Over the last two years CCCI’s “Engaging with Loyalism” programme has evolved in encouraging and unexpected ways. The motivation behind this initiative was to explore how churches could re-engage with Protestant working class communities and also consider the possibility of a new dialogue between loyalist paramilitary groups and church leaders.

It is generally accepted, from the findings of church mission boards to the results of academic research, that a discernable gulf exists between most Protestant church denominations and the Protestant communities defined as loyalist and working-class. Our work puts us in touch with these two constituencies every day and, in our experience, real alienation and suspicion does exist. Our “Engaging with Loyalism” programme has been a sincere attempt to understand the causes of this distrust and offer bridge-building opportunities to address it.

There are many complex reasons why this distance exists, ranging from loyalist communities feeling abandoned by the churches to a sense of moral concern expressed by many church people in relation to “paramilitaries” and their “community” activities. It is in this tension that we have been working with both local churches and members of paramilitary organisations to create opportunities for dialogue, understanding and, where possible, working relationships.

ENGAGEMENT
Some examples of this work include our ongoing involvement as “critical friends” with the East Antrim Conflict Transformation Forum which represents a number of significant local initiatives in areas such as Monkstown, New Mossley, Rathcoole, Carrickfergus and North Belfast. Here, local loyalist leadership has created and sustained community development programmes that have contributed significantly to a conflict transformation ethos and improved the social cohesion and quality of life in these communities. Over the last year we have been building a relationship of trust and understanding with a number of paramilitary groups in East Belfast and we are now working with both church and community leaders to strengthen the weak social infrastructure and develop programmes on leadership development, youth initiatives and addressing the effects of the Troubles on these communities.

We are also involved throughout Northern Ireland with Loyalist communities and church leaders who are working together. One of our many surprises in the last year is the discovery of a small but active number of committed and imaginative church programmes. These range from Ballynahinch Baptist Church and its energetic Church and Community mission programme, to the Belfast based LINC centre and its Community-based Conflict Transformation and Social Justice initiatives.

Through our engagement with these and other programmes, we have recorded a series of conversations and case studies in a “Church and Community Resource”, which will be launched in February 2008. This comprehensive publication will include a biblical theology for community engagement; insights into the current social and cultural context; learning from the experience of others; and a practical learning course on how to engage sensitively and imaginatively with local communities. This resource will be helpful for local Church congregations eager to explore a holistic model of mission into the wider community and with loyalist communities in particular.

We continue to work in this vital but controversial area with confidence and conviction that the Christian invitation to love friend, neighbour, stranger and our enemy, is a life-transforming ethic in an age of growing social and cultural alienation.

Derek Poole
Programme Director

“It’s never enough just to tell people some new insight. Rather, you have to get them to experience it in a way that evolves its power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people’s heads, you need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way.”(John Seely Brown, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation)

We live within the images we hold of the world, consequently, what we view determines what we do. How we view the world around us and how we act based on those images can make all the difference to whether we move forwards or backwards after a violent conflict. This is one of the core assumptions behind the "Difficult Conversations" programme. I have been invited to help people and communities change the lens of their lives to consider the view of an other. Changing perspective alone can significantly change the way a person relates to those who have been "enemies".

Over the last year, there have been many meaningful conversations with individuals and groups around conflict, reconciliation, mission, citizenship, memorialising the past and recognising the scale of change in society post-Troubles. These have been exciting and challenging conversations and, despite the old adage that "talk is cheap" or the belief that we should "stop talking and get to work", these conversations have been as significant as any programme of activity because worldviews were altered in significant ways. Let me reflect on a few examples…

A CONVERSATION ON CONFLICT
Working with the staff team of a voluntary organisation, I facilitated a dialogue about the nature of conflict and asked questions that connected theories to their practice as a team together. In particular, the process moved the group towards their areas of discomfort as they individually confronted their “learned avoidance” of issues. The power of the conversation lay in relating their experience to the wider conversation of conflict in society and then reflecting on their vocation to the world around them.

A CONVERSATION ON THE PAST
Memory is complex in Northern Ireland. As we address our past, we need to explore the ways in which memory can serve peacebuilding rather than trip us up at the first hurdle. Working with a local congregation I helped design an experiential process that would generate a new conversation for people. Linking in with the "Day of Private Reflection" in June, I helped to co-ordinate visits to two very different memorial gardens: the George Cross RUC Memorial Garden and Martyrs Memorial Garden in Bombay Street, both in Belfast. While the conversations around these visits were unstructured, being in the physical space generated new questions for people. As a Protestant group, the most difficult visit was to the Republican Memorial and here the conversation opened up to the real complexity of supporting the experience of the "enemy" and the desire to remember their sacrifice. This conversation is continuing …

A CONVERSATION ON A CHANGING CONTEXT
I love the occasions I have to dip into the familiar territory of adolescence and youth culture, particularly when I can turn the conversation towards the culture of silence and violence that shapes young people’s experience as much as the media and Bebo. Recently I have worked with Ministers in training and with the staff team of a voluntary youth organisation to help them talk about the complex world young people inhabit. For many this is difficult because the conversation inevitably turns back towards themselves as they discover their own story of silence or violence associated with the Troubles. When we get to this place of honesty the conversation about engagement takes on new life and energy.

As the project comes to an end, all of the "Difficult Conversations" will be compiled into a resource for those who want to follow through and experience the joy of human dialogue.

Lynda Gould
Programme Director

Surfing the web a few months back, I happened upon a site for an organization called Contemporary Christianity. While randomly browsing their past and present events, one caught my eye. Under God’s Gaze: Reconciling Spaces, Healing Places was a joint international consultation put on by the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland and the Center for Global Urban Leaders in Seattle. Some of the names and organizations on the agenda vaguely stirred my memory and perked my interest. As a Minnesota native, volunteering the past 6 months in County Down, I had found myself drifting into the mental and emotional numbness that envelops this land. With little more than a dim hope of some meagre refreshment and mild stimulation I registered for the conference.

To my delight and appreciation the consultation far surpassed all expectations and became, what I would call, an experience of concentrated greatness. Not only were the speakers from the US filled with insight and wisdom, but they were here as one of us, eager to learn. Together we were taught by those experienced in the reconciliation journey in Northern Ireland and around the world.

HANDS OPEN, EYES OPEN, HEARTS OPEN
We explored what greatness looks like in a country fragmented, humiliated, insecure and yet too proud to admit any of these. What is reconciliation when no side has won? How does a society move forward if everyone is considered a victim? Is there any hope and, if so, what does it look like? Is non-violent cohabitation the best one can aim for? Is the “Shared Future” scheme more than just a large-scale bribe? Where is Christ in all of this? What moves a person to venture out of the safety of his or her own religious community? Can the braid of politics, religion and economy be untangled? Have there been any tangible benefits from the current political “experiment”?

GREAT MINDS. GREAT THOUGHTS. GREAT REALITY CHECK.
Woven into this mental feast were daily retreats to various ministries and organizations actively engaged in binding up this broken-hearted land. I visited Youth with a Mission (YWAM) whose current ministry bridges the Falls Road (Catholic) and the Shankill Road (Protestant). In a historically violent and divided place, this team is transforming the necessary journey of forgiveness into a form of art that reflects the truth, honesty and beauty of our Divine Master, without forgetting the justice.

INTEGRITY. Another afternoon was spent at a community centre located along the “peace” line and run by the Suffolk and Lenadoon Interface Group (SLIG). This is a forum that bridges two opposing communities. It is the manifestation of a friendship between two women, one Catholic and one Protestant. Despite threats and resistance, they have maintained a strong personal conviction that the process of reconciliation is a necessity for the benefit of both sides. They continue to honour difference, division and pain.

FORTITUDE. I learned about the current crusade of Clonard Monastery to send out Unity Pilgrims to visit Protestant congregations on a regular basis. Just for the sake of friendship.

PASSION. And then there was the man who I talked with over tea. A devout Catholic living in a Catholic community. He wanted to change things, just a little, first within himself and then in life around him. That’s why he came.

COURAGE. It has been a few weeks since the conference. I find myself missing the magic of it. But friendships have been made and bridges have been built. I don’t feel quite so alone. Thank you to all who organized and contributed to this event. Thank you to all who spoke and shared. Thank you to all who attended. It was a gift to me. I touched the Sacred through you. I have been changed.

Amelia Morgan
Under God's Gaze Participant

Last year, the Centre’s annual devotional resource “Out of the Ordinary, praying in unexpected places” challenged us to make connections between faith and culture in our local neighbourhood. It invited us to become prayerfully present to the everyday realities around us, which often go unnoticed, by taking time to recognise, celebrate and also lament the present circumstances of our daily living and to bring these circumstances before God in prayer. This year’s devotional resource turns our attention to the past and asks: how can we remember the hurts of the past in a way that is redemptive? How can our faith inform our culture of remembrance and remembering?

Early November has long been recognised by the church as a season of remembering. While Remembrance Sunday is now an established part of the liturgy in many churches and in national life, the Christian festival of All Souls on 1st November, preceded by All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) is traditionally the time in the Christian calendar for reflecting on the lives of all who have gone before us. Whatever other days become established in the community as a focus for collective remembering, it is appropriate for the church in Ireland to use this season to remember and reflect on the violence of our distant and immediate past and consider how the legacy of conflict affects the life of our community in the present.

This year the Centre produced a short resource called “Out of the Depths” reflecting on the consequences of violence and conflict – the legacy of hurt, the need for healing and the challenge of forgiveness. It will be of value not only to those who have lived through the Troubles in Ireland, but also when considering the long-term effects of war, conflict and interpersonal strife, whatever the time and place.

Originally prepared for the “Day of Private Reflection” in June, it is now offered, with some additional material for collective worship, for use in other contexts of personal and community remembering, including Remembrance Sunday, and can be downloaded at www.contemporarychristianity.org/resources/outofthedepths.

“Out of the Depths” invites us to engage with five Psalms and to “read, reflect and respond” out of our own experience, for the words of the Psalter are essentially not the voice of God addressing us, but rather the voice of human brokenness crying out to God. In the Psalms we enter into the speech of common humanity in all its love and hate, fear and joy, despair and hope.

“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.”
Psalm 71:20

We are keenly aware of the sensitivity of this theme for anyone with personal experience of emotional or physical hurt. For this reason we offer it tentatively, in the hope that it will be of benefit.
If you find this resource meaningful in your situation we would love to hear how you have used it.

Anna Rankin
Resource Co-ordinator

The Centre for Contemporary Christianity is committed to understanding the changing relationship between the church and the wider culture. Throughout the past year, Lion&Lamb has continued to be a vital and practical resource for people wanting to make connections between their faith and contemporary culture. We have received encouraging feedback which suggests that the broadening themes of the magazine this year have been particularly relevant to the concerns of many readers.

This year three issues have been produced on the themes of Spirituality, the Common Good and, currently in production, Faith in the City.

The issue on spirituality was particularly pertinent to many readers because of your concern to connect your devotional and congregational life to the issues of peacebuilding, cultural inclusion and the building of a new post-Troubles society. The different religious traditions on this island have historically been hostile towards, or suspicious and dismissive of, the spirituality of “the other”. This issue explored the different ways in which people’s spirituality is nourished and informed and how it finds expression in different contexts of engagement.

We were particularly encouraged by your response to the issue on the common good, which looked at how the common good is regarded and at how we participate in it. This raised ethical issues about lifestyle and engagement in society. In particular, the interview with Jim Wells of the DUP looked at the tensions of seeking to bring environmental concerns in to the political debate alongside the demands of changing economic and social realities.

We are currently working on an issue exploring faith in the city. Our experience of the last year has shown that the church is once again considering the nature of its mission in growing urban areas which are experiencing all of the temptations of prosperity alongside the problems of social division and inner city dysfunction. CCCI is keen to continue to provide a space through Lion&Lamb for some of our best thinkers and practitioners to reflect on these issues.

Anna Rankin
Resource Co-ordinator

This month all clergy, ministers and pastors currently serving in local congregations in Northern Ireland are being invited to participate in a survey as part of the Faith in a Plural Society Research Project. The project is exploring how churches are responding to Northern Ireland’s increasing social diversity, specifically in relation to ethnicity, religion and sexual identity. The questionnaire is an opportunity for people in church leadership to tell us about what is happening in their locality and about their own attitudes and opinions.

If you are a church leader there is still time for you to let us know what you think. If you are a church member, then you might want to ask the leader(s) in your church about the survey and perhaps encourage them to complete the questionnaire, if they have not already done so.

Survey findings, available next year, will potentially highlight the constructive role being played by churches and the resources upon which they are able to draw as well as bringing to attention those issues which are causing concern. We hope that raising these questions will generate conversations and increase awareness among churches about what it means for Christians to live in a plural society.

Any questions, please contact Fran or Anna.
Email: survey@contemporarychristianity.org
Tel. 9032 5258

Fran Porter
Research Consultant

As always the board and team express our thanks to everyone who made our work possible this year. Those who support us by their gifts, prayers and participation in our programmes are valued by us all. Over the last ten years we have also benefited from trust and public bodies making decisions to give us grants. Their support has enabled us to achieve far more that we ever thought possible. This year has seen the beginning of major change as long standing funding agreements come to an end and grant providers shift their focus and priorities. It has therefore been a difficult financial year and we know the year ahead presents a significant challenge.

During the last two years of transition from ECONI to CCCI we have re-imagined our vision and put in place effective and relevant programmes to deliver our mission to develop knowledge and personal skills among Christians and churches to serve their changing communities. Our challenge in the year ahead is to renew our funding base to support this work into the future. Your support and prayers in this challenge are greatly appreciated.