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Reform magazine's Charissa King caught up with the celebrated poet and activist Benjamin Zephaniah at his Brunel University office in Uxbridge.
It’s 2011, and a group of students are in heated debate. ‘Benjamin Zephaniah’s at this university,’ says one. ‘You’re telling lies!’ says another: ‘Zephaniah’s a rebel – he wouldn’t be in a place like this!’ ‘No it’s true! I’ve seen him!’
Meanwhile, the man being discussed is listening in to the argument, from his office window overhead.
The story of the crucifixion is so appalling that it can be difficult for us to follow it to the end.
We try to manage what we are feeling and, by trying to manage it, we change it to something it isn’t.
In Smirnoff’s recent ‘We Are Open’ campaign, a TV advert says, ‘labels are for bottles not people’. This got church related community worker (CRCW) Rosie Buxton – who works for the Swansea region of churches in Wales – thinking about the labels attached to people, intentionally or not …
CRCW ministry is about people, not projects. As Helen Stephenson says in her reflection, ‘Church related community work is not about projects it’s about people’, but unfortunately, we like to put labels on people and situations.
Labels are the first way people are defined. Vulnerable, disadvantaged, troubled, challenging, disabled, celebrity, addict, Christian, Muslim, lonely, financially inactive, refugee, asylum seeker to name but a few. We get so caught up in labels, we forget the human being behind them.
Community related church worker (CRCW), Lisa Wigfield, reflects on how tragic personal circumstances shaped her journey through CRCW ministry, and led her to a very familiar setting.
I had been running a church project full-time when I heard a call to formalise the work I was doing within my local community. I studied for a HE diploma in contextual theology and church related community work at Luther King House in Manchester and thrived.
I loved learning, meeting new people, and the discussions in and out of lectures. I found college life great, and life was good.
In 2015, I was just into my second year of training when my life took a sudden and unexpected turn. I became a widow and I began to question my call.
