Julian Chapman is a retired civil servant, a member of Canterbury Baptist Church and recent chair of the Canterbury Christian Aid group.
“I previously associated Christian Aid with fundraising. We traditionally focused on Christian Aid Week...”
But Julian wanted to lead the group into more campaigning work.
“I heard Christian Aid’s call to get more involved in campaigning, an idea relatively new to me. My eyes were steadily opened. I started to read my Bible in a new way. God’s love is not only about salvation but also about justice and righteousness.”
“Once we took the time to look more systematically at campaigning our group really started to focus on it.”
Soon, the Canterbury Christian Aid group agreed to hold a screening of the film The Tinderbox – an exploration of the conflict between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
“We got together a great panel who would share their reflections on the film. This included the film’s director, a respected Rabbi, Muslim academic and member of Christian Aid’s Middle East team. The day of the event we woke up to awful stormy weather, and I admit I did wonder if anyone would turn up! But in fact, we had 118 people!”
Meg
Meg Thomas first got involved with Christian Aid via our Prophetic Activist network – empowering young adults around the UK who are determined to put their faith into action.
She’s since launched a local organising group in Leeds called The Compassion Project, fundraised for Palestine, and led workshops on prison abolition.
Meg won the ‘Prophetic Activism’ award at a ceremony earlier this year to recognise and honour the impact of ordinary Christians across the UK and offered this powerful reflection at our Powered by Hope event in Manchester, back in October.
David Blackmore and his family moved from a busy inner-city church to a small rural congregation some years ago. Noticing a lack of younger families attending, he started a monthly all age service to much success. This grew over time, and the church began fundraising for Christian Aid, most recently raising a staggering £2700.
But it wasn’t just fundraising success that David and his church have focused on of late.
In a recent interview on United Christian Broadcasters David shared how campaigning with Christian Aid has become an important part of putting his faith into action. Hear how the Restore campaign has seen his campaigning journey deepen this year.
Eileen and Gethin
Back in July over 5000 people attended the ‘Act Now Change Forever’ mass lobby of parliament to push the UK government for bold leadership to address the climate crisis. Amongst the attendees were Eileen Newington and Gethin Rhys from Beulah United Reformed Church in Cardiff.
Gethin retired recently and Eileen is the church rep for Beulah URC. The eco church group had been having trouble getting in touch with their MP, so they decided to attend the mass lobby to get some face-to-face time.
It was here that they finally met with their local MP Anna McMorrin, to talk about climate finance and debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries - the twin issues of our Restore campaign. This quality time with their MP (they spoke for 40 mins) paid off with Ms. McMorrin agreeing to take action.
MPs work for you. Eileen and Gethin show us the power of dedicated lobbying - seeking those who hold power and encouraging them to work for a more just world.
