything.”

(photo courtesy of Loverna Journey at Unsplash)