Building better back - launching new report - join us tomorrow!

Join us for the virtual launch of this report, hosted by FaithAction, to listen to a presentation from Theos on the findings of the report and participate in a panel discussion chaired by the Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP featuring:

• Rev Dr. Hugh Osgood, Moderator of the Free Churches Group

• Madeleine Pennington, Head of Research at Theos

• Rev Dr. Joel Edwards CBE, formerly of Evangelical Alliance and Micah Challenge International

• Dr. Manmit Bhambra, Research Officer at the LSE’s Religion and Global Society Research Unit

This event features as part one of FaithAction's three-part conference - Building Back Better: The Role of Faith. See below for details of the rest of the day's events.

The Church and Social Cohesion: Connecting Communities and Serving People is the culmination of a major research project commissioned by the Free Churches Group and prepared by Theos think tank, which has consulted with over 360 people in England to assess the churches’ social cohesion contribution on the ground. Join us at the launch event and find out more about how to get your church community involved!

The church and social cohesion!

Join us this Thursday for what is going to be a fantastic launch event for a very special report we are releasing in partnership with Theos Think Tank

Please do join us as we would love to have you there.

The report looks at the relationship between the Church and social cohesion in England. The project has been conducted by Theos, the UK’s leading think tank on religion and society issues.

The Report will be launched tomorrow

At the launch, there will be an online webinar

and a series of news articles to support our

member churches to get involved.

This will all contribute to the ways we can share the good news

of the report among our church congregations, communities and wider networks.

The event is part of a series of webinars on Thursday hosted with FaithAction which you can book your place at!

Join us for the launch - building back better - the church and social cohesion - this Thursday

Join us this Thursday for what is going to be a fantastic launch event for a very special report we are releasing in partnership with Theos Think Tank

Please do join us as we would love to have you there.

The report looks at the relationship between the Church and social cohesion in England. The project has been conducted by Theos, the UK’s leading think tank on religion and society issues.

The Report will be launched on 26th November 2020.

At the launch, there will be an online webinar

and a series of news articles to support our

member churches to get involved.

This will all contribute to the ways we can share the good news

of the report among our church congregations, communities and wider networks.

An Invitation to Hope: Mission through Prayer and Lament, 9 February 2021, 10 am

An Invitation to Hope: Mission through Prayer and Lament will take place on 9 February 2021, 10 am to 11.30 am. Please join us and please pass this invitation on to your friends and colleagues. Christian leaders from all spheres are warmly encouraged to attend.

We are in the middle of a protracted pandemic. Not just in wider society but among church leaders, there's a sense of weariness about Covid – and also a wariness about the larger convulsions affecting our society that the present focus has somewhat masked. How are we called to lead in this context? It’s time to come together to pray, reflect and ask a key question: what is God saying to us?

Many of you will have attended the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast last June, and the webinar afterwards on Mission during Lockdown and Beyond. Following on from that, we are delighted to let you know that we are hosting another webinar in February in which we are inviting the Church to pray and lament for our nation, as we seek God for his missional heart for this cultural moment. Please join us at this significant time.

Led by Christian leaders from multiple traditions and cultural spheres, we will spend time in lament, prayer and reflection, asking God what he is doing and how we can partner with him in a new wave of mission across our country. We so hope you will be able to join us.

Do have a look at the short video from our Chief Executive, Paul Williams to find out more. You can book your free place now.

Please visit the Bible Society website HERE for details of the programme.

New report about integrating Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural teaching and learning in FE

Over the last few years, the Free Church Education Committee has been actively engaged with discussing and developing ways in which our member churches might become more fully involved in the life and times of our local further education colleges. This has been the mission of the Further Education Working Group, chaired by Dr John Wise - a group which includes teachers, governors, chaplains and pastors (pictured below). You can read more about this here.

We are delighted to announce that Dr John Wise, our working group chair and long standing member of the Free Church Education Committee, has penned an important report, with his colleague Dr Ian Jones (Director of St Peter’s Saltley Trust).

This report is a vital and timely contribution to the teaching and learning of SMSC in further education. The reports begins with asserting: “All good further education providers are passionately committed not just to the delivery of high quality courses, but to the development of their students as whole people, able to make a positive contribution to society through their work and the rest of their lives. This means attending to learners’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC), as well as to their subject knowledge and skills.” You can read the full report and find out more on the link below.

Chair of the Free Church Education Committee, Professor Graham Handscomb, wholeheartedly commends the report.

“An impressive piece of work and such a valuable resource”

— Professor Graham Handscomb

From left to right: Pastor Lester Freckleton, Rev Alistair Smeaton, Professor Graham Handscomb, Rev Sara Iles, Dr John Wise, Anthony Alderman

(cover photo courtesy of Bernd Klutsch at Unsplash)