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ROSS HENDRY CEO of CARE
DEAR FRIEND,
December 2023
Last year was a hugely significant one for us at CARE, as we celebrated two major anniversaries. It’s now been 40 years since CARE began, under the inspirational and visionary leadership of our cofounders, Lyndon Bowring and Charlie Colchester. And it has also been 30 years since we began the CARE Leadership Programme, which has seen more than 350 young leaders being placed with Parliamentarians and NGOs and receiving training from world-leading theologians, leaders and politicians, many of whom have gone on to positions of responsibility within the public square. We felt it right to properly mark both these milestones, so we welcomed more than 100 alumni to a special parliamentary reception last summer, before hosting nearly 600 of our supporters at our 40th Thanksgiving Service in October. We praise God for His remarkable faithfulness and for all the ways He has used CARE for good in our nation. When CARE began in 1983, it was a time of real societal change. The Judeo-Christian heritage of our nation was being systematically dismantled with substantial changes, both in laws and in attitudes. As we head into 2024, it might feel as though little has changed. Our society has continued down largely the same trajectory. It’s one where Christians sometimes feel pushed out of public life. Faced with such a challenge, the temptation is to withdraw into a ‘holy huddle’ and disengage from the world around us. Yet God calls us to do the exact opposite! He commanded Joshua: be strong and courageous and He promised He would go alongside him. At CARE, we hold onto this promise as we enter a new year. As we looked back in 2023, we have also invested considerable time in praying and planning for the future. As we reflect on the scale of the challenges we’re facing as a nation, on the divisive state of politics and on the importance of the upcoming General Election, it feels like CARE’s ministry is more important than ever. As we step into a new year, we do so excited by our vision: to see politics renewed and lives
transformed! Our mission is to speak God’s better story to a broken world. We want to do this by engaging the Church, equipping politicians and empowering future leaders. In all we do, we’re committed to combining truth and grace, to putting people first and to offering positive, hopeful policy solutions in a range of areas. If we’re going to make an impact and be faithful to our mission, there is one area of CARE’s work I especially want to highlight to you. For a number of years, our church engagement work in England especially has been fairly limited. Given our historic commitment to partner with local churches and get alongside church leaders and Christians to engage, equip and empower them to take political action, this was an area in need of investment across the UK. So, we have made two strategic hires: Ian Bingham as our Head of CARE Northern Ireland and Pete Killingley as our Head of Church Engagement England. They join our very experienced Head of CARE Scotland, Stuart Weir, who leads our church engagement in Scotland and all under the leadership of James Mildred our Director of Communications and Engagement. Over 2023, I’m delighted to report that across the UK, we’ve completed more than 100 speaking engagements, and spoken in-person to thousands of Christians. From church services to midweek meetings, to online devotions and seminars and preaches at major conferences, CARE has been noticed in places we’ve never been before. As we look ahead to 2024, our goal is to build on this exciting start, by reaching thousands more Christians with our vision. We also want to develop a new partnership offer for churches, one where they sign up to support us financially and in prayer and where we provide them with resources and support. One hugely significant area where we’re reinvesting time and effort is the creation of new resources to engage, equip and empower the Church. We’ve already produced a new Vision Booklet (enclosed with this letter). But in addition, we’ve launched a new Foundations for a Christian Worldview video series and each week, our weekly newsletter Impact Direct includes as its top item, a thoughtful Christian commentary on the big political story of that week. We’ve also produced a biblical deep dive on transgender and have ambitions to write many more. And very soon, we’ll be launching our newly refreshed website, redesigned to make it cleaner and easier to use. All this is just the start. At CARE, we recognise the central role that the local church plays in God’s plan. We love partnering with leaders and congregations. If you’d like a CARE speaker to come to your church, please email us at speakers@care.org.uk. You can also call our main office on 0207 233 0455. All of this ambition is only possible with your support. I’m so excited to see our church engagement grow over 2024. Your financial support especially will help make this happen, as we wisely invest your generous gift in the creation of these new resources and as we look to grow and expand our church engagement team. I trust you’ll continue to partner with CARE over 2024 and may I, on behalf of the whole team, wish you a very Happy New Year. Yours in His grace,
ROSS HENDRY CEO of CARE
CAREORGUK
CARE.ORG.UK
CARE (Christian Action Research & Education) | Chief Executive Ross Hendry | Co-Founder Rev Lyndon Bowring | 020 7233 0455 mail@care.org.uk | CARE is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales at 53 Romney Street, London, SW1P 3RF Company No: 3481417 | Charity No: 1066963 | Scottish Charity No: SC038911