The Justice Seeking Church study guide and report
We Have Voices: praying together for peace, justice and change
A new book of specially commissioned prayers for anyone leading public worship, collective or group prayers, services and reflections. The conversations about being a justice-seeking church reaffirmed the need and longing to pray for justice in our worship together, but recognised how difficult we find this sometimes in public worship. The purpose of the book is therefore to offer preachers and leaders of worship the words and structure to pray, with the range of prayers and contributors showing the different ways we can lead prayer, and with the hope this will help people to grow confidence in praying for justice and peace.
The book (ISBN 978-1-85852-525-9) is now available to order from Methodist Publishing, priced £6.99.
Justice Conversations
A justice conversation is one where anyone is free to join in talking through what our priorities and principles should be as a Church. These can be held locally, with any size of group.
Please note: these resources were produced for the Walking with Micah process in 2022 and so the feedback process has ended.
Speaking from Experience
“Nothing about us, without us, is for us”. This powerful phrase is a reminder that the people who are most affected by decisions, should be involved in the conversations that impact on them. People who have experienced injustice know what it is like. They bring particular perspectives, both about the reality of those experiences, but also how things can be changed.
One of the key principles of the Justice Conversations is that we begin by listening.
“Speaking from Experience” is a 12 minute film in which 8 people with different experiences of injustice speak about those experiences, what a just world looks like to them, and how they think a justice-seeking church can work for changes which will tackle the root causes of injustice.
There may be people within your group with experiences of injustice, but it should not be assumed they will want to talk about them. This film is offered as a way to enable each group to begin their Justice Conversations by listening. Other ways include listening to what people with experiences of injustice have already written or said, through books, blogs or programmes.
Download an mp4 video file of Speaking from Experience here
You can see the full testimonies of the people who contributed to the Speaking from Experience film, along with other contributors, here.
Gordon Brown gives the Methodist Justice Lecture
Moving the Dial: Developing Practices of Justice
A resource from All We Can: Methodist Relief and Development to help local churches explore and embody the 'Practices of Justice' from the Methodist Church's Justice-Seeking Church strategy.