Short and to the point

There was an invitation in my in-box over the weekend from the Cardiff grass-roots community education organisation called 'Women Connect First', which works with black and ethnic minority women. It's also been the recipient of CDF funding this past year, and I've met Soad Hamdi, its dynamic Egyptian director, on several occasions. The invitation, to speak at an inter-faith women's conference in City Hall next month, and give a 20 minute introduction to the Christian faith to people who are unlikely to know much about Christianity at all, given their diverse backgrounds. What a challenge!

When I worked with U.S.P.G. back in the eighties I recall someone in some conference or other posing the challenging question: 'Imagine you're in a life-threatening situation, on a sinking ship or a plane that has 5 minutes to flying time before it crashes. Somebody turns to you and asks what you faith has to offer you in this moment of terminal crisis. What do you say to them? How do you sum up the whole of the Gospel for them in the time you have left?' Well, that's an extreme scenario. It reminds us to ask ourselves, what are the essentials of the faith I profess? Does reciting, even briefly explaining a Creed do it justice?

BBC Radio Four's Today programme at the moment is asking listeners to contribute a six word autobiographical summary. It's the same kind of thought provoking challenge to be concise. My offering so far is "Miner's son, city Vicar, proud grandfather."

Twenty minutes to present Christianity afresh to a new audience is a luxury by comparison. I'm looking forward to it.

Meetings that matter

Inter-faith Wales and the Community Development Foundation arranged a meeting today for those in receipt of CDF funding, bringing people together from West and North Wales. It was held at the officers of Women Connect First, a local cross cultural womens' empowerment and education organisation, led by a dynamic Egyptian woman called Soad Hamdi.

There wasn't a great deal that was new in the meeting content, but it was good to hear what a different group of grant recipients are up to. Most memorable was a woman from Penllergaer called Pam Evans who founded an organisation to educate young people about religious and racial tolerance, focussing around the wearing of a simple multi-coloured bead bracelet, representing fourteen different world religions with a common essential teaching and message about peace. The bracelet is called a Peace Mala. Their website is worth looking at.

One thing that annoyed me however was that speakers wanted to use a laptop and projector for presentations, but full mastery of the technology was absent, so the wall used for a screen behind the speaker flashed distractingly with images that didn't connect with what was being said. Totally pointless.

It's wonderful to meet people who are passionate about reconciliation and diversity, who see these things as real good news, and constantly look outwards to engage with others. So much more cheering than people who struggle to remain stuck in their chosen rut.

I had to slip out of the meeting and pedal in the rain over from Riverside to St John's to offer the midday Eucharist, and then return for the rest of the session. I should really have peddled in the opposite direction, over to Roath for the Deanery Chapter meeting following lunch, but sad to say it was in my diary but not in my field of vision. More often than not I come away from our official gatherings with fellow clergy feeling frustrated and depressed. But there was enough at the other meeting to draw me back to it, laptops notwithstanding.

Meeting of minds

.
A small group of grant recipients from the Community Development Foundation met today with FCCBF project manager Anna Allen at the Norwegian Church. It was so noisy inside the building we moved out on to the grass in the sunshine, which was quite pleasant and surprisingly, much quieter.

Gwyn Williams, director of the Llangollen International Eisteddfod company and a grant recipient made the four hour journey to attend the meeting. He has a project which aims to forge appropriate links between the Eisteddfod and the 38 linguistic and cultural communities so far identified in Denbighshire.

Dave Berryman a fieldworker for Rhondda Cynon Taff based Christian community based social inclusion project was there. He's part funded by FCCBF to research and engage with emerging other-faith groups in the Local Authority Area, where these seems to be a huge information void at present. It's real 'missionary' stuff, quite suitable for English Baptist minister in secular employement - well, not really, as his project is church-initiated.

Soad Hamdi and Samar Wafa were there from Women Connect First a Cardiff project that works with ethnic minority community women, teaching technology and organisational skills. Soad is CEO - Egyptian Muslim with a load of hands on experience of wheeling and dealing with the Council. All that I've been saying recently about the kind of frustrations experienced by Christians in relation to the Local Authority she confirmed were also true for Muslim communities. Samar is employed on the FCCBF grant as a part time volunteer co-ordinator for the year. They now have a new HQ in Neville Street, Riverside, after a long battle to obtain funding once Communities First Funding was withdrawn from Wales.

John Martin Evans was there, he's an ex OECD statistician, researching on behalf on the Evangelical Alliance into the social and economic contribution made by faith communities in Wales. He's been at it for over a year, and has only just obtain FCCBF funding alongside three other grants to run his project. In some aspects his data gathering resembles ours, but his remit is national, not confined to this city and relationships between its government of religious communities. The two projects together should complement each other, and could have quite an impact, hopefully to get those in power to take religious communities more seriously.

It was a useful and positive meeting, with quite a bit of shared awareness of the way religion and religiously based enterprises have been pushed out of the public domain. There's a strong desire to make a case for changing this, but I'm not sure how much people realise this is a deep political and ideological issue this is in the society we've allowed to develop. I was glad of this opportunity to see our project in this context.

It's been quite an intense time, this past month or so. Glad to be signing off for a break, away from work and computers. Well it's one way of finding out if I'm really a cyber-addict !