Summary

A programme of action/reflection, to be developed by Church Action on Poverty (CAP) in partnership with a range of churches/agencies, with a view to enable local churches to integrate concerns for poverty and social justice into their on-going lives and faith journeys as congregations and individual Christians in a more organic, enduring and meaningful way.

The challenge: To design a flexible and self-managed programme of reflection, planning and action, which individual churches would be able to tailor and use according to their own situations, preferences, capacity and level of interest/commitment.

Why?

Concerns for tackling poverty and social justice are at the heart of the Gospel.  There is a rich biblical tradition from the Old Testament prophets through the Gospels and new Testament.  This has been carried forward in differing ways through the majority of Christian traditions to modern day.

There are rich resources for promoting social justice – and linking it with wider understandings of mission and ecclesiology across the denominational and theological spectrum from Catholic Social Teaching, through the URC’s ‘Five marks of mission’, the Anglican ‘mission shaped church’ to the new evangelical emphasis on ‘integral mission.’  There are also rich reflective and worship resources, not least in the work of the Iona Community/Wild Goose Worship group, although we will seek to draw on resources from across the theological/liturgical spectrum. 

However, there are currently no existing resources specifically designed to enable local churches to focus on what they can practically do to engage with social justice/domestic poverty issues, comparable to Eco Congregation or the excellent byt dated CAFOD/CIIR handbooks for justice and peace groups (Living the Gospel).

What will Just Church look like? 

• Self-assessment: the ‘Just Church challenge.’

The programme would commence with a simple self-assessment audit of the extent to which poverty and social justice concerns currently feature within various aspects of the life of the church (eg worship, preaching, children’s work, community outreach), and enable the church (or more likely a small working group) to identify areas where they would like to ‘improve.’ 

• Modules: Enabling churches to set their own tempo

The church group would then be able to drawn from a series of 10-12 modules, reflecting a different element of church/Christian life.  Each module would include basic package of reflection and ideas, to enable the group to draw up an action plan for building poverty and social justice more fully into that aspect of the church’s life.

The modular approach would enable churches to engage with Just Church in anything from a single evening (to complete the initial self-assessment); to a 6 month programme of working through every single module.  In reality, most churches would probably be likely to only commit to those aspects of the programme in which they were most interested, which might comprise anything between 2-4 modules. 

• Celebrating and affirming Just Churches

At the end of the initial process, churches could be encouraged to celebrate and publicly sign up to the steps/action plan they have agreed to take as part of a normal act of worship (which could be branded as a covenant, depending on their form of church/theology). 

• Embedding the programme

Since the intention of Just Church is for this to be a programme which is embedded into the on-going life of the church, churches would ideally commit to a review and follow-up after 6-12 months, at which point they would hopefully chose to deepen and extend their level of commitment.

• Building a Just Church network?

Similarly it would be extremely valuable to find ways to enable participating churches to feel, and become part of an actual or virtual network of ‘Just Churches.’   This could be via an occasional newsletter, email list or website – although the resource implications of each would need to be thoroughly examined. 

• A Just Lectionary?

A ‘Just Lectionary’ could be a further development – by providing a 12/24 month cycle of readings/reflections on a social justice theme, which could potentially draw on a wide range of resources, including bible, Christian tradition, contemporary writings, Saints days and ‘modern day saints’ to provide resources and inspiration for building poverty/social justice into prayer and worship on an on-going basis.

Developing the programme

It is envisaged that it will take at least 12 months to develop the programme, prior to a full public launch, provisionally in spring 2007.  This is important both to ensure that the programme is developed to the highest quality, and that it is fully piloted to ensure it actually works in a range of local church settings.

For more information contact  Niall Cooper.