The First Rule of Casserole Club Is...

Have you heard about Casserole Club - a great way to support older people in your area simply by cooking one extra portion of your supper? Find out more at Finchley Youth Theatre on 15th Sept.

Shared from the Justice Matters Facebook Page

Green shoots at Easter

Has anyone else got green shoots appearing from the tubs of soil and seeds we planted last week? So often at JM we look at issues that demand concerted engagement over the long haul to bring about meaningful change, so its refreshing to see a tangible outcome from our recent efforts to experiment with growing our own food within mere days of taking action.

It was equally encouraging to hear that our combined efforts to lobby Government to deliver on the commitment to allocate 0.7% of GDP to resource international development. Clearly, this announcement was part of a much wider and long-running campaign to make this pledge a reality, but it was nonetheless exciting to have been engaging with our local MPs on the issue one day and then to have seen it actioned the following week.

The sight of those green shoots sprouting from the dirt reminded me of a video I produced a couple of years ago to accompany a talk I gave at St Bs on the parable of the mustard seed. In the video, as in the parable, the dominant image is of weeds breaking through concrete, reclaiming ruins, bringing new life and colour to abandoned objects and forgotten places. This, says Jesus, is what the Kingdom of God is like - the transformation of our broken and corrupt systems, a restoration of right relationships, the dawn of a new hope.

This is what Christians celebrate at Easter - that through Jesus' death and resurrection, we are restored into right relationship with God, one another and the world. On that first Easter Sunday, the Kingdom of God went from an idea to a reality and it has continued to seed and spread throughout the world ever since.

When the hungry are fed, the poor cared for, prisoners comforted, the lonely befriended, the outcasts included and the stranger welcomed, that is the Kingdom of God.

When slaves are freed, labourers fairly treated, when women are valued as equal, that is the Kingdom of God.

When the thirsty are given access to safe clean water, when farmers don't have to sell their crops for less than they cost to produce, when young girls aren't subjected to mutilation, or forced to sell their bodies for sex, when companies in one part of the world don't exploit workers in another party of the world just because they can, that is the Kingdom of God.

Justice Matters is an expression of that same redemptive insurgency; our small effort to play a role in the creeping global transformation.

If you are around Finchley over the Easter weekend, why not pop into one of the Easter services taking place at St Barnabas Church and find out more about God's heart for social justice and how far He went to make a better world possible. 

Otherwise we'll see you again on the 18th April for our next gathering, at which we'll be hearing about Foodbanks with exciting guest speakers from both the Chipping Barnet Foodbank and the Trussell Trust, creator of the UK's largest Foodbank network. Plus we'll talking about taking up the Live Below the Line challenge again... 

So, lots to look forward to - have a good Easter weekend and see you soon!

Sing for Water - This Saturday

A short reminded that Sing for Water - An evening of song in support of WaterAid, is taking place THIS SATURDAY at St Barnabas Church. 

Come along and enjoy and eclectic mix of song from North London choirs, including:

London Youth Gospel Choir

Barnet A Level Music Centre Choir

Queen Elizabeth's School Choir

Vocalis, Mill Hill County High School

The Rowantree Choir, Enfield

Jubilo, St Barnabas Church

Doors open at 7pm. Refreshments available.

Tickets: £7.50 on the door / £5 for under 16s.

For further information contact northlondonwaids@hotmail.co.uk

Sing for Water!

Before Christmas, some of us spent a day dressed up a toilets in Brent Cross shopping centre to raise awareness and funds for the water and sanitation charity, WaterAid (who themselves came to speak to Justice Matters in one of our very early gatherings in November 2011). 

In March, Elaine has organised another fantastic opportunity to support this great charity and this important cause. Details in the poster below - we hope to see lots of you there!

Festive cheer

Wow - we had a great evening on Wednesday - two dozen gifts donated, wrapped and labelled ready for the Bohemia's Christmas dinner for older people from local nursing homes.

Thanks to all who came, donated and made it such a success. We filled the front part of the pub, sparked some interesting conversations with other customers and will hopefully make a small but real difference in the lives of the old folks who get one of the presents.

Here's a few snaps from the evening...

   

 

Update

Just a quick post to remind you that we are partnering with the Bohemia pub in North Finchley to give presents to isolated older people this Christmas. Pick up a gift for a lady or gent (max spend £10 per gift) and bring it along to the Bohemia on Wednesday 5th December where we will wrap them together. Christmas jumpers and reindeer antlers optional...

This is a practical opportunity to bless our neighbours, support a local business and build community in our area so do make an effort to join us - why not invite your colleagues? Even if they can't came, they might still want to contribute a gift. All the information's on our website. Don't forget to say you're coming on Facebook too!

Plans are underway for our Christmas party - we'll circulate details as soon as they are confirmed.

See you on Wednesday!

Festive cheer

Justice Matters is excited to be partnering with Finchley's favourite new watering hole, The Bohemia, to provide gifts and a Christmas dinner for isolated older people in the Finchley area.

The idea is simple: buy a gift for an older lady or gent (recommended £10 max) and then bring it along to The Bohemia on the 5th December where we will gather from 8pm to wrap the gifts together. If you aren't able to buy a gift, you can pay for a meal ticket (£7 each). Simpls.

We are also waiting to hear back from Wandsworth Prison about the option of sending gifts to the children of prisoners through Prison Fellowship. We'll confirm this option and further details ASAP.

Is age just a number?

In the UK there are now more adults over 60 than there are under 18 for the first time ever.  We, along with most of the rest of the Western world are becoming an older society.

But what does this mean for the way that we organise our society, look after those who are most vulnerable, support people to plan for their old age and ensure that there are services available for those who need them?  A change in the make up of a population has a significant effect on how public services are arranged and paid for.  The main challenge comes as a result of reduced tax returns (because of fewer numbers of younger people who are likely to be working) and increased demand for expenditure (because older people are the heaviest users of the NHS and other public services).

If there's one thing we can be sure of about our older people (I'm talking about people over 60 for clarity's sake, but I know you're as old as you feel) it's that it's impossible to categorise.  There is no single characteristic that defines this group.  There are those on the front covers of magazines enjoying skydiving and able to work until their 90s.  But there are others that don't enjoy these benefits, who live on low incomes, worried about turning on the heating, unable to access care and support services to help them as they get less able to manage.

Let me paint a picture of some of the people who need extra care and support to do the everyday tasks that others take for granted.  It might be getting out of bed, combing your hair, going to the toilet or preparing a hot meal.  For many older people who are finding it difficult to do these without support there is little available for them.

In the last spending review in 2010 the Government recognised that care and support services were essential and should be protected from the cuts that were prescribed for most other areas of public spending.  An additional £7.2bn was found over 4 years, but the evidence shows that as a result of increasing demand because of the growing numbers of older people, there simply aren't enough services to go around.

As a result there are over 800,000 older people who need support but who don't receive it from their local council.  This means that they have to rely on their family or friends to help them, or they pay privately, or worryingly, they go without support altogether.

This can have a devastating effect on people's ability to get on with normal life.  It can reduce their ability to get out and about, socialise and keep up their involvement in the community.  It can also affect health and in particular mental health, with evidence showing there are strong links between loneliness and poor health.  Around 7% (that's about 700,000) of people over 65 say they are always or often lonely.

So what should be our response to this challenge?  We all make our communities and networks what they are so think about the older people that you know or that live in your block of flats or on your street.  Is there something you could do to make friends with them or help them out?  Or have you got a grandparent who lives in another city and who would welcome a phone call to hear your news.

If you fancy volunteering, the local Age UK to Finchley is Age UK Barnet and there's opportunities to get involved in befriending, helping out with lifts to social events and clubs or taking someone to the supermarket.  Have a look at www.ageuk.org.uk/barnet/How-you-can-help/. 

If you're a campaigning type then check out the Age UK website where there's details about the campaigns you can get involved in, including the Care in Crisis campaign which is seeking to convince the Government that urgent and widespread reform is needed in care and support.  Have a look at www.ageuk.org.uk/careincrisis.

Open Day at Homeless Action in Barnet

See below a flyer for the open day at Homeless Action in Barnet which takes place this Saturday 30 June. All are welcome to go and see the venue and what is being done by HAB for the homeless of Barnet. Eddy, the centre manager, would be delighted to answer any questions you may have. If you wish to email him with any queries his email is eddy@habcentre.org.  The centre is open all day from 11am-3pm so you can just drop in.

Shared from the Justice Matters Facebook Page

Pop with a Twist

Friends of Justice Matters, the awesome Feltoe's Folk, are playing a charity gig at the Elephant Pub in North Finchley on the 6th July. Admission is free and all donations go towards the North London Hospice. Our very own Mike Dore will be on bass, along with Lizzie's husband Andy (after whom the ensemble is named).

Promises to be a great evening - see you there!

Live Below the Line

For five days in May some friends and I are going to try living on just £1 of food a day. We're doing this to raise awareness of global poverty and the 1.4 billion people on the planet today who have to exist on the equivalent of £1 a day for everything they need. In addition to making lots of noise about what we are doing and why, we're going to be giving all the money we would usually have spent on food to support Salvation Army International Development, who resource, empower and support developing communities to defeat poverty and injustice and enable them to build a better life and future.

If you've been reading this blog before, you'll know that I am involved in establishing a community of restless idealists and faithful activists, each passionate about bringing social justice to our hurting world. We've been meeting in locations around Finchley every fortnight since the start of the year and we're using this week of self-enforced poverty to live out the words we say. 

I'll be posting updates on my Twitter feed and Facebook status, as will others, so watch this space. Maybe you'd like to join us in this experiment? If so, drop me a note or comment below.

We can't end poverty overnight, but we can't stand by and ignore it either.

A Community for Social Justice?

On Wednesday 5 January 2011 Victoria and I met with a group of friends and fellow rabble-rousers at the Elephant pub in North Finchley to discuss the possibility of forming a new Missional Community around the theme of social justice. After introductions, we used variously shaped post-it notes to capture our passions, skills and initial ideas. A survey of these post-its revealed a range of passions, including:

• Inspiring action – challenging apathy, raising awareness, envisioning and empowering
• Meeting practical needs – water and sanitation, housing
• Championing equality – including wealth, opportunity, rights of children and women
• Fighting poverty – at home and abroad, Fairtrade and economic development
• Sustainability
• Building community and relationships
• Theology.

In terms of the talent, those present were well equipped to support the running of a new Community, with project management / administration, publicity / social networking, event management and listening / mentoring / enabling all mentioned on the post-its.

In discussing ideas for what sort of things such a Community might do, there was a clear agreement that our meetings shouldn’t simply be about listening to speakers (though this will no doubt form part of our activities), but should balance hearing and doing. Suggestions included:

• Hosting public events with guest speakers (eg. Tearfund, WaterAid, Burma etc)
• Getting involved with wider campaigning opportunities, such as World Walk for Water
• Holding prayer meetings for global issues – might be directed at rallying church(es) or perhaps something accessible to outsiders
• Hosting film nights to show thought-provoking movies or documentaries (perhaps in association with Co-op and the Phoenix Cinema) with post-screening discussion (and prayer?)
• Running / joining a reading group (perhaps with similar aims to the above)
• Running a regular Justice Café with proceeds going to fight poverty
• Hosting an Unfair Games event in partnership with Active Barnet or Barnet FC / Saracens / London 2012
• Assorted practical activities such as litter picking, adopt-a-nursing home, English lessons for refugees
• Short-term mission to international development-related partners (such as Helping Hands, Compassion, Feed the Hungry, Habitat for Humanity).

Having read and discussed our passions, skills and ideas, we moved on to explore some of the finer details of how such a Community would function, what it would do and how it would meet the framework set out by Henry, Colin and David.

A clear voice for justice
One of the key questions was about the balance between seeking social justice locally and campaigning for it internationally. The majority opinion in the group was that international campaigning was a must, predominantly because of the great need beyond our own borders and also because international issues are perhaps more accessible, making it easier to attract new members to the Community. Whether the group adopts one cause at a time or several remains the topic of further discussion.

Some voiced concern that setting up a Community centred on social justice absolves the remainder of St Bs from engaging with such issues. To avoid this, we propose to model ourselves as an ‘MTF’ for social justice - that is to say, a community of passionate individuals and friends who will provide leadership and structure on the matter of social justice within St Bs, raising awareness of the issues and creating opportunities which will enable others within the congregation (and beyond) to play their own role.

In addition, there was agreement that while the local Church does need to be corralled into a more visible position on social justice, this Community was primarily about connecting with the wider community of Finchley, not just the church goers, enabling everyone to get involved in making a difference to social justices. Given Finchley’s population it is reasonable to believe that there will be folk out there who are interested in getting involved with a group like this. Moreover, with influential, educated professionals living locally there is a real opportunity to shape culture and policy not just locally but across the capitol region. For some, this Community may provide focus and structure for their existing campaigning activities; for others it will provide the tools needed to help them turn goodwill into practical action. This will be a core purpose of the Community - to help local people who want to do good but aren’t sure where to start.

A role in sowing social justice locally
Although many felt that the Community’s primary focus should be speaking up for international, there was a clear sense that some local action was required. However, what form that local action would take was less clear. On one thing we were agreed – we (and presumably many others in the church) didn’t understand enough about local needs to decide a local cause. It was suggested that it would be valuable for those present to spend some time investigating local needs and perhaps use this learning to highlight needs to others in the church. In this way our Community could serve a practical role in raising awareness and supporting the development of other St Bs Communities centred on the needs we identify.

Thinking about taking action locally, there was uncertainty as to how much could reasonably be achieved in one night a week (assuming that the Community was to meet fortnightly and only half the sessions would be dedicated to local issues). Likewise, there was concern that most causes would be disinterested in ‘hit-and-run’ help.

Some possible options options discussed to address the local element of the Community were:

• Research and gather information about local charities and ask members of the community to commit to volunteering at one or more in their own time. Give frequent opportunities for people to feedback and share what they are doing and to provide accountability.
• Advertise ourselves to local charities and organisations as an available resource when they need extra help for extraordinary occasions such as larger campaigns or events. Engage with CommUNITY Barnet and Barnet Pledgebank to identify one off volunteering opportunities that would benefit from our manpower.
• Give members ‘homework’, challenging them to carry out ‘tiny acts of good’ that sow genuine community during their everyday lives (for example introduce yourself to your neighbour, plant bulbs in the garden of your block of flats, befriend your supermarket till clerk etc).

For some of those present, there was clearly a desire to dedicate more time to local issues than international campaigning. It was suggested that these individuals might like to get together to pray about the possibility of forming a Community that centres more directly on a local need into which they might pour their energies.

A Community with soft edges
We did begin tentative discussions about the rhythm or structure of the Community’s gatherings, voicing a desire to be radically inclusive of all members (Christian or otherwise). While we understand that the leadership have proposed a model wherein the Community meets twice a month - once for a public event and once for a more traditional celebration - we were concerned about drawing such a stark division between the Christian and non-Christian members.

While no clear alternative model has yet been defined, it is our hope that the each of the Community’s gatherings would faithfully and unashamedly reflect the faith which has inspired its existence without creating a boundary between the Christian and non-Christians members. In this way, we hope to live out our faith openly and develop genuine, inclusive relationships with all those in the Community, allowing them ownership of the group's activities and development. In this way we hope to avoid a sense of those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘outside’ and instead generate a culture where we welcome people wherever they are at and draw them along on our journey.

Where next for Communities?

At my church, St Barnabas in Woodside Park, we’ve embarked on a programme to remodel the organisation of the church, away from small Barnabas Groups to larger Communities (as discussed in this previous blog). This post is an effort to outline three possible ways to achieve this aspiration – from the conservative to the unreservedly ambitious.

The community rhythm model
One way to transition to the Communities structure would be the adoption of a community rhythm. This is perhaps the most accessible model for more conservative BGs to transition gently towards a different model.

If a number of groups implemented a common or pattern to their gatherings, individuals BGs could continue to meet in their traditional format for several weeks a month but join with another group on a regular basis to engage in an activity that perhaps one group along could not. As the rhythm played out across the month and relationships developed across the groups involved, the comings together would cease to be an imposition (or ‘week off’) and become instead a valued element in the diary. Once in full flow, the rhythm might look something like this: Meeting as individual groups for prayer breakfasts in week one, pairing up with another group to undertake charitable or voluntary action in week two, engaging in a more traditional bible studies in week three and gather several pairs of groups together to hold a worship celebration in week four. Rinse and repeat. With any luck, employing this model should help transform even the most conservative groups into a more active, outward-looking network.

The Christians with a common passion model
Another model for Communities would be one based on 20-40 people who are already Christians joining together around a common passion or theme (such as the homeless or the public sector). Being centred on a passion would make such a Community more tightly focused than traditional BGs or the community rhythm model described above. In this model, the Community either exists to support members in bespoke expressions of mission (eg. holding dinner parties where non-Christian work colleagues come into contact with a selection of Christians from the Community) or to deliver event-based mission / action (eg. running a soup kitchen).

This model is excellent for delivering ministries and building community amongst those Christians involved in that ministry, but not so effective at drawing non-Christians into the fold. The leadership might meet regularly to pray for those coming into contact with the Community and there may be some opportunities to welcome new or non-Christians into the Community as ‘core’ members (as exemplified by attending the monthly ‘micro-Church’ gathering). However, in reality the Community’s membership and those at the receiving end of its good works are likely to remain largely distinct in this model.

The Community with soft edges model
The third model is one characterised by a core leadership and/or scaffolding team and a radically inclusive approach to not-yet-Christian members. Like the common passion model above, this group may well find a common cause to champion, but would explicitly include non-believers in the shaping and pursuit of that passion. In other words, rather than having ‘go’ weeks (which are public events and deliberately accessible to non-Christians) and ‘churchy’ weeks (which are essentially traditional celebrations, and are less so), Communities pursuing this model would seek to develop gatherings and spaces which are accessible and welcoming to non-Christians whilst at the same time unashamedly reflective of the Community’s Christian inspiration. Clearly this is a challenge but it should not be beyond our collective power of imagination.

Examples of this model might include a Community designed to enable networking and relationship building among new arrivals to the area, or one that seeks to attract individuals (Christian and otherwise) around the issue of social justice. To encourage genuine relationships and ownership, all members would be encouraged to play an active role in the Community. It is even conceivable that non-Christian members might eventually be invited to join the core leadership, although only with the express understanding that the Community’s Christian foundation must be respected in any decisions.

Reflection
Personally, it is this final model which is most exciting. Clearly there are several issues that remain to be ironed out. If you have any ideas, do get in touch. I hope that the discussion of each of the three models is useful to other leaders grappling with this transition. If you’d like to discuss anything I raised here, drop me a note…