As a person who considers themselves to be active in and passionate about social justice, when the Jubilee+ conference information floated into my inbox earlier this summer, I was beyond excited. The details of the day read to me like the description of the best day ever! A day surrounded by like-minded people, discussing how we can make a genuine impact in our communities and maybe even a bookstall? I was sold. I bought my ticket, along with a few others from our church and waited (im)patiently for the day to come. ‘Churches that Change Communities: Standing in the Gap’ did not fail to deliver on my excitement and even the terrible weather couldn’t dampen my spirits. From the moment we arrived, the air was filled with the anticipation of being inspired and refreshed. I’d like to take you on a journey through some of my highlights of the day and perhaps inspire you to join me there next year.
After a time of worship led by the very talented Jess Debenham and the Emmanuel band, Natalie Williams, CEO of Jubilee+ kicked off the proceedings with the first keynote speech of the day. The statistics surrounding poverty and injustice are stark and, as Natalie says, it would be very easy to drown under them. However, these numbers, combined with a passion for carrying out God’s work is what propels us onward. We must never become immune to the reality of poverty and injustice in our land. The Guardian recently reported that over 1 million children are currently living in destitution and the gap between the rich and the poor is only getting wider, not smaller.
I loved Natalies metaphor of being in the ‘family business’. We the church co-labour with him, we construct, we restore, we renew. We get to stand in the gap and help people with both their immediate and eternal crisis. Isaiah 58:6-12 provides us with a rally cry “...to loose the chains of injustice... set the oppressed free... share your food with the hungry... provide the poor wanderer with shelter... to clothe the naked” (my paraphrase) and this comes with a promise that he will “guide us always”. This of course is the key. Natalie reminded us all that this starts with our own hearts, because after all what sets us apart from the many excellent, non-church based social justice programmes? Our social action must ultimately point to Jesus. I found this to be so encouraging and reflected that in collaboration with the Holy Spirit, social action rooted in Jesus takes the concept of a ‘holistic’ approach to a whole new level.
Natalie wrapped up the keynote with the Christian social activists dream verse from Micah 6:8, to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. It is easy to get angry and despair about the atrocities and injustices we see both at home and abroad. In fact, the Holy Spirit compels us to cry out in righteous anger against these things. However, as Christians we are called to hold it well and build bridges. The mistake we often make as humans is to feel that justice cannot co-exist with mercy and yet here Jesus is, demonstrating exactly that. None of us deserve mercy but it is freely offered. It takes humility to recognise we don’t have all the answers, so we must imitate Christ as he’s the only one who does.
There were a number of amazing seminars to attend on the day in-between the keynotes. As a particular passion of mine, I chose to attend the ‘Violence Against Women’ session. This is a topic close to my heart and probably the thing I am most vocal about both on social media and in conversation with anyone who stands still long enough (sorry, not sorry!). The session was led by Rosie Hopley, founder of Christian charity ‘Beloved’, offering loving support to women working in the sex industry in Bristol. The beauty of this session was in the insistence that we must bring this topic into the light and teach the ‘whole’ of scripture and that involves the telling of stories. One way we can demonstrate that churches are a safe place for women experiencing violence is by talking about it. Violence against women has long been shrouded in shame and silence. Violence against women is brought into the open when we read in the Bible about the unnamed concubine and the rape of Tamar. It is not left unspoken in scripture and was intended to shine a light on those experiencing it.
The distressing fact is that there will be women in our church who have been affected by violence and may have never felt able to speak about it. A third of all women have experienced some form of domestic abuse by an intimate partner. Globally one woman is killed every 11 minutes at the hands of an intimate partner or family member. In the UK 2-3 women are killed every week. 11% of UK and European women have experienced sexual violence and half of all women have experienced some form of sexual harassment. These crimes also disproportionately affect women and girls who live in poverty and suffer other socio-injustices. It would be naïve to assume that the church body is immune to this and movements such as #ChurchToo evidenced this where it was seen that Christian women were more likely to stay in abusive marriages. This November sees a global period of social action against Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), from 25th Nov to 10th December and it would be good to see Christian voices in the midst of it.
Rosie interviewed Claudine Roberts, author of brand-new bible study ‘Violence Against Women: Discovering El Roi, the God who sees’. It was a particular joy for me to see Claudine as we recently started using her study guide in our midweek life group. I would like to say that I was super cool when I spoke to her but that’s unlikely to be true! To chat with her about this topic and her study guide was a real privilege.
The last keynote of the day was led by Kemi and Topi Koleoso, leaders at Jubilee Church London. Topi provided us with an incredible encouragement and exhortation to hear and obey Gods voice in our social action. It is easy to become distracted and to become dependent on our own ability and experience. This may get us so far, but we will miss out on the strategy of the Holy Spirit, and we end up being a ‘first responder’ weighed down by pragmatism and the mountainous task ahead. For me this really linked back to Natalies comments about rooting our action in Christ. There is no substitute for the voice of God and the oil we need in our lamps to be ever ready is the Holy Spirit. As Topi says: “We aren’t intended to burn out, we are intended to burn bright”.
The day was bookended by more worship, interspersed with intense social action conversations over coffee and lunch with friends and meeting many really inspiring people. I even bought a couple of books, so maybe a review will make it onto this blog at some point in the future. I came away from the day feeling energised for the future work ahead and encouraged to be part of such a strong social action community. Roll on next year.
by Michelle Tant
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