Climate Change among the Religions: A Forum for Engagement 

Thursday 16th January – Friday 17th January 2020

In Partnership with Coexist House, St George’s House and the Lincoln Theological Institute, the M B Reckitt Trust is helping to fund a forum of mutual learning between and among religious traditions on the climate crisis which faces us all. The aim is to inspire fresh and advanced thinking, to bring about action from religious communities and institutions to make a profound contribution to change - personal, communal, social, national and global.

For news please see the website.

The Feast is a unique and innovative, Christian, youth work charity, that has been bringing young people of different faiths and cultures together since 2009 in Birmingham, Bradford, Luton and London. The Feast seeks to transform young people and communities of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds by affirming the positive role faith has in shaping their identity, and equipping them to find new ways to live well with people who are different to them. 

The M.B. Reckitt Trust grant will allow The Feast to measure the impact and demonstrate the worth of its ‘Game Changers’ project with the view that it can hopefully be shared and replicated across the UK. This project specifically focuses on young people in some of the most challenging and socially-divided, urban locations. The project integrates The Feast’s three flagship programmes; Developing Identity, Youth Encounters and Local Youth Leadership to support core groups of young people (11-18 years), who are initially resistant to interacting with those different from themselves and helping them become 'Game Changers' in their various communities. By working through the levels of personal resilience (Developing Identity), interpersonal peace (Youth Encounters) and community resilience (Local Youth Leadership), the young people will be supported to model how to live well with different neighbours, thereby challenging the often-dominant narrative of intolerance and divisiveness in those neighbourhoods. For news and updates please see the website.

Drawing on inspiration from the World Council of Churches’ ‘Mission from the Margins’ programme, our ‘Church of the Poor?’ project promotes mission, theological activity and social action with people who have been pushed to the margins of society by poverty. They are not outsiders. All belong to the body of Christ, are part of the church. ‘Church of the Poor?’ facilitates theological reflection based on their experience and visions of world, with the hope that their contributions may help the churches to transform themselves into sanctuaries of love, justice and peace.

We look to support and build churches that: are interested in building the kingdom, not growing the church; listen attentively to voices from the margins and work to be visibly present to the community around them (especially ‘those who don’t sit in the pews on Sundays’); expect to be challenged and changed by their neighbours, especially by people on the margins; put an emphasis on sharing food and hospitality; and are hungry and thirsty for justice.

With support from the MB Reckitt Trust, we are building regional ‘communities of praxis’ to link together and support churches that are interested in taking this journey together. We are producing resources to help them reflect theologically on their mission and their experiences. And we are amplifying their voices and sharing their stories, so that we can challenge UK church institutions to place a greater priority on the poorest communities in their mission, ministry and decision-making.  Website.

Later named the "Church on the Margins"  this project produced a useful down-loadable resource document for the United Reformed Church and all churches to be found at New reality, same Mission - join the conversation (urc.org.uk)

Gender-based and domestic violence are symptoms of unjust power relations between women and men. Other symptoms are the lack of women in decision-making roles and unequal access to knowledge and resources. Such inequalities are reflected in our churches as well as in our broader communities. Church leaders can play a pivotal role in teaching, preaching and modelling equitable and just gender relationship. Ministerial formation in this area is therefore essential.

The MB Reckitt Trust is supporting the International Anglican Women’s Network with resources for an international academic workshop in Kenya to finalise a curriculum for theology and pastoral skills relating to gender equality and preventing gender-based violence. The curriculum will be disseminated to theological colleges around the world and used in the training of ministers and other church workers.

The completed Gender Justice Curriculum and study materials can be accessed and downloaded here: 

Many people living with HIV suffer trauma both from being diagnosed positive and through the negative responses they have received from their faith communities. The chaplaincy walk with clients who suffer such trauma to re-establish their self-confidence, to enable clients to be able to trust again. Trust can only be built when our words match our actions.

Thanks to the MB Reckitt Trust the London HIV Chaplaincy has published a book ("Who Cares about HIV? Challenging Attitudes and Pastoral practices that Do More Harm than Good") about what the Chaplaincy has learnt since it's conception in 2003. It will be a must read for all people who offer pastoral care. Available for purchase though bookshops and on-line, details can be found on https://spckpublishing.co.uk/who-cares-about-hiv. In addition copies may be purchased at a discount for £10.00 (including postage)directly from the London HIV Chaplaincy by contacting This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

"Since 2005, the Article 26 project has been at the forefront of a campaign to support the access, participation and success in higher education (HE) for people who have fled persecution and sought asylum in the UK. These students face multiple challenges accessing HE, including financial barriers (many people are not entitled to student finance), navigating the HE applications system, meeting the language requirements, trying to ensure prior qualifications and experience gained outside of the UK are recognised by universities, as well as dealing with the wider health and social consequences of displacement. 

Article 26 works with universities across the UK to create, establish and sustain scholarships for people who have sought asylum. The aim of the 'Qualifying Opportunities & Quantifying Demand' project, is to return to the roots of the project and the opportunities, which were initially created within faith based higher education institutions. Qualitative research methods will be used to map the inception, development and significant growth of scholarships for these students across the UK and explore the commitment and potential threats to their continuity. The quantifying aspect of this work will endeavour to establish the extent of the demand for these scholarships across the UK, challenges in collecting and collating existing data and develop an alternative methodology to record this information in the future." For further information, please see our website.

MB Reckitt Trust has supported a number of pieces of work by CTC which have focused on particular social issues. In each case, the Centre has both produced accessible, high-impact reports (such as God and the Moneylenders and From Houses to Homes) and helped churches to organise with others to achieve specific, measurable changes in policy. 

The Trust is supporting the Centre in establishing two programmes – the William Seymour Programme for Pentecostal and Baptist Black Majority churches, and the Cardinal Manning Programme for Roman Catholic churches – to encourage deeper engagement from these traditions in community organising with other denominations and faiths for the common good.

For news and updates, please see our website.

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people report feeling alienated from their faith, with some having experienced rejection by some religious groups, leading to many being disconnected from their roots and heritage. This can result in LGBT people often finding it impossible to reconcile their sexuality with their faith, feeling they need to choose one over the other.

Thanks to funding from the MB Reckitt Trust, Stonewall will run a Faith Role Models Programme for 24 LGBT faith and communities leaders to encourage them to think about their LGBT identities and how they can play an active role in furthering equality within their own communities.

The course is designed to create lasting change for both the individual attendees and for those they work with, providing them with the confidence and tools to challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia and to create inclusive environments for LGBT people of faith.

CTC is beginning a new campaign to engage congregations in action to tackle the housing crisis. This is modelled on our successful ‘Call to Change’ campaign in 2012, and will involve a mixture of grassroots listening, theological reflection and action to help churches respond effectively to the housing crisis. It also builds on our recent report ‘Our Common Heritage’ about housing associations and churches working in partnership. The work will involve working with Citizens UK and others to develop campaigns, practical actions with churches and new research. For news and updates, please see our website. The report from this project has been published, entitled "Houses to Homes"

• What are the values that underpin a Good Society?
• What kind of world do we all want to live in, five years from now?
• How can we get there from here?
• What changes do we need to make?

With support from Church Action on Poverty, churches and community groups across the UK are talking about what makes a Good Society – and how we can work together to make it real.

Conversations are happening in the UK’s poorest communities – places where people feel completely excluded, and have no power to influence the decisions that affect them. These workshops will inspire people to work for change, equip us to start working together and also lead to national action. The grassroots voices and visions that emerge from the workshops will lead to real action for a Good Society. In January 2016, a conference will bring together representatives from all the Good Society conversations.

From 2016, Church Action on Poverty’s projects and campaigns will mobilise supporters, and use the organisation’s contacts, skills and expertise, to share and make real the vision of a Good Society that emerges from this process. Discussions are already taking place with funders and power-holders about the possibility of creating a Good Society Commission, through which people with experience of poverty would work directly alongside people from some of the UK’s most powerful institutions to build the Good Society. 

For more information see www.church-poverty.org.uk/goodsociety