 Acts 435 was inspired by the works of the early church, as described in the Acts 4:32 to 4:35. The early disciples shared their possessions and passed money to the apostles to give to anyone who had need. Acts 435 was set up in 2009 in recognition of the increasing needs of people in UK poverty in a time of recession and austerity.
It was the brainchild of a Yorkshire businessman who recognised the donor fatigue in charity giving where donors want to be connected with a specific cause and know their donation is not just going into a general pot of funds. This is particularly important for those with only a small amount to give, so that they can be sure their gift will make a difference. By partnering with local churches and charities, Acts 435 enables a direct connection of people in need with people who want to help. Advocates, who are local volunteers, meet with clients who have been referred by local agencies such as the Foodbank or job centre where a crisis need has been identified. This can be anything from being able to top up an electricity meter, buying school uniform, purchasing work boots or replacing a fridge. Requests can be made for a maximum of £120 and a limit of three requests per client. The advocate posts the request on the website and donors can give online in amounts from £5 to £120. Requests are essentially met by crowd-funding and 100% of every donation goes to the person in need. Acts 435 is a very real way of giving to those in need in your local community and giving a helping hand to those who are really struggling. It maybe that you yourself need a helping hand at a time of crisis. To be referred you will need to been seen by an official agency who will refer you on. You don’t need to have a faith to be referred, Acts is for all those in need. A small gift can make a big difference in lifting a burden or preventing a crisis for the most vulnerable in our society. If you would like more information about how you can help, or be helped, please contact one of the advocates, via the online contact form, at All Saints Church (asht.org.uk) or at allsaints435@gmail.com. You can also get more information from acts435.org.uk
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 Written for the Quaker gathering at Friends Meeting House, Truro How we see the refugee is how we see ourselves. It seems to me we live in a world full of fear at the moment. Fear that is bred from a misunderstanding of ownership. We are educated and nurtured in this country to understand ownership in a very personal way. There are a number of cultural goals that are set for us from a very early age. Goals such as status i.e what position in society we should achieve, property i.e. what place we should occupy in society, and relevance i.e. what role we should take within society. We are conditioned to believe these are our goals, and that they will in turn give us all that we need to live a healthy and valued existence. In fact, our own identity is formed and given value by these three indicators of status, property and relevance. Our very identity is intrinsically connected to what we own in society, where we are in society and who we relate to in society. This is where fear creeps in; when we believe that these three pedestals of our existence are deemed to be under threat in some way. The fear comes from knowing that there are some in the world who do not conform to this understanding of value and purpose. It is the case, I think, that those who do not attain these goals are not as valued in society as those who do. In fact, to give people such things as status, property and relevance with no forseen effort on their part, would mean some kind of break down in social order. Why should we give them anything when we have worked so hard to achieve these things ourselves? Rhetoric, such as that of Nigel Farage, the self-proclaimed ambassador for the decent hard working individual, is an example of how fear disregards compassion for the sake of these three pedestals of our modern culture. The refugee crisis is the tragedy of our modern time, it is a redefining moment for Western Culture. It is redefining because it calls into question the three indicators of value and worth in our society. It threatens to breakdown what has built the culture that we live in. Our response to the refugee, if compassionate, self-sacrificing and life-giving subverts what has helped establish our own identities, and national identity. But this is critical, since it is indeed reshaping and reforming our identity for the good. Our identity should not be formed by status, property, or relativity; but instead be formed by mutuality, justice and righteousness. In our current system - status is a product of capitalism and competition. Neither are inherently bad things, but taken too far they quickly entertain the idea that those who succeed are worth more than those who fail. Mutuality is a product of compassion, empathy and support. Which assures us that there are some things more valuable about every human being. With mutuality as an indicator of worth, the refugee becomes us – we choose not to be fearful, or under threat but instead see ourselves in the pain and hurt of the refugee, because of mutual love. Mutuality gives no time for ‘us’ and ‘them’ terminology but only entertains the truth that if you are hurting then I am hurting too. In a world of individualism, egoism and self-aggrandisement – the refugee reminds us of our vulnerability, our susceptibility and our weakness, and therefore in mutual love we should look to offer ourselves as they have done. Mutuality breaks down any barriers of status and encourages us to look into the eyes of one another to see who we are really are. When we do so we learn that those who are said to be our enemies are in fact our brothers and sisters. In our society, property is seen as an indicator of value and worth, a measurement of success. We work hard to obtain the material things in life, and therefore they become icons and trophies of our labour. Working hard is a virtue, the part we play in building up society is important – and there is nothing wrong with being rewarded appropriately. However, we have switched the purpose of our hard labour from the building up of society to the obtaining of possessions. And our identity has switched appropriately. Celebrity is celebrated. Wealth is the goal. Property is the target. Community orientated vocations are way down the pecking order. Refuse collection, primary care staff, education, the health service, farming and fisheries, manufacturing have succumbed to the powers of banking, footballers, and energy company execs. Instead of property being the target of our existence and the shaper of who we are, maybe justice would form our identity instead. Justice is a word that is so easily misunderstood. The word Justice has been damaged over time by our own society. It is now a product of fear. Justice has become a word associated with judgement, punishment, penal discipline and sentencing. The Ministry of Justice is more to do with law and order than actually to do with justice. Justice is more to do with fairness, equality, likeness and impartiality. If there was one outstanding theme in the bible, for example, then I would say it is justice. Time and time again the objects of concern for God’s people were the widow, the orphan, the immigrant and the poor. Justice is seen in the bible as the defender of the most vulnerable, irrespective of their status, property or familial relativity. However, it is not because they have no status, property or familial relativity that they are deemed to be in need of justice it is because they are simply in need, and that they are human beings. For the refugee justice should look the same – their status as human beings and that they are in need is the only excuse we need. When we share the struggles of our refugee brothers and sisters, we are not giving them status, property or relevance, we are simply treating them as human beings, in mutual love and with justice. If we make status, property and relevance our gifts then we are just creating disharmony and an unhealthy power dynamic (we are the giver, they are the receiver), and we are in danger of making the object of our task our egos, and satisfaction. True justice bypasses any social markers of value and disregards our own ego desires, and challenges us to give all that we have to protect the humanity of the other. Lastly the word relevance is concerned with how we relate to one another, but its goal is concerned with obtaining prestige and respect. When I am introduced to someone else I am often announced as ‘this is Jeremy and he is a vicar’. What I do is an important part of who I am. How many times have you heard someone say when asked what they do – ‘oh I’m just a house wife.’ Or ‘I’m just bricklayer’ or ‘I’m just this or just that.’ The role we play in society has a level of importance if we are to be concerned with status, property and relevance. In this model the refugee challenges the position we have because the fear we are supposed to feel undermines our own worth. If instead we thought of righteousness as the indicator of worth and value then the way we would see the refugee situation would be very different. Righteousness is another word that is misunderstood in today’s society. In the past it has been associated with piety, purity, and church going. It has been in the same camp as religiosity, and often, pomposity and self-importance of the church. However, the true meaning of righteousness is about being in a right relationship with one another, and with God. Being in the right kind of relationship with your fellow brothers and sisters means that righteousness is more to do with peace, equity and even-handedness than to do with religious piety. Righteousness is better named as primary justice. Since if we had the right relationship with our brother and sisters in Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, Palestine then we would have no need for the kind of justice I described just now. The quartet of the vulnerable (orphan, poor, widow and immigrant) would not exist. When a van carries aid to Calais, or you put £10 on justgiving account for homeless of the refugee fund you are living righteously. When you occupy your mind with the sufferings of your brothers and sisters in Greece, Lebanon or Jordan – you are living righteously. I believe, we need to build a society that is formed and shaped not by our goals for status, property and relativity – but for mutuality, justice and righteousness. The refugee crisis is the greatest tragedy of our generation, it is redefining us – we have to decide in which world we belong. The celebrity, materialistic self-serving world, that is hell bent on protecting and defending our achievements of status, property and relevance. Or, the one that retains a humanity of mutuality, justice and right relationships.  You might say why have we been to Calais?
We went because of you .You have seen on the T.V. in the papers and in the Media generally the plight of the many Refugees there. The numbers have doubled since we were there in August. Your response was overwhelming. Donations of tents, food, blankets, sleeping bags and much much more. We had to move some the donation gifts from the hall of All Saints into the main Church for our volunteers to be able to sort and pack all that was given. This happened over two work days. We took over 500 Shoe Boxes full of personal items and food. These boxes were to give to individual refugees. Forty boxes of Blankets-Coats-Shoes-Sleeping Bags and about fifty tents and tarpaulins, all this plus many practical items. All these donations were from anonymous people who’s caring and giving spoke of their generosity and feelings. To cover transport and travelling expenses many also gave donations of money. On Wednesday the 25th November we packed the van, the longest transit made and on Thursday we travelled to Folkestone and met up with two other groups, one group from Launceston, one van and one from Somerset with two vans. We travelled to Calais arriving at 9.OO a.m. European Time, having left at 6.30 GMT. In Calais we unloaded all the items except the Shoe Boxes and reloaded the vans with all items such as 800 blankets, 600 sleeping bags, sleeping mats etc., these went to the refugee camp and our party distributed them. We returned to the warehouse for lunch and refilling the vans. In the afternoon we returned to the camp with tents pallets, tarpaulins and rope and much more. By the time we had finished the distributing it was dark. What were the conditions like? Very simply, cold, wet, muddy, smelly and crowded, could it be worse? No. Did your and our efforts make a difference? Yes. You only had to see the smiles on the faces of those who received the gifts to know we made a difference and gave them hope that someone cares enough to do something. Colin, David and myself felt very blessed to be able to deliver your gifts of Love and Hope to so many people. So what next, well we are still digesting what we have learnt and are in contact with the people we met and who work there work 24/7. We are listening to the day by day assessment of how to best support them with the needs of so many of our fellow human beings in such difficult circumstances. So watch this space- you can and do make a difference. Keep in touch by checking two web sites…. www.asht.org.uk and www.care4calais.org Your brother in Christ Rowley  The laws of maths and geometry teach us that the shortest distance between two points is always a straight line. If only the Israelites had paid attention to this when leaving Egypt, perhaps it wouldn’t have taken them 40 years to arrive in the Promised Land!
These days when we take a long journey we use the likes of Sat Nav or Google Maps, plotting our course based on a number of factors, such as distance, traffic and weather conditions. In Moses’ day they just had the stars - which was in a way, a kind of Sat Nav - but it certainly wasn’t the voice of Google Jane reading out the instructions en-route, “You have wandered too far into the wilderness turn around when possible.” Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we had a GPS device for faith, and hear the voice of God as clear as our mobile phones, handheld GPS devices and TomToms, helping us to stay fixed to the right path? The psalmist wrote (Ps 119:105) “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Trying to articulate God’s vision for the church without listening for his Word is a bit like waiting for the Sat-Nav to give directions only to find you’ve locked it in the boot of the car because you thought you wouldn’t need it. The Word of God is what fuels the fire in our hearts, it is what fills the Church with passion, hope and Godly ambition for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A vision without the Word of God is a vision that has only an earthly sense of place and direction, and therefore we are left with a simple and logical utility like ‘The shortest distance between two points is always a straight line.’ But as the Israelites showed, sometimes the shortest route is not the best route. Our obedience to the Word of God may well take us on a slower and more challenging route, as it did the Israelites. In his poem “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverge in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” I think that there is something to be said for taking the easy route because it makes us feel safe. On the other hand there is something profound in taking the road less travelled, even if longer, windier and more dangerous along the way, because in doing so we venture through new territory, experience life and grow in unexpected ways. God has a habit of working out his plan over the course of time. Very rarely does he call for the ‘quick fix’, or the ‘easy win’. As you read through this vision document you may feel that there is a lot to take in; we have time for this. This is a plan for the next 3-5 years so that we have the freedom to do this on God’s terms, and in His way. The reason why the Israelites took so long over their trip to the Promised Land is because God wanted them to grow and to learn about the wisdom and grace of God, learning to live with a provisionality and dependency on his Word. We must do the same if we are to see the Gospel prosper and our Lord glorified. We must do the same if we are to see God’s purpose fulfilled in us and the church. Lifelong and meaningful change in the world can only occur through a lifelong and meaningful commitment to the Word of God, Jesus Christ. So my friends, here it is, our chance to make a difference, to grow in faith, to grow in number, to live for Christ and to seek his Kingdom. Let’s do this together. Yours in Christ Jeremy |
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