Chris Beales R.I.P.

 

Chris Beales, who died on 12 January 2024, was a social entrepreneur working in housing and education and on issues of faith and economy, locally, nationally and internationally.

As Malcolm Brown writes: "Canon Chris Beales was probably the leading exponent of the partnership approach to Christian social action in the past 50 years. Always deeply committed to local ministry, his ability to connect social needs to potential solutions, and to gather resources for innovative projects, epitomised the Church’s latent convening power and commitment to social change. Chris got things done through a totally unforced charm and boundless enthusiasm, grounded in a profound affection for people and love of ordinary communities."

We met, as he explains in the video above, when he was working with Employment Focus and I was in JobCentre Plus. Employment Focus (originally known as Employment Forum UK) worked across the country with people of all faiths on employment, training and enterprise development. They held a series of major regional events, ran a Black Economic Empowerment programme, working with black majority churches, and a national Inter-Faith Action Programme. They also ran construction, ESOL and employability training programmes in London and Birmingham. During this time Chris produced "Catalytic Converters", a training programme to involve faith groups in social and economic development and service provision in their communities. Chris later ran a Catalytic Convertors course at St Margaret's Barking, while I was curate there.

Through our employment work we both met Saif Ahmad, then CEO of Faith Regen UK (later Faith Regen Foundation) and we both contributed in various ways to their work, as a multi-faith UK based regeneration charity, to reduce social exclusion. The multi-faith nature of urban Britain combined with the diversity and equalities agenda meant that those working in employment and training services needed to understand their customers and employees who were part of faith communities. This development provided an opportunity for me to work on the development of a Faith Communities Toolkit for Jobcentre Plus which provided information for staff on the nine world religions (including Christianity) represented in the UK and ideas and guidance on contacting and working with people of faith. Through Faith Regen Foundation, I was also involved in preparing similar resources for staff at Sainsbury’s, Calder UK Ltd and the learning and skills sector, more generally.

Chris and I later reconnected through HeartEdge when he participated in the above webinar which explored ways in which all churches can get involved in housing need locally and the theological basis for doing so. Chris had joined the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing when it was launched by the present Archbishop of Canterbury. Malcolm Brown writes that "His effervescent cheerfulness, mental acuity, and capacity for work, plus his genius for networking, made his contribution indispensable to the eventual report, Coming Home." He then, as a member of Executive Team following up the recommendations of "Coming Home", applied his energies to turning the recommendations into action.

In Church Times he wrote of how the church can be beneficial in bringing communities together: “Relationships have to be cultivated and trust established. In each local authority area, someone – clergy or lay – should be doing the research, meeting the planners and developers, building relationships, making friends, and feeding in ideas to be included in local plans and masterplans.

“In larger new housing developments, we have the chance to model places where housing is well-designed and caters for all ages, ethnicities, incomes, and circumstances; where facilities and services are easily accessible and to hand; and where schools and community facilities, open spaces, and sports and leisure facilities are local – creating places not of isolation, but inclusion: places where people love to live.”

His report ‘Building new communities in North East England: challenging church and society' identified significant new housing developments being built or planned in each of the 12 local authority areas across the region and explored the challenge of how to “build good community”; his aim being to lay the foundations for new strategic thinking and action by Churches and others, working with landowners, builders, planners, communities and all involved. Click here to read his report.

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Madness - Our House.

A life of significance in God's kingdom work

Here's the sermon that I shared in the 8.00 am BCP Eucharist at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead this morning (The Sunday called Septuagesima):

Chichele Road in Cricklewood has been known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks would be found hanging around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car would stop, a negotiation would take place, a deal might be struck. Typically, the men would be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They would be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Supertramp - Lord Is It Mine.

How a generous God handles the utterly undeserving

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford on Sunday morning:

Chichele Road in Cricklewood has been known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks would be found hanging around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car would stop, a negotiation would take place, a deal might be struck. Typically, the men would be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They would be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Mark Heard - Strong Hand Of Love.

God's naturally overflowingly generous nature

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Chichele Road in Cricklewood has been known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks would be found hanging around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car would stop, a negotiation would take place, a deal might be struck. Typically, the men would be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They would be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Sufjan Stevens - So You Are Tired.

Job Street & the workers in the vineyard

Here's my reflection from today's Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Chichele Road in Cricklewood is known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks hang around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car will stop, a negotiation will take place, a deal may be struck. Typically, the men will be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They will be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Judy Collins - Amazing Grace.

Practising Jesus

Chris Beales, in his 170 page book 'Practising Jesus', draws on his long experience to address many topical and pressing issues facing the world today. Youth unemployment, inter-faith relations, working in Afghanistan, engaging with Governments and politicians, businesses and community groups all come under scrutiny as Chris brings his faith and values to bear on what is happening in Britain and the world. The challenge, as he sees it, is not just to practice faithfully but to bring about real, positive, lasting change. This requires clear analysis and energetic efforts to make things happen. It requires working in collaboration with all sorts of other people and organisations. It requires stickability in the face of apathy and opposition.

As a social entrepreneur working locally and internationally, Chris is also a parish priest in a small community 50 miles north of London, England. Practising Jesus gives a valuable insight into how he sees his work, nurturing the faith of his congregation while also challenging people to step out of their comfort zones and play their part in changing the world. The proceeds of the book go towards funding a new community development programme in his parish of Woburn Sands - the initiative also involves developing a social enterprise to help sustain the work and provide local jobs.

Creating employment – especially employment for young people - has been an important aspect of Chris' work and he describes a range of initiatives, some of which have succeeded, others failed. His interest in worker co-operatives dates back to the early 1980s and a failed co-operative enterprise centre he set up with others in the northern town of Hartlepool. But much was learned and, over the next 30 years, he has worked with governments, companies, charities and social enterprises at the cutting edge of economic empowerment in the UK, West Africa and Central Asia. He describes his current work developing a new kind of school in East London, a University Technical College, and how he expects this to improve radically the employment prospects for young people.

Since 2005, Chris has worked with Afghan Action, a charity providing education and training for young people in Kabul, Afghanistan. He describes the vision, opportunities, struggles and disappointments of working in one of the world's most corrupt and difficult situations - and the inspiration he derives from the young men and women who are so keen to learn and acquire skills.

In the final chapter, Chris looks in some detail at St Paul as an entrepreneur and identifies ways in which our reading of the Bible, especially the letters of St Paul, has for too long been hijacked into a sanitised spirituality which has little to offer those who seek inspiration for radical, Christ-like change.
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The Clash - Capital Radio Two.

Spiritual Life - Creativity

This is my latest Spiritual Life column for the Ilford Recorder:

“Begin, begin,

let something be.

Make a blot,

a dash, a stroke.

Make your mark.”

I read this poem last Saturday at the Private View for an exhibition I have organized throughout December at the Tokarska Gallery in Walthamstow. It suggests that we understand ourselves and the world as we make things or make things happen; in other words as we use our God-given ability to create. The art we have included in this exhibition offers us that kind of understanding through their expression of creativity.

Earlier in that same week I had been at the 15^th Anniversary Assembly of TELCO, The East London Communities Organisation, where the phase ‘mark your mark’ was also being used. TELCO has made its mark with successful campaigns for a London Living Wage. Last Wednesday, they celebrated jobs gained by local people through their London 2012 Jobs initiative.

A 61 year old lady who had experienced periods of homelessness and who had thought she would never work again was among those who had gained jobs. Our creativity has been given to us by God to make that kind of mark on our communities and on the lives of others; as well as also being for the marks we make when we paint or write.

The key thing is to make a start in some way, to begin to use our latent God-given creativity. In Church recently, many of us have been reading Jesus’ story of the talents in which he makes the same point; don’t sit on your gifts and talents, instead make a start to make your mark!

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Radiohead - No Surprises.

TELCO 15th Anniversary Assembly

I was at the Troxy tonight for the 15th Anniversary Assembly of The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO) which saw 2,200 TELCO citizens gather again in Tower Hamlets to celebrate a landmark 15 year relationship of organised communities working together to transform their neighbourhoods. Through bringing communities together and training leaders in the art of public action, TELCO has changed the way local communities make politics happen in east London.

TELCO is the founding chapter of London Citizens, the UK’S largest independent community alliance. Fifteen years on, in 2011, TELCO is now 65 community institutions strong, working in five major east London boroughs and has pioneered Community Organising in the UK as part of London Citizens with over 200 communities in membership.

The Assembly saw the first 50 TELCO members who have successfully applied for jobs at the 2012 Olympics receive certificates from Lord Coe together with reports of local action by TELCO institutions and updates on broader campaigns such as CitySafe and the Living Wage. It was very inspiring to see young and old, churches, mosques, schools and unions working together for the benefit of local communities by prioritising relationships and affirming the contribution and voice of all. Great too to see those, like Bishop Roger Sainsbury, who were involved at the very beginning of TELCO, and therefore CITIZENS UK too, present and their contribution also affirmed.

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Jackson Browne - Lives In The Balance.  

'Faith-friendly' employers

Just discovered that my interview with Catharine Pusey when she was Interim Chief Executive Officer of the
Employers Forum on Belief can be found online here.

The interview was published in the Faith In Business Quarterly Issue 13: 1 and explored Catharine's perceptions of ‘faith-friendly’ employers and what they are doing to warrants that designation.

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The Who - Substitute.

Work-based email group

The Work-based email group is based at St John's Seven Kings but is open to all who wish to receive a weekly email containing a work-based prayer/reflection and brief information on resources to support them in bringing their faith to their work.

This week's reflection is taken from Alistair Maclean's Hebridean Altars (Grant & Murray Ltd, 1937) and is entitled 'What is happiness?':

"Labour and rest, work and ease, the busy hand, and then the stilled thought: this blending of opposites is not merely the great law of being; it is the secret of joy as well. For, after all, what is happiness but the balance between toil and quiet. The heart pauses in its beat. The pendulum, too, on the completion of its stroke. But the heart must beat; the pendulum move with absolute precision through the arc of distance.

I listened to two men as they lay upon muran, the rough bent-grass of the Isles, and them watching the sun go down. Like a torch red-burning, held by unseen fingers, it flamed and flamed and flamed, encrimsoning the West. The sea beneath us was a mirror broken only by spears of amber light. Far off a speck of gold that was a bird flew toward the sun, like some belated angel winging upward to the Immortal Gate. Mystery and silence! We saw them lift imperious hands as daring us to speak. Yet the younger spoke at last. 'The sea,' he whispered, 'lies under a spell.' But the other would not have it so. 'The sea,' said he, 'is a living creature like you and me. And now it rests.'

****

Reveal to me the benediction that is mine in having work to do. Help me, each day, to do it with good-will and pride, as being the work Thou meanest me to do. And sometimes, and most of all when the day is overcast and my courage faints, may I hear Thy voice saying, 'Thou art my beloved one in whom I am well pleased."

Faith IN Work

I have recently had a booklet called Faith IN Work posted on the Mission in London's Economy (MiLE) website. Faith IN Work is about taking faith to work and allowing it to make an impact there by transformations which are signs of the Kingdom of God.

Faith IN Work starts with the story of a project that took place in a Government Agency, Jobcentre Plus. This project, which I managed, involved preparing and piloting a Toolkit of information about faith communities that helped Jobcentre staff work more closely with local faith communities. The project opened up opportunities for staff belonging to faith communities to make use of their faith in their work and opportunities for faith groups to start working with Jobcentre Plus in a new way.

But that story is only the beginning of the booklet. By learning lessons from the story, the booklet explores different ways in which faith can make an impact in work. You will find ideas for a way of working that is transformative, practical suggestions for identifying areas at work where faith can be put to work to make creative changes, and biblical reasons for viewing work as a transformative activity. The movement of the booklet is outwards, like ripples from a stone thrown into water, from the initial case study through specific practical lessons to a way of transformative working and on to a set of biblical reasons for transformative working.

Work is where many of us spend 60-70% of our lives. If our faith is to affect the whole of our lives then it has to impact on the work that we do. There are many opportunities within all our workplaces for that to occur and this booklet aims to highlight where some of those opportunities are and how we can grasp them for God.

Christians in the Workplace

Ever wondered whether your work matters to God? Ever wondered why you spend 60-70% of your waking life at work? Ever wondered what your work is for? Ever wanted to make connections between your faith and your work but have never heard work discussed seriously in your Church?

If you have thought any of these things, then the Christians in the Workplace resource pack is for you. It is full of ideas, information, stories, resources and study materials that will help you (and your parish or workplace) explore these and many other questions about being a Christian in the workplace.

The resource pack takes a broad non-prescriptive view of what being a Christian at work can mean by exploring ethics, mission, spirituality, transformation, values and witness among others issues and approaches.

The Christians in the Workplace Resource Pack includes leader's notes and resources, course outlines, photocopiable handouts for participants and a CD-Rom containing all the course material. The pack costs £10 and is available from:

The Diocesan Resource Centre
Diocesan Office
53 New Street
Chelmsford
Essex
CM1 1AT
Tel: 01245 294405
Email: jjones@chelmsford.anglican.org

Fight for Freedom

The latest Fight for Freedom campaign email from Anti-Slavery International suggests two ways of getting involved in tackling slavery today.

Undocumented North Korean migrants to China are being deported back to North Korea where they are held in prison camps and subjected to forced labour. Detainees are forced to carry out work such as farming, logging, and quarrying, working long hours without restdays. They are frequently beaten and subject to degrading treatment and punishment. Click here to write to the Chinese authorities to ask them to stop returning undocumented migrants to North Korea. You can read background information on forced labour in North Korea here.

Our Government has proposed changes to the domestic worker visa, in line with their immigration proposals published earlier this year. These include putting domestic workers on their employer's visa, restricting their stay to a maximum of six months, and removing their right to change employers. This amounts to a dramatic reversal of policies to give some protection to migrant domestics, which the Government introduced after coming to power, in 1998. The proposed changes would have a devastating effect on all migrant domestic workers currently in the UK and all newly arriving domestic workers to the UK. They would take away the rights of these workers, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, and effectively legalising trafficking.

Early Day Motion 860 asks for the Government to drop the proposals and retain the current provisions. An Early Day Motion (EDM) operates like a petition for MPs and will run until the current session of Parliament ends in the autumn. If you are in the UK, you can write to your MP and ask them to sign EDM 860. You can find out who your MP is and email him/her at theyworkforyou.com.

Faith Communities Navigator

Last night's Faith Regen Foundation dinner provided the first information about the Faith Communities Navigator; an exciting resource for organisations in the private, public and voluntary sectors that want to know more about the lives, beliefs and values of the UK's diverse faith communities.

The Navigator is a user-friendly 'map and compass' to guide people through the diversity of the UK's faith communities. The availability of Bronze, Silver and Gold editions, makes the Navigator a set of tools available to all, regardless of budget and tailored to specific organisational need.

In these times of increased population movement movement, high media interest, international conflict, increased secularism and, for many, a search for the spiritual, there has never been a more important time to explore, understand and appreciate our faith communities. Faith represents for many people, a guiding set of values and principles by which they live, for others it offers a sense of community and the glue by which disparate social, ethnic, linguistic or economic groups might be held together with a common foundation of ethics and beliefs. In engaging with our colleagues, customers, neighbours and friends, an appreciation of what their faith may mean to them brings potential advantage to all and contributes to increased social harmony.

Celebrating success

Last night I was at a celebratory dinner for Faith Regen Foundation. The evening was a celebration of their recent achievements in projects to reach out to black and ethnic minority communities, support business start-up's, and achieve better futures for unemployed women from these communities. With a varied programme that reflected the multi-faith nature of FRF's work and partners the evening was an enjoyable and inspiring occasion. A gospel choir, a nasheed singer, and a group of young people (on a UK visit from FRF's Bosnia project) each entertained us in turn with music and song.

The keynote speaker was Jim Murphy MP, Minister of State for Employment & Welfare Reform. In an unscripted and engagingly human talk, Jim Murphy reminded us of the opportunity that exists to do away with child poverty and to achieve full employment for all. He spoke about the way in which change can be achieved relatively quickly citing the experience of his family from his grandfather, as a Murphy, facing 'No Irish need apply' signs at the shipyards in Glasgow to today when a Murphy is Minister of State for Employment. He gave examples of individuals that he had met who had brought a spark of life back into the lives of those who had given up hope and said that this is often what people of faith achieve. Success is not about graphs and statistics but about empowering people for changed lives. He wants to expand the involvement of faith groups, charities and voluntary organisations in achieving full employment and ending child poverty through greater opportunities and more resources.