Dreams and Realities in our context
Revd Amanda Mallen reflects on the impact Church Action on Poverty Sunday made in her community.
During the week following Church Action on Poverty Sunday on 2 March 2025, I held three informal worship workshops.
The aim was to help people engage with poverty in many of its forms and the impact it has on individuals and communities and the wider impact overall.
I used the Dreams and Realities artwork (above) to open up the subject and share the lived experience of those featured in the pictures. Telling their stories was a special and thought-provoking time for me personally. I also shared some of my own lived experience of growing up and living in poverty and how that impacted the choices I have made. Some of these choices have been big life-changing decisions yet I found that for me the small everyday choices are more impactful and often more hurtful to make.
Doing this alongside scripture reading and prayers, and by singing a couple of songs that speak into the aims of the sessions, gave it a real sense of importance. Looking after and standing up for the poor is a biblical imperative as I see it.
In two out of three of the sessions (in churches where the flexible layout allowed it) I asked the participants to create their own Dreams and Realities work. Some chose to draw, some chose written words, and I wanted them to be able to think and communicate in a way that was comfortable and accessible to them. None of us are artists, and so the participation and willingness to share of the participants was really important.
We also had open discussion during the service about what poverty looked like, and I shared some local statistics. I had also done collective worship sessions (assemblies) in three primary schools the week before and was encouraged to hear that the children didn’t know that where they lived was such a high area of deprivation.
We ended the service with prayers and I felt like those who participated had a better understanding of what we are trying to achieve. I would have liked more participants but it didn’t seem to be publicised well enough this time, so I plan to lead a quiet day a bit later in the year in our local park (weather permitting) which is based around the Dreams and Realities theme. Hopefully with more time and more participants the message will be further embedded, and the stigma and embarrassment of poverty will be lifted so that more people can stand up and stare their stories. Supporting each other in this way and enabling people to voice their concerns and opinions will hopefully lead into action, and an end to poverty for all.
Revd Amanda Mallen is a vicar in Walsall and a member of Church Action on Poverty’s Council of Management.