Nourishing Roots - with Rev. Miranda Threlfal-Holmes, 12/03/24, 10:00-16:00

Join us for a day of reflection and spiritual renewal with the Free Churches Group, led by Rev. Miranda Threlfal-Holmes

Date: 12th March 2024, 10:00-16:00

Venue: The Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane Liverpool L1 3BT

Price: £20.00

Join us in Liverpool for a day of reflection and spiritual renewal with the Free Churches Group, led by Rev Miranda Threlfal-Holmes, held at the Liverpool Quaker Meeting House.

Nourishing Roots days are organised for Chaplains in Healthcare, Prisons, Education, and beyond to allow us time to reflect, recharge, and reinspire for our work and ministry.

Miranda is the Archdeacon of Liverpool and Team Rector of the St Luke in the City. She has experience in Higher Education chaplaincy and has published a number of books on chaplaincy, prayer, Christian history, and reading the Bible.

The day will include a buffet lunch.

Please contact Thandar (thandar.tun@freechurches.org.uk) for the discount code if are a chaplain from the FCG denominations. Visit here for the denomination list.

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash

Reflection from Revd Helen Cameron, Moderator of the Free Churches Group

“He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself” Philippians 2: 6-7

It was a great privilege recently to attend a reception at the Foreign Office celebrating the work of the brilliant charity, Prisoners Abroad. As Moderator of the Free Churches Group which does such important work in the field of prison chaplaincy, advocacy and support for prisoners and their families in the UK, involvement with Prisoners Abroad seems a natural link.  

The charity supports British citizens in prisons across the world, offers particular services to their families and offers important resettlement work with citizens returning to the UK.

Prison conditions across the globe can be very poor and challenging, resulting in limited access to the fundamental basics such as food, clean water, and medical care. Prisoners Abroad work in close partnership with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Last year they reached 1,170 prisoners held in 96 countries. Grants awarded can be used to provide clean water, language translation services, and reading matter to reduce isolation and promote wellbeing. 1,356 families in the UK and overseas were supported by Prisoners Abroad. There is a free helpline, local family support groups, a newsletter and a multilingual support team provide a wide range of support services to families enabling them to stay in touch with their relatives.  The third area of this charity’s work is support in resettlement. People returning from prison overseas are clearly at great risk of street homelessness and destitution. Prisoners Abroad operates a crisis service to offer accommodation so that those returning can access benefits, healthcare, training and employment services. The importance of this kind of intervention cannot be stressed too highly in order to prevent a very vulnerable group of people becoming lost. I was interested in the range of people present at the reception and how few people (only two) were clergy or church leaders.

There was a room full of generous and compassionate people from all kinds of backgrounds concerned for their fellow human beings. The evening provided some surprises – I arrived at the same time as, and left at the same time as, Jon Snow journalist and former Channel 4 presenter. A surprise to me was that the largest number of cases of prisoners abroad are found in the US and the highest number of new cases is also found in the US. 33% of all new cases across the world are drug offences. I did a lot of listening and I learned a lot.

It was very good to speak with Pauline Crow, OBE, the former Chief Executive of the charity, who led the charity for more than 20 years as well as the new Chief Executive, Christopher Stacey. I left encouraged and inspired by the levels of compassion, care and commitment I had encountered.

I am writing this piece in Advent (though you will read it later) and I note that several weeks’ after the Prisoners Abroad reception I am still thinking of the work of this charity, the safety net it offers to prisoners and their family at moments of profound vulnerability, isolation and loneliness. I heard stories that evening that I won’t forget, the granting of monies to prisoners which enabled them to survive, not die in really demanding circumstances. Lives are saved and lives are transformed, families kept connected and human rights protected.

The evening and the focus on the work of Prisoners Abroad reminded me of the values we hold as Christian people, the dignity of every human person whatever their actions, the need for timely intervention to avoid even worse tragedy and the different outcomes that are possible if we care enough to get involved.

This idea, of caring enough to get involved in the messiness of peoples’ lives, for me sums up the truth of the incarnation. God was fully present in the person of Jesus Christ, and chooses to continue to be present through the followers of Christ in the messiness of everyday life.

Justice can be understood as a form of kenosis, or self-emptying. Too often, as Christians we speak of self-emptying or sacrifice but such behaviour is unequally expected of certain (often already marginalised) groups. But when we all give of ourselves freely for others, surrendering the privilege that we hold, the imbalance of power which leads to injustice gives way to a commitment to the good of the other.

Paradoxically, this kind of self-emptying leads to a society in which all can be fulfilled.

Most of the privilege we hold in situations is unconscious. We can lack self-awareness of the privilege we hold and take for granted. The work of Prisoners Abroad works with those who have had most of their privilege, even on occasion, their basic human rights removed. It is a non-judgemental support service that sees human need and responds with care, practical support and resettlement.

Please pray for the work of Prisoners Abroad. Remember them in your charitable giving. They can be contacted on www.prisonersabroad.org.uk or info@prisonersabroad.org.uk Perhaps next year you could send a Christmas greeting to a prisoner abroad, shining a light of hope for them that they are remembered, and not forgotten?

Every blessing,

Helen

The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) Study Tour to Poland for Christian Leaders

The Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) are currently leading a group of senior Christians leaders on a unique study tour to Poland, in partnership with Taube Jewish Heritage Tours. The programme explores the history of Jewish life in the country, before, during and after the Second World War – a journey which is taking us from Warsaw to Lodz, Krakow, and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

CCJ have gathered a group of Christian leaders from across the UK to take part in this journey. The participants are all leaders in their communities, including Bishops and Ministers, Trustees, Chaplains, and Theologians. They have wide and varied spheres of influences across Christian communities. Denominations within the group include the United Reformed Church, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church, and the Church of God of Prophecy.

This programme has several aims. Firstly, this programme seeks to educate participants about Jewish life in Poland before, during, and after the Second World War. Tragically, at the heart of this history is the Holocaust. We have been visiting sites related to the Shoah, including ghettos, deportation stations and on Thursday 26th October we will visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. We are also exploring the 1000 years of Jewish history in Poland, looking at the rich history of Jewish life which was lost in the Holocaust, and celebrating contemporary Jewish life by visiting synagogues, Jewish community centres and participating in a Shabbat meal in Krakow on Friday 27th October.

The second aim is to learn about Christian-Jewish relations in Poland. We are exploring the history of Christian-Jewish relations in the country, and discussing how this is relevant for understanding the Holocaust. Through meeting with senior Christian and Jewish leaders, including the Chief Rabbi of Poland (whom we met on Tuesday 24th October), we are discussing contemporary challenges in Christian-Jewish relations as well as positive examples of interfaith engagement which seek to overcome centuries of Christian persecution of Jews.

The final aim is to explore contemporary issues in Poland. We are uncovering how the memory of the Holocaust intersects with other contemporary issues, particularly around identity-based discrimination and the curation of memory. We will ask how Poland maintains the memory of the Holocaust, and how is this framed.

Through this programme, we hope that the participants will be equipped with a deeper appreciation and understanding of Jewish life and identity, a detailed knowledge of the events of the Holocaust, and that they will be inspired to foster positive interfaith relations between Christians and Jews back home in the UK.

This programme sits at the heart of CCJ’s mission and values.

The Council of Christians and Jews was founded in 1942, at the height of the Second World War and the Holocaust, by Archbishop William Temple and Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz. Today we are the leading nationwide forum for Christian-Jewish engagement.

For over 80 years, we have been engaging Jewish and Christian communities across the UK in education, dialogue, and social change. We aim to celebrate the history and diversity of both communities, to enable meaningful educational experiences, to facilitate constructive dialogue, and provide opportunities for transformative social change.

Today, CCJ is the only organisation in the UK which provides Holocaust education tailored specifically for the Christian community. By learning about the Holocaust and equipping church leaders to be witnesses to the devastations of the Holocaust and bring this back to their communities. We aspire to commemorate the past and transform Christian-Jewish relations for the future.

We are conscious of the vital importance of this work at a time where interfaith relations are being strained by violence throughout the world. The need to learn from the past, to listen to ‘the other’, and for people of faith to walk together remains as vital as ever.

We are grateful to the generosity of our funders for this programme, and without them it would not have been possible: the Claims Conference, the Association of Jewish Refugees, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, and the United Reformed Church Interfaith Fund.

For more information about the work of CCJ please visit here.

Photo credit to CCJ.

All you wanted to know about schools but were afraid to ask

A Free Webinar, TUESDAY 14 NOVEMBER, 7 - 8.30 P.M.

Our member churches have told us that they would like to know more about what goes on in schools today and that building relationships with local schools is important to them.

“All you wanted to know about schools but were afraid to ask” is a free webinar that aims to equip you with an understanding of what goes on in schools, and to help you think about how you might get to know the schools in your community. It’s for anyone who wants to know more about schools.

Bev Smith, our speaker, is Schools Content Manager for Youth for Christ, and has many years of experience as a teacher, and in roles that build relationships between churches and schools.

Please circulate the details of the webinar to your churches and encourage your members to join us.

Register HERE.

The flyer is available to download HERE.

FCG statement on Israel-Palestine

We are heart-broken by the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine.

The horror of the attack on Jewish communities in Israel by the terrorists of Hamas is beyond words. The humanitarian crisis facing the people of Gaza is appalling. We are greatly concerned for the innocent civilians of Gaza suffering as a consequence of the evil acts of Hamas. We in the Free Churches Group join with others to urge the Israeli government to seek to protect innocent lives wherever possible. We plead that humanitarian assistance is provided to all who suffer.

In our own country, we call for resistance against all antisemitic attacks for the protection for all Jewish communities. We look for visible action by Christian communities to reach out to their neighbours as people of light, and hope, who are called to be peacemakers, resisting hatred and violence.

We encourage Christians to pray for peace and comfort for all.

You may find the following links to resources, prayers, and articles compiled by the Council of Christians and Jews helpful:

• A CCJ message from Georgina and Nathan can be found on the CCJ website here.

• A collection of statements and prayers gathered by CTBI can be found here.

• An article from CCJ Senior Programme Manager, Dr James Roberts can be found here.

• The Diocese of London statement which includes a prayer by the Archbishop, Hosam Naoum of Jerusalem can be found here.