My name is Thomas, and I am a JPIT intern for 2025-6, working on the Constituency Action Network amongst other things! I grew up in the Anglican church, in a family that considered Christianity and social justice to be like cheese and biscuits; good on their own, in another league when paired together! I studied Politics, Sociology and Anthropology at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where I was part of the chapel community and the Prayer Officer for Cambridge Student Christian Movement, as well as some refugee, Palestine and climate justice work. Oh and the degree itself, where possible!
I come to JPIT from a year as a Live In Care Assistant with L’Arche UK in Canterbury, a charity building communities with people with and without learning disabilities. I lived in a care home with other assistants and some of our core members, L’Arche’s term for people with learning disabilities.
This experience has shaped my relationship with God and my interests in public issues, and I could feel myself being transformed on several occasions, especially Christmas Day. Christmas in L’Arche is very busy, and Christmas Dinner a key focal point. With some last minute additions making it 23 (!) for dinner in Faith House where I lived, and our designated chef out of action with flu, I found myself preparing and cooking 2 turkeys and a cross-cultural assortment of dishes with the key deadline of 3pm, and was utterly overwhelmed!
Despite the kitchen being full of busy people, I felt pretty alone as dishes burnt and the clock ticked forwards, and I became far too focused on the food, the drinks, the table presentation and decoration… As the doorbell rang, in that moment I wanted nothing to do with community! And yet, as our guests arrived with smiles and joy and Christmas pudding, I felt the Holy Spirit reminding me of the beauty of a full table and the value of being together[1], with and without learning disabilities.[2]
My experience of community in this and many other moments in L’Arche carries over to JPIT. The Constituency Action Network aims to help churches engage relationally with their MPs, building long lasting ties and a rapport that lasts well after the election. The power of a local congregation to involve their MP in their ministry and outreach takes social action into social justice on a wide variety of public issues, and can support a church’s internal and outward-facing cohesion and direction.
It can be so overwhelming to look out at our world and its many, seemingly ever present problems and injustices. We wonder, where can we start? What can we, a minority faith in this country, engage in? When I feel like this, I try to reset the frame, and remember the spiritual and nourishing power of belonging to an active and purposeful community. I remember that we are working step by step locally to enact God’s kingdom on earth, through our foodbanks, warm spaces, debt counselling. This can only be enhanced with building a relationship with our local MP.
We see the hijacking of Christian rhetoric and symbolism by those wishing to turn away the stranger and the migrant[3]. We see poverty and injustice in the UK and elsewhere being neglected and forgotten in public discourse. And we also may feel a glint of hopeful change in the quiet uptick in interest in Christianity we see statistically and on the ground.
To balance these emotions and contradictions we hold can be tough, and my hope for my time with JPIT is to ground myself in the concrete steps of advocacy and relationship building, which our churches do have the power to take. I particularly look forward to the Justice conference on 8 November to frame these small scale actions as leading to the transformations of our world that God aches for.
[1] Acts 2: 42-47
[2] I wrote a blog about this for L’Arche if you’d like to read further
[3] Reach out in peace: Positive preparation for times of unrest – Joint Public Issues Team
