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CRCW ministry: changing the world one person at a time

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.

Personal tragedy helps shape a CRCW’s ministry

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.

Church leaders aim to move mountains in Cumbria

moving mountains Alan Yates, Moderator of the United Reformed Church General Assembly, and a number of other URC leaders (see caption for full details), will be taking part in an ecumenical mission to Cumbria from 8 to 11 March.

They will join the Most Revd John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, and the Revd Loraine Mellor, President of Methodist Conference, on the Moving Mountains mission which is organised by Churches in Cumbria.

The mission comes under the ecumenical God for All banner, which aims to build on the prayers, planning and work completed across churches in Cumbria during the past five years, with the intention that everyone in Cumbria should know more about God and his purpose for their lives.

Show the environment some love on Valentine’s Day

A film made by the photographer Rankin and featuring the voice of singer Liam Gallagher is helping to raise awareness about climate change.

The film - A Very Hot Snowman - is part of The Climate Coalition’s ‘show the love’ initiative, marked annually on 14 February, and Linda Mead, coordinator of the United Reformed Church’s world development programme – Commitment for Life – is encouraging people to take part.

New figures reveal extent of Britain’s ‘hidden hunger’

HH news banner Shocking figures released by End Hunger UK on 30 January, provide a glimpse of the extent of hidden hunger in the UK.

The campaign – a coalition of food poverty organisations which include the United Reformed Church (URC) – is urging the government to start measuring food insecurity across the UK.

The figures show 16% of adults either skipping or seeing someone in their household skipping meals, 14% worrying about not having enough food to eat, and 8% going a whole day without eating because of lack of money in the last 12 months.