Displaying items by tag: United Kingdom

Lord Farmer, a committed Christian, has called for the appointment creation of a ‘minister for family breakdown’ to tackle the huge problems facing the nation. He grew up in a chaotic family with alcoholic parents but became a successful businessman. In a newspaper article he refers to the ‘devastating effect of family breakdown upon the lives of young people that affect their ability to succeed in life.’ He said that all government departments experience the cost of family breakdown, and all political parties are guilty of causing the current problems. Some people say there is nothing wrong with the family; it has just changed to first marriages, remarriages, cohabiting couples, lone-mother families, lone-father families, stepfamilies, multi-parent families and multi-sibling families. Lord Farmer said these ‘reconstituted’ families not only place a stress on the adults involved, but have strongly negative effects upon the children, in terms of health, education, peer group relationships and life chances.

There are 13,000 slaves in Britain. Many argue there are many more. Those who escape suffer post-traumatic stress disorders. Many fear the police. Trust is so eroded that some are afraid to engage with charities. P worked twelve-hour days at a car wash after a ‘friend’ offered him the job. He soon discovered he wouldn't get paid. Worse was to come. The house he'd been placed in was guarded by two or three big men who took his phone and threatened to kill him if he tried to escape. One night when his guards were drunk he ran to the police. He now works in the Co-op’s ‘Bright Futures’ scheme, which helps survivors of modern slavery into work. Slavery survivors are given a four-week work placement, which ends in a non-competitive interview. If both parties are happy there is a full-time job on offer.

Lunchtime services are held every Tuesday in a chapel at the Houses of Parliament. These are times created to give our politicians an opportunity for Christian reflection in the midst of a challenging and busy parliamentary life. We can pray for a powerful outpouring of God's Holy Spirit to envelop all who attend these meetings. May the guest speakers deliver timely, inspired encouragement in these days of political change and challenges. The next meeting, on 16 January, will have as its theme, ‘Who is welcome in the Kingdom of God?’ May many who are with or without faith hear this message and perceive God’s personal call on their lives. The theme on 23 January is ‘What is the key to intimacy with God?’ Pray for our parliamentarians to be freed up and enabled to create space to hear God’s whisper designed exclusively for them.

The following is based on prayers originally written in 2011, as part of a visual prayer resource on the UK National Health Service. It is time to pray for our NHS, particularly concerns over the future of the service due to budget cuts and reforms, reports of insufficient funding, accommodation and care and respect for elderly and increasing hospital admissions resulting from alcohol-related illnesses. Pray for more recognition and support to be given to the huge numbers of health professionals making life-changing decisions for the sick and vulnerable who come into their care daily. Pray for God to give His wisdom to our government, health professionals, and advisers as they seek the right reforms. Ask that our health service managers may prosper our doctors and nurses to care, to excel, and to bring healing. May our nation understand, thank, and honour those who seek to bring us health.

The Agricultural Christian Fellowship recently noted that we live in days of constant change, and uncertainty is the norm. They discussed reshaping British farming during exceptionally difficult times, and establishing sustainable farming to preserve this green and pleasant land for generations to come. In our cities and towns Railway Mission workers offer friendship and a listening ear to anyone connected with our nation’s railways. Their website states, ‘Hit a rough patch? Need someone to talk to? Railway Mission offers support on the whole of life’s journey, especially during the bumps in the road.’ On the canal systems of the United Kingdom we have the little-known Canal Ministries. These are people living on narrowboats and bringing the Gospel to the UK’s inland waterways. The Waterways Chaplaincy also offers support to the floating community. Pray for many divine appointments in the coming year. See also

It is hoped that 1.2 million Underground passengers will notice new posters inviting them to find out more about Jesus by taking an Alpha course. The banners will appear for two weeks on staircases, escalators, and platforms at 400 different locations. Alpha’s marketing and communications officer said that the beginning of January is a ‘natural’ time of year to highlight the evangelistic programme.

Theresa May has pledged to eradicate all avoidable plastic waste in the UK by 2042. But green groups say the proposals will have no legal force. For new proposals to work, they need to be put into law. Under the government's plan, supermarkets will be urged to introduce plastic-free aisles while taxes and charges on single-use items such as takeaway containers will be considered. The amount of single-use plastic wasted every year would fill the Royal Albert Hall a thousand times. Environmentalists agree that the government's plan to restore nature - not just safeguard nature - is genuinely radical. It covers managing land sustainably, reducing pollution and waste, and protecting and improving the global environment. See also the next article, on fracking.

Petrochemicals giant Ineos is taking SNP ministers to court, to overturn their ‘unlawful’ fracking ban. The SNP faces a protracted legal fight, potentially spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, to keep Scotland free of fracking. In England, there are currently ten more fracking applications. Global fracking is driven by the depletion of fossil fuels, leading to the exploitation of increasingly harder-to-extract resources that can have a damaging effect on communities. Evidence (increasingly hard to ignore) from the USA, Canada, and Australia, where tens of thousands of wells have already been drilled, is that fracking destroys water supplies, air quality, and people’s health. Beyond these issues lurk local and regional impacts like ‘orphaned wells’ (abandoned wells sending toxic pollutants into the environment). It is believed that financially successful UK fracking would require tens of thousands of wells to be drilled. See also the previous article, on Cleaner greener Britain, and

An online survey by Bournemouth University received 1,591 responses from Christians of all denominations. 1,002 said they had experienced spiritual abuse. Caution has been expressed about these figures, not least because existing work on spiritual abuse is in its infancy, even though it is a commonly-used term. Being spiritually abused was not a prerequisite for participation in the survey, but some may have taken the opportunity to share their story anonymously, possibly for the first time. 72% of those who responded to the survey said they knew what it meant, with key characteristics identified as coercion, manipulation, pressuring and control through the misuse of religious texts and scripture. Many respondents said that clearer policies were needed in churches and Christian organisations.

The Government is reconsidering a proposed new law which would allow adults to choose to change their gender without consulting a doctor. Reports suggest that education secretary and equalities minister Justine Greening now has cold feet on the proposals, which would affect all of the UK other than Scotland. A public consultation will now take place only after civil servants have completed analysis of a separate diversity survey. This is good news with which to start the New Year. Last year the Coalition for Marriage met MPs and worked with several other campaign groups to oppose these proposals. It argued that they would undermine traditional marriage and put women and children at risk.