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New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

Click on the cover image to download the latest issue of our SPARK newsletter, full of stories, ideas and reflections.

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New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

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Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

Churchgoers are urged to speak up against the Government's harmful and immoral cuts to vital lifelines. Please, join the calls.

The Government is proposing to dismantle vital parts of Britain’s social security system, but there has already been a big public opposition.

Disabled activists, campaigners, charities and churches have spoken up against the immoral and harmful cuts, which would remove many disabled people’s lifelines.

The cuts fly in the face of Government promises and evidence of what does or doesn’t work, and the consultation is stacked against disabled people, by consulting only on certain selected points. 

Join us and thousands of others in saying no to these immoral cuts. 

Please ask your church to download, print and display this poster in your church building, so people who are not already on our mailing list can speak up. 

Click on the button or image below, to open a high-res version of the file.

Urge the disability minister

The QR code on the poster will take you to this online form, where you can contact your MP and ask them to speak to the minister for disability, Sir Stephen Timms MP.

In December, the minister met disabled activists and he has promised that disabled people will be at the heart of this Government’s actions. The threatened cuts go against that, and we are urging him to honour his pledge.

Stop the immoral cuts: links and resources

If you run a Your Local Pantry, there is also a Pantry version of the poster here:

“When governments make choices that clearly – or even potentially – harm poor people, the church should say so.”
Stef Benstead
Stef Benstead
Author of Just Worship: Worshipping God By Living Just Lives

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

Prayer, care and action: how Christians should respond to injustice

The amazing 11-year-olds uniting a community through food

Make Them Pay: We’re backing the call for a just tax system

Glory: How I’m striving for change and a better society

Church Action on Poverty Sheffield: 2025 pilgrimage

Empty Plate Project lets local people be heard

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

A stock image of an open hand, palm upwards

Prayer, care and action: how Christians should respond to injustice

Four children sitting at a wooden picnic table outside a plain building.

The amazing 11-year-olds uniting a community through food

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

Click on the right to download the latest issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.​

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

Navigating Storms

Read our report – hear people's experiences of food vulnerability during the pandemic

Five overarching lessons from this project

  1. Hear directly from those who know.
  2. Food security is a fundamental right.
  3. We need to redesign welfare so it offers sufficient support at all times.
  4. Crisis response must be comprehensive without compromising on dignity or choice. 
  5. We must strike a balance between the roles of individual households, communities, and the state. 

Watch the video to hear some of the stories featured in the report. And click the cover on the right to download the report and find out more.

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

Annual review 2023-24

Read our annual review and financial statements.

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

SPARK autumn 2024

Click on the right to download the latest issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

Church on the Margins reports

Two reports from our 2020-22 research into what it means to be church on the margins in Greater Manchester

Click on the right to download each report.

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

Church Action on Poverty North East annual report 2022-24

Download our local group’s report on the right.

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25

A sermon for Church Action on Poverty Sunday

Revd Jeremy Tear has kindly shared with us this sermon, which he preached at St Mary's Great Sankey on Church Action on Poverty Sunday 2024.

The Sunday next before Lent, 11 February 2024

Reading: Mark 9:2-9

The Transfiguration which we read about in today’s Gospel presents us with an amazing incident in the life of Jesus. What does it mean for Jesus to have been transfigured though? It seems to me that to transfigure means to transform – Jesus’ appearance was transformed as the glory of God rested upon him. It was as if he had the Daz treatment, for those of you who remember the advert, for in the words of our gospel, ‘his clothes became dazzling white.’ And that got me thinking – in what ways has God transformed our lives, I wonder? To start the ball rolling, I would like to share with you some of my experiences of transformation that occurred one Lent, the season we are soon to begin once again.

Lenten solidarity

Over 20 years ago now, my wife Emma and I chose to take up a Lenten challenge issued by the charity, Church Action on Poverty. The challenge was to try to live on the minimum wage (now called the national living wage) for Lent. To live on it as an act of solidarity with the three million people who live on this amount (or less) in our country each year. Would we be able to do it, we wondered, or had we bitten off more than we could chew? To try and make the challenge possible for those who had bills already paid by standing order for their mortgage and utilities, Church Action on Poverty devised a particular formula to discount those costs. The remaining money had to cover our food, our transport, our own spending allowance, any unexpected bills that cropped up, etc.etc. Let me tell you it was hard going. … At the beginning of Lent we were actually on a pre-booked holiday at the house of some friends in the Lake District. On the first day Emma wrote this: “It’s frustrating being on holiday unable to spend money and do things we would normally do. I feel slightly cheated.” The following week we were back at home again and my back was playing me up once more as it often does requiring treatment and I wrote this: “I think I am going to need to go to the osteopath but the cost is putting me off but Emma says go.” Perhaps one of the most difficult moments of that six-week period occurred just after Emma had booked a Virgin Value Saver to go down to London. It was in order to see a friend, as she had previously arranged and we decided it would be good for her to have a little treat out. The next day she received an e-mail from that friend saying she would have to re-arrange the date. The money she had spent went down the drain instantly, money we dearly needed to spend on other things, such as a new pair of shoes since mine had a hole in and were letting in water.

Blessed are you who are poor?

Such a challenge, to live on the Minimum Wage, transformed the way I experienced Lent that year. It gave me something of an insight into what it must be like to live on a low income on a permanent basis, as many do today. We stuck it out for those six weeks, just, but it was beginning to drain us mentally and physically. Spiritually, however, it gave me a real insight into that verse from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God.” One of the ways that has been translated is “Blessed are you who know your need of God; God’s kingdom belongs to you.’ When you are struggling to live on or below the poverty line, it certainly can increase your spiritual awareness. For if the money for things is not there, God may be the only person you have left to rely on to provide for your needs. That is certainly true for many Christians in the underdeveloped countries of our world, as well as for those who live by faith as individuals and in Christian communities in our country. But, in addition to increasing my awareness of my need for God, living on the Minimum Wage brought me an increased awareness of the needs of others. Those who struggle day by day to make ends meet, who live on a low income or on benefits. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.” Could it be that God has something to teach us through those who are materially poor about our openness (or lack of it) towards God?

Church Action on Poverty Sunday

Today, in the Christian calendar, it is Church Action on Poverty Sunday. Church Action on Poverty is a national ecumenical Christian social justice charity committed to tackling poverty in the UK. They work in partnership with churches and with people in poverty themselves, to tackle the root causes of poverty. Let me share with you a short video they have produced. Please use this prayer card you have received on entering church today to pray for their work. You may also wish to give something to support them as well.

Life in all its fullness

To conclude, I want to return to our Gospel reading where we began this morning. Jesus was transfigured, or transformed for a particular purpose, namely to reveal God’s glory to those disciples in order that they might understand more of God’s desires for them. “This is my Son, whom I love, listen to him.”. Now we may often fail to understand God’s purposes through Jesus (just as the disciples did) but that did not invalidate the transfiguration. So this week, this month, this year, will we be those people whose lives are continually transformed by God, not just in order that we may reach towards our potential of becoming the people God wants us to be, but also in order that others too may discover God’s good intentions for their lives? And part of that, I believe, is lifting people out of poverty so that they may experience life in all its fullness, as Jesus describes it in John’s Gospel.

Amen

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

Prayer, care and action: how Christians should respond to injustice

The amazing 11-year-olds uniting a community through food

Make Them Pay: We’re backing the call for a just tax system

Glory: How I’m striving for change and a better society

Church Action on Poverty Sheffield: 2025 pilgrimage

Empty Plate Project lets local people be heard

We have a new Chief Exec – and we’ll continue to be a catalyst for change!

Are churches losing faith in low-income communities?

“The cuts are deeply immoral and should be opposed by all Christians”

SPARK newsletter summer 2025

Let’s End Poverty: what comes next?

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

A stock image of an open hand, palm upwards

Prayer, care and action: how Christians should respond to injustice

Four children sitting at a wooden picnic table outside a plain building.

The amazing 11-year-olds uniting a community through food

SPARK newsletter winter 2023-24

Click on the right to download this issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.

A hand holding a bundle of Spark newsletters

New: The Autumn 2025 Spark newsletter

An image of a text poster

Urgent: Ask your church to display this poster on Sunday

SPARK newsletter, winter 2024-25