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Church Action on Poverty in Sheffield would like to invite you to their AGM which will take place on Wednesday 16 December 2020 at 7pm.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic , it will be held online via Zoom.

Our keynote speaker is Niall Cooper, Director of Church Action on Poverty.

Niall will tell us about ‘Dignity, agency and power: Building a movement to tackle poverty together’ and he will share some of the thinking around Church Action on Poverty’s new vision and strategy.

Please let us know if you would like to join the meeting by emailing the group secretary Briony Broome, using the link below.

Please also let us know if you think you need any help in order to be able to attend via Zoom.

We look forward to seeing you on 16 December.

Church on the Margins reports

Church Action on Poverty North East annual report 2022-24

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Stories that challenge: Sarah and Rosie’s health

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A creative project in the North East has been capturing people's hometown stories. Now, organisers want to ensure the stories also have an impact.

Thrive Teesside had recently completed an exciting new project, when the pandemic began.

So, undeterred, they went back and did it all again.

Thriving Teesside, published in December 2019, had brought together stories, artwork, poetry and photography by local people, reflecting on their town and lives. But when the first coronavirus lockdown began in spring 2020, they realised there were many new stories and perspectives to be told.

The team went back to the people they had worked with and gathered more contributions, and a few weeks ago they relaunched a special edition of the book.

In the latest episode of The Cast To End Poverty, Tracey Herrington and Dylan Eastwood from Thrive talk about where the idea had come from, how they brought it to fruition, and what they hope the book will achieve. It’s not enough just to be heard, Tracey says – the messages from people in poverty must be acted upon.

Church on the Margins reports

Church Action on Poverty North East annual report 2022-24

Stories that challenge: Sarah and Rosie’s health

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A creative project in the North East has been capturing people's hometown stories. Now, organisers want to ensure the stories have an impact.

Silhouettes of eight people, against different coloured backgrounds

Stories that challenge: Sarah and Rosie’s health

Liudmyla and Stephen, with her portrait

Dreams & Realities: welcome to an incredible exhibition

Jo Seddon at St Leonard's in Bootle

Building hopes and dreams in Bootle

In this guest blog, Al Barrett and Ruth Harley talk about their new book 'Being Interrupted', which explores what we would call a theology of 'church on the margins'.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have been rediscovering the gift of the doorstep as a place of connection. Food parcels have given an excuse to knock on a door, and a simple “how are you?” has sometimes opened up profound conversations about grief, anxiety, hope, community, and lots more besides. Those conversations, repeated over weeks and months, have in turn created and strengthened relationship which have allowed neighbours to come to together – even while remaining physically apart – in ways which have been transformative.

Where many might see ‘need’ or ‘deprivation’ we have found a wealth of compassion, connection and creativity

Here in Hodge Hill, we have been heavily influenced by the principles of Asset-Based Community Development, and have long been committed to seeking out and engaging with the gifts of our neighbourhood – the people, the connections, the spaces, the often under-appreciated talents and passions. It is here among our neighbours, as we have tried to approach with open hands and open hearts, that we have discovered abundance. Where many might see ‘need’ or ‘deprivation’ we have found a wealth of compassion, connection and creativity. During lockdown, this has expressed itself in new ways – in neighbours coming together to transform a shared garden, long neglected by the council; in people spontaneously putting tables outside their houses for anyone to donate food and other essentials, and anyone to take what they need.

We, the church, are profoundly shaped – formed and re-formed – by encountering our neighbours, and encountering God in our neighbourhood

In our book, Being Interrupted: re-imagining church from the outside in, we explore an alternative model of mission, which is rooted in our experience of this neighbourhood and the abundance we have encountered here. Rather than the conventional missional approaches of either ‘counting in’ or ‘giving out’, we want to propose an economy of mission which assumes that we, the church, are profoundly shaped – formed and re-formed – by encountering our neighbours, and encountering God in our neighbourhood. We want to ask what happens if we ‘reverse the flow’ and, instead of seeing worship as what equips us to go out and serve our neighbours, we see our encounters with our neighbours – and our experience of God in those encounters – as what equips us to come in and gather together all our experiences, encounters, stories, wonderings, questions and concerns in worship.

We can be tempted to see our neighbours as primarily lacking or needy, and ourselves primarily as useful, as having something to give

This approach relies, primarily, on genuine and equal relationships, which recognise our radical interdependence on our neighbours. Too often in contexts like ours, where there is a high level of material poverty, relationships become distorted. We can be tempted to see our neighbours as primarily lacking or needy, and ourselves primarily as useful, as having something to give. This dynamic we name as the temptation to the ‘power of the provider’, the need to be needed. It can be profoundly distorting of our understanding of both our neighbours and ourselves as fully human and fully – and mutually – interdependent. As we challenge this dynamic, we are seeking instead relationships of mutuality and hospitality, in which the boundaries between guest and host are blurred, and the power dynamics of philanthropic approaches to mission are challenged and dismantled.

Out of the mutuality of relationships which see each other primarily in terms of gifts to be cherished rather than needs to be met, new and sometimes surprising things can grow

The doorstep, we have found, is a powerful place for those encounters. It is – literally – a liminal space. It is a space where neighbours can encounter each other without an agenda. And out of those encounters, out of the mutuality of relationships which see each other primarily in terms of gifts to be cherished rather than needs to be met, new and sometimes surprising things can grow.    

Being Interrupted: Re-imagining the Church’s Mission from the Outside, In, by Al Barrett and Ruth Harley, is published by SCM Press on 30 November.

Church on the Margins reports

Church Action on Poverty North East annual report 2022-24

Stories that challenge: Sarah and Rosie’s health

Dreams & Realities: welcome to an incredible exhibition

Building hopes and dreams in Bootle

This outrageous, counter-productive Budget marginalises people with least

A sermon for Church Action on Poverty Sunday

Stories that challenge: Emma’s road to church

Sheffield voices: We need higher incomes and more for young people

Stories that challenge: Alan & Ben

7 ways a Your Local Pantry could help YOUR community in 2024

Artist Don: How Leith Pantry has helped ease my depression

Silhouettes of eight people, against different coloured backgrounds

Stories that challenge: Sarah and Rosie’s health

Liudmyla and Stephen, with her portrait

Dreams & Realities: welcome to an incredible exhibition

Jo Seddon at St Leonard's in Bootle

Building hopes and dreams in Bootle