More than 250 people braved the snow in Manchester, on 17 March, to attend the Joint Public Issues Team (JPIT) conference ‘Brave New World? Faithful living in a time of change.’ Simeon Mitchell, the United Reformed Church’s new Secretary for Church and Society, shares insights on the day.
The conference, held at Methodist Central Hall, was organised by the JPIT team, which is made up of four church denominations – the URC, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Church of Scotland.
Having recently become a member of JPIT, in my role as Secretary for Church and Society, I was enormously encouraged by the response to the event. There was a tangible buzz as people from different places and backgrounds discovered their common interests and shared their excitement about ideas and hopes for the future. It was wonderful to meet so many church members who shared a burning desire for justice and a willingness to play their part in bringing about a better world.
It was great to see the URC’s poet-minister, the Revd Lucy Berry, perform live at the event. She was poet-in-residence to the conference, and drew the event to a close delighting the hall with her witty and poignant verses that reflected on the themes of the day in her poem entitled ‘Ideas, like doves’.
Keynote speakers included Labour MP, Stella Creasy (pictured, left) who said we needed to accept we live in an age of change, illustrating the point that she had ‘jumpers older than the internet’. She encouraged the audience to not be daunted by this, but respond with courage and compassion to bring about justice in society, pointing out that ‘Jesus was a man of change’, who did just this.
Peter Oborne, columnist for the Daily Mail (pictured, far right), revealed he had recently become a convert to the importance of tackling climate change. Political leaders, he argued, had systematically failed to take it seriously. ‘You can’t send a battleship to fight climate change,’ he said. ‘And that’s what politicians want to do.’
He also shared his concerns about Islamophobia in British society and more widely, and called for more honesty in talking about immigration.
Practical workshops enabled participants to engage more deeply with a wide range of issues facing society, including poverty and Universal Credit, ethical investment, hate crime, peace-making, and the new challenges faced by the younger generation.
In a workshop on ‘creating a culture of welcome’, members of Wilbraham St Ninian’s URC, in Chorlton, Manchester, shared their experiences of welcoming asylum seekers and refugees into their congregation.
Later in the day, Sally Foster-Fulton, Head of Christian Aid Scotland, gave a rousing biblical reflection on the theme of ‘subversive wisdom’. She encouraged members of the audience to take risks and join in with the irrepressible growth of God’s kingdom.
Learn more about the United Reformed Church and Society department here or for more information on Simeon’s role within JPIT click here.
Picture: From left to right, Stella Creasy, Doug Swanney, Connexional Secretary of the Methodist Church, and Peter Oborne.
