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Dignity, Agency, Power
Introduction Welcome to this anthology, compiled to mark 40 years of Church Action on Poverty’s work to end UK poverty. For all of that time, we have helped churches across the UK to embed a concern for poverty and injustice into every aspect of their mission, worship and communal life. We hope this publication will help more churches to make that commitment. (If you’re not familiar with Church Action on Poverty already, we hope this book will give you a good sense of our approach and values. You can always find out more – and get involved – at www.church-poverty.org.uk) We’ve grouped the content into three chapters, reflecting the key values that underpin our vision of a world free from poverty: dignity, agency and power. Those concepts are not as widely understood and embodied in our churches as we might like them to be, so we offer this collection as a challenge to reflect and take action. Kathy Galloway summarises the concepts brilliantly in her foreword, and our Director Niall Cooper explores them with some deeper theological reflection in his introductions to each chapter. Each chapter is split into several sections. This should make it easy for you to find what you’re looking for – whether you’re planning worship, studying scripture, or interested in people’s stories and creative writing. This is what you’ll find in each chapter: Grounding This section presents voices of experience – stories and testimonies from people who are active in the movement to end poverty. Some have personal experience of poverty; others are active in campaigns and projects tackling it. We hope the stories of their achievements, and the values that drive them, will inspire you. Movement stories This section of each chapter includes an in-depth story about an especially powerful event in the movement to end poverty: the Pilgrimage Against Poverty, Poverty Truth Commissions, or the End Hunger UK campaign. They come from different periods in our 40-year history, but they have all
