NJPN Conference Update 22-24 July
‘Getting beyond Optimism to Hope: demonstrating or building the Kingdom in the world of politics?’
Considering the current political disarray, NJPN is fortunate to have, as one of its keynote speakers, Andy Flannagan Executive Director of Christians in Politics.
Andy believes that decisions are made by those who show up, striving to put kingdom before tribe and to disagree well. Christians in Politics draws together Christians from across the political parties and beyond, and from across the breadth of the church. Andy yearns to see a just rewiring of the global economic system. Andy is also author of ‘Those who show up’ (Muddy Pearl, 2015) In the forward Archbishop Justin Welby writes:
“Andy is reaching out, inspiring and equipping us to become engaged with a system that affects us deeply, and through which we in turn can effect radical and transformational change across our society.”
Andy juggles his political work with his career as a singer-songwriter and on Saturday evening Andy will lead a musical evening entitled Songs of Pain, Justice and Hope
We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.”
(Pope Francis)
Dear Friends,
Well, what a week it has been in politics. Despite all of the lies, resignations, and all of the furore, things are just the same as they were this time last week. Boris Johnson, probably the most disliked Prime Minister in my lifetime – and certainly the least trustworthy when it comes to telling the truth – is still in charge and will be for several months. The only difference is that most of the Cabinet has changed (instead of A-listers, we now seem to have Z-listers – apologies if one of them is your MP, but most of them many of us have never heard of). There will now be months of wrangling and mud-slinging from both sides of the House, which will certainly take everyone’s attention away from the important job in hand of running the country, at a time when we need ideas and leadership. Interesting, but probably very frustrating times ahead.
This weekend we celebrate Sea Sunday, and we lead with this as our Action of the Week. Seafarers and fishers are often forgotten when we talk about everyday heroes, but with many foodstuffs and goods being imported across the sea they deserve our thanks and support.
The next e-bulletin will be around 4 weeks time as we have the NJPN Conference in a fortnight (more details below), and I am then away on holiday the following weekend. If you are submitting articles to be included, please bear this in mind.
I look forward to meeting some of you at the Conference, and if we have already met, I look forward to catching up with you again!
God bless,
Sharon (Editor)
NJPN E-Bulletin 10th July 2022
