A deepening relationship and a letter of support This week we are celebrating some of the stories of congregations from our churches who have taken up the challenge to meet their local MP. Each congregation was able to demonstrate their concerns for the local area, express their hopes and …
Asylum and Migration
Meet Your MP – Adventures in Asking & Action (Day 2)
“Our MP helped increase the places offered to Syrian refugees.” This week we are celebrating some of the stories of congregations from our churches who have taken up the challenge to meet their local MP. Each congregation was able to demonstrate their concerns for the local area, express …
Refugee Week – More than Welcome
What’s your idea of Heaven? A feast? A place where people of many languages live in harmony? Where tears are wiped away? Where problems fade and disappear? A place of welcome, peace and joy? Today I visited the Avenue Multicultural Centre (AMC) in Southampton, a weekly event for asylum …
Sanctuary Sunday
17–23 June is Refugee Week, and churches are encouraged to mark Sanctuary Sunday on 23 June. In a guest blog, Revd Inderjit Bhogal argues that welcoming outsiders should be core to Christian discipleship “In a world of hostility there is a counter-cultural gospel summons to practice …
Why work should be part of welcome
Over the last six weeks, our series of blogs have been exploring what it means to offer a welcoming environment to refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants. Today, Simeon Mitchell argues that giving people seeking asylum the right to work should be part of offering a proper welcome to those …
The Power of Seeing People Complexly: reflections after visiting Calais
In the latest blog in our series on creating a welcoming environment, Bethan writes about her experience of spending a week in Calais with a group from St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, working with the organisations Help Refugees and Refugee Community Kitchen. In recent weeks, …
Rain no barrier to integration of New Scots
In the latest blog about creating a welcoming environment, Sabine Chalmers of Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees writes about the Edinburgh Weekend Club, a regular social integration event for refugees. It was a horrible morning – cold and pouring with rain – and my mind was spinning. We …
Welcoming all: a view from Malta
Having spent years talking about and visiting foodbanks, I didn’t imagine that the first time I would work in one it would be in Valletta, the capital city of Malta. Malta is a popular holiday destination for many British people. But its place in the middle of the Mediterranean means that it has …
An Epiphany Prayer
Epiphany God, As we reflect today on how a major incident involving migrants brings Christmas to an abrupt end, we pray for your world. God whose light draws travellers, be with all who journey seeking something better whether by camel, carload or dinghy. God of the truth-seekers, save …
Jesus the migrant: a reflection for the Feast of the Holy Innocents
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by …