 As of November 2018, we now have seventeen Street Pastors, including our three new ones who having been out as observers have now begun to be officially part of the team going out on patrol.
It’s encouraging to see different groups coming together to help our Community. Rumba restaurant, now established on Swan Bank, provides a good stop in order to connect with people.
New volunteers are always welcome, especially for Street Pastors. If you’d like to volunteer for the Street Pastors please contact Revd Andrew Lindley and for the Prayer Pastors please contact Anne Argent.
Read more: Congleton Street Pastors and Prayer Pastors
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JPIT have produced a briefing note in which they identify specific steps we can all take to reduce the carbon footprint.
Personal Steps, e.g. specific green energy providers you can swap to;
Church Steps, e.g.score your church overall, such as its management of buildings and land;
National Steps, e.g. join the campaign to get your MP to be a 'Hero for Zero';
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A Circuit Together event was held in February 2018 at Trinity Methodist Church, to celebrate and give thanks for seven Local Preachers with a total of 275 years service.
The event started in the afternoon with a workshop led by Rachel Lampard, past Vice-President of the Methodist Church and who is currently Team Leader of the Joint Public Issues Team, churches working for peace and justice. see http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk
The workshop was entitled “Politics is too important to be left to politicians and political parties! What can WE do?”. Rachel was engaging and enlightening and the workshop was enjoyed and appreciated by over 40 participants.
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Read more: 275 Years of Preaching!
![causing poverty and inequality [JPIT]](/images/dtmc_images/news_images/poverty-inequality_JPIT.jpg "causing poverty and inequality [JPIT]")
Increasing hunger by design
The churches of JPIT (Joint Public Issues Team) are concerned that the design of the Government's new Universal Credit system does not sufficiently take into account the lives, skills and resources of the least well off, and as a result will lead to greater debt, poverty and exclusion. We believe it should be paused until these design and implementation flaws are rectified.
For example, the design assumes substantial savings, access to IT, IT literacy and a monthly salary. Early data on Universal Credit trials and job outcomes was based only on single people without children who were fit and ready for work.
Read the JPIT briefing paper and if you feel something needs to be done about it please sign the petition.
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David Bradwell, refugee co-ordinator for 'Scottish Churches Action for Refugees', is visiting Lampedusa, and Italian Island near the north African coast, to take part in a Protestant churches' conference on borders and to attend a service commemorating the thousands of people drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach safety. He has sent his reflections....
I've seen more police than I would have expected for a community of just a few thousand inhabitants. They are a reminder that tiny Lampedusa is now at the vortex of global forces driving displacement.
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| Before I came to Lampedusa, the conference had been taking place in Sicily for the previous few days. For many centuries Sicily has been a border place where cultures and people meet – Etruscans, Greeks, Normans, Spanish and many others. The border was not a barrier but a place of exchange: a meeting place where diversity is an everyday reality of life. Today the border has become a barrier, a wall which has a purpose to keep people out. |
Read more: Lampedusa: Borders and Refugees
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