Archbishop of Canterbury's Eid message

The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued his annual greeting to Muslim friends and fellow workers on the occasion of Id Al-Fitr 2011.

In the message Dr Williams pays tribute to Tariq Jahan, father of Haroon Jahan, for his immense dignity in calling for peace after his son's death in the unrest in Birmingham earlier this month. Referring to Mr Haroon's words as 'a gift in Ramadan', The Archbishop says Mr Haroon was 'able to give voice to the conscience of Britain in a way that people of all faiths and none could recognize'.

The Archbishop reminds us that as the Prophet Jeremiah's called for people to pray for peace and well being on the city in which they lived so we should remember that our peace and security is bound up with that of our neighbours and that God is concerned for the peace of all.

Read the full text here

Conference on Inter-faith Relationships

Explore how Christians can relate and work with people of other faiths.

The Conference is jointly hosted by Faithful Friends and The Rt Revd. David Hawkins, Bishop of Barking who will introduce the day.

Faithful Friends which has been working to build friendships between people of different faiths in Forest Gate, East London for a number of years.

Fr Barnabas Matloob and Revd Pat Mossop will give an account of its development. The theology behind this ministry will be considered by Revd Chigor Chike and Mr Andy Lie.

Partner members of Faithful Friends who will offer their experience of the value of working in this way include Alama Sadiq Querish (Muslim) , Dr Muhammad Nqvi (Muslim) Talok Singh Sura (Sikh) Sheikh Adul Karim (muslim and Sampath Kumah (Hindu). This will be followed by a question and answer session.

Lunch is provided and Halal food will be available.

Afternoon speakers include Dr Philip Lewis who will share his experience and expertise on Christian Muslim realtionships in Bradford and nationally.

Thursday 22nd September

Venue: Emmanuel Church, Forest Gate E7 8BD
Time: 10.30am - 3.30pm
Booking and further information:
The Revd Chigor Chike 07905155494 or chigor.chike@cky.com

August Update

We did think about having a month off from blog updates in August but there is so much going on in September it needs publicising NOW! So from the top.......... picture credit John Furse, Cley Norfolk

Thursday 1st September 7 - 9.30pm, St Mark's Myddleton Square London EC1R 1XX. Fr Laurence Freeman (Director of Meditatio - the outreach of The World Community for Christian Meditation) in conversation with Lama Geshi Tashi who is from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. They will consider the topic Emptiness and Poverty of Spirit: What Christians and Buddhists can learn from each other.

Saturday 10th September 2 - 5pm hosted by St Ethelburga's and St Barnabas Community Fete The Human Library - don't take out a book take out a person, and hear their story (bring 'em back after half an hour!). The venue is ‘Bowstock’ on Wennington Green, at the crossroads of Roman Road and Grove Road, E3. This is 7 mins walk from Mile End tube station (Central line, District line & Hammersmith and City line). See also events on StEthelburg's website.
Also on Saturday 10th September The Asian Mission Partnership day trailed in our July Update.

Sunday 11th September Ten years on from 9/11 The Awareness Foundation has called for this to be Awareness Sunday, a time for remembrance, reconciliation and renewed efforts to build reatlionships between the faiths. Also see the Foundation's website for details of the screenings of the film Aaks Al Seir (Against the Current) on 10th & 15th September.
Sunday 11th September is also Racial Justice Sunday for which posters and resources can be downloaded from the CTBI website. This years theme is on tackling human trafficking.

Monday 12th September - Friday 23rd September 10am - 6pm London Inter Faith Centre’s Art of Identity Project -London teenagers from across five world religions explore aspects of their identity, including faith, through the visual arts. The exhibition at Lumen URC Centre, 88Tavistock Place, WC1

Wednesday 14th September 6.05pm, St Mary le Bow. The monthly JustShare lecture on Christian Social & Political Thought will address the subject: ‘What has the Bible ever done for us? The influence of the Bible on British Politics’, and will be given by Nick Spencer of Theos.

Saturday 17th September Commisson4Mission study day on the value of public art at St Paul's College Square, Harlow CM20 1LP - with input from the Bishop of Barking and a cream tea! Details in the Commission4Mission blog or contact jonathan.evens@btinternet.com
Also on art and faith on Saturday 17th September - 29th October Come and See Chislehurst, a chance to see The Methodist Art Collection in the newly refurbished Chislehurst Methodist Church.

Monday 19th September 7.00 - 8.30pm The St Martin in the Fields 2011/12 Education Programme kicks off this year's theme Radical Compassion, the Gospel and Social Justice with a talk by Nicholas Sagovsky on Compassion and Justice.

Wednesday 21st September, 10am - 4pm Toynbee Hall. Religious diversity in modern Britain: how an history inform the present? The Rt Rev Adrian Newman, Bishop of Stepney is amongst the speakers. Again trailed in the July Update

Thursday 22nd September 10.30am - 3.30pm Conference on Inter-faith Relationships hosted by Faithful Friends and The Bishop of Barking at Emmanuel Church, Forest Gate. See seperate blog for details.

Saturday 24th September 10am - 1pm The Christian Council for Monetary Justice CCMJ event for Moving Planet day at St James Piccadilly - Identifying money power; behind climate change. Contact peterchallen@gmail.com for details and booking.

Monday 26th September 6.00 - 9.00pm at The Royal Foundation of St Katharine E14 8DS Faith and Food Growing, a Networking Event for Capital Growth with input on how to start a food growing project, container and seasonal gardening.

Thursday 29th September Trustee Fair training and advice event for charity trustees. See July Update

And looking on in to October ..............
Friday 7th October 10.30am - 3.30pm This year's National Estate Churches Network (NECN) conference will be held at Carrs Lane Church, Birmingham on the theme Knocked About but not Beaten Doreen Massey will be speaking.

Saturday 8th October and Sunday 9th October The Christian Muslim Forum conference for teachers and teaching assistants in all curriculum areas Belief and Being in School II at the Methodist International Centre NW1 2EZ.

For those interested in Creative Arts in Worship Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th October at The Hayes, Swanick ArtServe's Annual Conference; Discovering Gifts, Discovering God
And a really advance notice for International Conference on Multi-Faith Spaces 21st – 22nd March 2012, University of Manchester. Further details can be found at www.manchester.ac.uk/mfs

Other News
The Awareness Foundation recently launched a new resource Speak Out - How to Articulate Your Faith and Why. More details from St John Wright on 020 7730 8830 or email him at education@awareness-foundation.

Conflict and Change have published dates for their courses this Autumn. Courses are free to those in Newham or available at a special rate to those in neighbouring boroughs. They are happy to negotiate a charge for coming to your area with their expertise.

Last month we recommended checking out the blog of London Boroughs Faiths Network They have just put up the film clip of waltham Forest's Inter Faith Pilgrimage. We plan to add the film clip to the PEN website as part of a longer item on the Forest Women's Interfaith Network a member group of WIN.

Job Opportunity
Milton Keynes is looking for a Director of Ecumenical Mission. The closing date is 7th October so plenty of time to pass on details to anyone you think might be interested. The profile, information and application form are all available from the CTE website

Ten things churches can do about unemployment a resource document published by the London Church Leaders Group

Further responses to London Riots

The clearing up process continues and the comment becomes more reflective. There are also more stories of how churches and individuals responded across Greater London.

The Bishop of Barking noted "As well as being shocking the events of this past fortnight has also been inspiring and heart-warming. I refer to the instinctive response of the majority of the population who have demonstrated kindness, generosity and voluntary service to their stricken communities. It has been evident that in many cases our Church and faith communities have been at the forefront of this neighbourliness One example has been the Welcome Centre at St Mary’s Walthamstow which opened two hours after a request from our local MP and has provided a café and respite centre for Waltham Forest Police. This follows the closure of Police Canteens in the Borough because of cuts. At its peak the centre served 240 meals in an evening and provided overnight accommodation for Police on long shifts. Ironically the initiative was organised on twitter and brought volunteers from all over London to assist including many who were not church members."

St Peter's Walworth had sixty people to turn up to a meeting where they celebrated what they valued about the area and created some bunting to liven things up! (See picture above) St John at Hackney had over three hundred people at a tea party to reassert community spirit.

Walls of peace and positive messages have been a response in Peckham and Woolwich where Danny Mercer also reminded the community not to prejudge young people.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have both spoken of a need to communicate right and wrong through nourishing relationships. The Chief Rabbi has also commented and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg offers and interesting reflection on the significance of the time of year in the Jewish calendar.

We are already hearing of plans to accentuate the positive about our communities in the coming months perhaps in conjunction with Peace Week at the end of September.

Talking about relationships, our sister blog on The Contextual Theology Centre website Faithful Citizens has rounded up some comments and reflections. The CTC twitter feed has further updates from affected churches and links to more reflections.

London riots

In the midst of the violence and destruction of the past few nights, London's churches have been places of comfort, prayer and hope.  It is at moments like these that the church's local presence and engagement is most severely tested.  It has borne striking fruit.  Here are just a few of the stories from parishes on the front line:

• In Tottenham, St Mary the Virgin on Lansdowne Road has been helping those whose homes and businesses have been affected by the rioting - including distributing meals and providing hot water and mobile phone charging for those left without electricity, to ensure they can remain in touch with loved ones. Churches in Tottenham united with representatives of other faiths at a 300-strong prayer vigil for peace addressed by the Bishop of Edmonton 
• The role of social media in the riots and the responses has been much discussed. On Twitter, as the riots were at their worst, #prayforlondon overtook #londonriots as the most common 'tag' for comments. Churches such as St Peter's Walworth (http://twitter.com/stpeterwalworth) were tweeting prayer requests and using social media to advertise the times at which the church would be open for prayer.  Like many other churches in riot-hit areas, they also played a key role in the #riotclearup
• In Hackney, Fr Rob Wickham and the new Bishop of Stepney were on the streets helping those they could as panic and disorder spread. Yesterday, Bishop Adrian preached at a solidarity service at St John-at-Hackney.  Hundreds of people gathered - many of them young people who are involved in London Citizens' CitySafe initiative (see this feature on the main PEN website).  A similar gathering in Watney Market was chaired by St Paul's Shadwell ordinand Jude Padfield, and drew together over 200 people from local churches and Dar Ul Ummah and East London Mosques.  In both cases, the central role of churches in the community response grow out of their ongoing commitment to building relationships and trust across faiths, cultures and age-groups (see, for example, these Jellicoe blogs from Shadwell and Hackney)
• This ongoing work is vital as extreme groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) seek to foment division at a time when there has been a striking unity across faiths and communities in cleaning up and working and praying for peace.  The Bishop of Stepney and Area Dean Alan Green have played a key role in the campaign to stop the EDL marching in Tower Hamlets - another area where prayer is urgently needed.
• There is up-to-date news of vigils for peace, practical support and advice for churches, and messages from the Bishops in a special section of the Diocese of London Website, with a message from the Bishop of Southwark (the CofE's Bishop for Urban Life & Faith) and news of prayer vigils on the Southwark website. Today's speech by Archbishop Rowan in the House of Lords is also online.

Do keep on contacting us - whether with stories to share, or requests for advice and for prayer. We will be blogging and Tweeting on the longer-term issues and how Christians can best respond and bear witness to the Gospel of hope and of peace.

Almighty God and Lord of life,
we pray for the peace and flourishing of our city.
Protect the weak and vulnerable,
comfort all who have lost homes and businesses,
protect and guide the emergency services;
and all for your name’s sake. Amen