As the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd approaches, the United Reformed Church (URC) has published a new collection of praise songs and protest, Sunflowers & Thistles.

Written by the Revd John Campbell, Minister of High Cross URC, Tottenham, the book of 36 songs was inspired by the global Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests and devastating impact of Covid 19.

Available to download for free from www.urc.org.uk/sunflowers-and-thistles, John explains how it became important for him to express the emotions of his congregation:

The United Reformed Church has become a founding member of new campaign coalition Together With Refugees.

The coalition, made up of more than 100 national, local, refugee-led and grassroots groups, calls for a better approach to supporting refugees that is kinder, fairer and more effective, and believes in showing compassion to people fleeing war, persecution or violence. 

The URC General Assembly Moderators joined 450 academics, politicians, charities, faith leaders, and healthcare workers on 10 May to urge the prime minister to waive vaccine patents.

In an open letter, organised by Global Justice Now, STOPAIDS, and Just Treatment, the group called on Boris Johnson to "stand on the right side of history". 

The letter urged the UK to follow the US example which saw the Biden administration announce on 5 May that it would support a waiver to help scale up global vaccine production to produce safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines for all people, in all countries.