Conference at Cornerstone

A car trip to Morriston, Swansea for me on this dark overcast and rainy day with Jim Stewart and Paul Hocking of Gweini for their annual conference, at which Paul had invited to me speak in a seminar about the work we've done together forging a working partnership between Street Carers and the City Council. The conference was at the Cornerstone Church, centre, established in an building that appears formerly to have belonged to British Telecom. As well as a large main hall space, there were plenty of rooms for small group activities, easy to access. It was well equipped with lots of hi-tech presentation equipment, used for the church's extensive teaching ministry. The event was beautifully organised by a hospitable home team, and brouight together people from all over Wales, about forty of them. It a vigorous community worth taking note of. Their website will give you a favour of it.

Conference contributions ranged from work with the homeless and asylum seekers, to food banks, farming crisis, engaging with local authorities and addiction rehabilitation. Wide ranging and most encouraging as evidence of different kinds of engagement in contemporary concerns. Towards the end of the conference we received presentations from two young web design entrpreneurs who were Christians in the realm of digital media. It was challenging stuff, and actually deserved an earlier place in the day, because they were applying some serious critical thought to their creative process. In itself this was capable of being influential on the way we approached other issues of social involvement. Their brief input certainly has me thinking about all my web creations, and what purposes they serve. I need time to ponder properly on this.

Gweini is a body that enables Christian voluntary bodies across Wales and in various localities to find a voice in public affairs that matches their public service and community interests. It's what we Anglicans refer to as our social responsibility mission. There's been a sea change in the domain of independent evangelical and charismatic churches in the past quarter of a century, that has seen them engage innovately in community building mission and church planting in new housing areas as well as town centres and urban priority areas. It's the rediscovery of social gospel mission as practiced by Methodism and the Sally Army in the 18th and 19th century, and reflects renewed creativity and social enterprise that makes them a vital force in contemporary mission, one that goes largely unrecognised by many in established mainstream denominations.

It was a stimulating experience to share a little in this journey into social engagement and a fuller participation in civil society, as it's one I've been taking during the years of my ministry in the city centre, really for the first time in my working life. We're all now learning how to do this afresh as those in government look towards faith groups for fresh energy and inspiration in tackling the problems of different kinds of social exclusion and 'broken Britain'.

Term's end

This morning I shared with Father Roy Doxsey in the Tredegarville School end of term Eucharist and school leavers' celebration. It was also the occasion to say 'god speed' to Annette James, deputy head, on her way to a head teachers job at Malpas Church Infants school in the autumn. She's a charismatic figure, very popular with colleagues and children alike, so the farewell for her and for year six children, going up to secondary school, following the Communion, was lengthy and emotional affair, with each year group doing their own presentations, full of fun, music and art.

Roy had to slip out and do another Eucharist back at St Germans, but was able to return before the farewell ceremonies concluded. Then I had to slip out to do the St John's noon Eucharist. This is the kind of juggling we have to do in the absence of support from colleagues. As the years pass, not only are the numbers of full-time clergy diminishing, but also the numbers of active retired colleagues able to step in. At the moment we run to stand still, and don't know how to change things positively. It is sad that we keep going until the system breaks down, rather than having a constructive way to manage pastorally inevitable changes. It's painfully difficult to give up our expectations of how things ought to be.

In the afternoon I visited to BBC Wales Llandaff studio to take part in an 'All things considered' programme discussing technology, religion and modern culture, a subject much to my liking. I was not on my best form, having been robbed of sleep by a nose bleed, yet again last night. A quick visit to the doctor earlier this afternoon set in motion a request for a specialist ENT examination to see what the problem is. But that didn't do anything for my foggy, foggy brain unfortunately. Not my best radio appearance, I'm afraid, although I did enjoy playing the skeptic instead of the enthusiast for a few fleeting moments when it came to talk about virtual on-line church.

A taxi took me in the rain up to Thornhill Church for an introductory meeting of the Gweini board. Paul Hocking has asked if I'd like to participate, and bring some insight from my encounter with the Local Authority in the course of my work. I was much impressed with talks given about the work of a voluntary group called 'Oasis' working out of Tredegarville Baptist Church with asylum seekers, and a community worker living and working in Ely, out of sense of Christian vocation. There's some energetic engagement with real world issues going on around town, and a journey of discovery for some, that a truly biblical piety enables this to happen.

Reports and consultations

I had to dash from a Retail Partnership meeting down to the Millennium Centre for a the launch lunch of Gweini's report on the economic contribution made by faith communities to the life of Wales. It was an excellent occasion, very much to the credit of all in the Evangelical Alliance who made it happen.

Two years worth of work came to fruit with a hundred people representing AMs, civil servants, and religious communities from far and wide, gathering to learn that faith communities contribute £102 million a year through voluntary efforts. £10 million of that is in Cardiff alone. Just knowing that is valuable to our Spiritual Capital research project reporting. It's a way of saying to local government: "Look here, we're investing this much time and energy in public service. What about finding a way to consult us more effectively? You might even benefit more"

I had to leave early and get back to St John's to give the last in the series of Lent mediations for the Tuesday women's group, last in the series, then go on from there to another meeting, this time, the first meeting of a work-group which I was chairing, which brings together city centre faith communities and gives them an opportunity to offer feedback on the development process to the Council, under the 'Countdown 2009' headline. It's the first initiative of this kind towards the city centre's religious communities that has occurred, and very much to be welcomed.

I was a bit fed up that only two out of eight representatives showed up, showing how churches and other religious communities don't recognise a worthwhile opportunity, even when it's spelled out to them. Is religion so busily occupied with its own internal affairs living up to its own vocation? Fortunately, the representatives from Tabernacle and Ebeneser who came were wonderfully articulate about the difficulties of maintaining church life in the city centre. Good to hear their voices saying many of the same things which I go on about. It's not quite a chorus, but it's better than simply being a lone voice.

Finally, we had our Spiritual Capital Steering Group meeting, to consider some of the fruit of the report writing that's been going on this week, around the survey report from the University. Paul Ballard, Roy Thomas and myself have been thinking drafting organising material, and starting to shape what we feel we can say in the light of our overall objectives. I'm pleased that some of the work I've put in on the Spiritual Capital blog over the past eight months is a useful reference point. It's a good start, but there's a lot more to be done to produce a sound working production model in the coming weeks. The worst time really, with Holy Week and holidays looming fast.

Anway despite a day of non-stop meetings, I feel much cheered by the day's mad dash of activities.

Meeting of minds

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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 !