The Collective, Pilot – Church responses to the crisis
On Tuesday 14th July we launched the pilot episode of our new show The Collective on Zoom and Facebook Live.
The Collective is an hour of inspiring stories of collective action to promote dignity, agency and power.
In our first episode we explored Church responses to the crisis. You can watch the full episode here.
We heard first from poet Matt Sowerby, who performed a new poem Breath.
After that Adam and Naomi Maynard gave us a tour of St George’s Church in Everton which is home to a Local Pantry, and Vic Ponsonby told us about the network of Pantries across Liverpool. Find out more about Your Local Pantry here.
This was followed by an interview with Cassius Francis from The Just Finance Foundation and Transforming Communities Together in the Black Country and West Midlands. Cassius spoke about what he had been seeing in terms of the impact of the economic crisis brought about by Covid-19 over the past four months.
Professor Anthony Reddie talked about some of the broader challenges facing the church in relation to the current crisis around the issues of race and class.
After this Nick Waterfield from the Parson Cross Initiative in Sheffield told us about the situation on the ground in his community and the challenge for churches as lockdown eases, especially not falling into the trap of thinking of ourselves as the saviours.
Nick was then joined by Stef Benstead in an interactive panel discussion about all the issues covered so far in the programme, particularly challenging churches to respond to the crisis.
The episode finished with a virtual choir from Sheffield singing their version of the Disney classic A Whole New World.
The next episode of The Collective will be 2 pm Tuesday 15th September on Zoom and our Facebook page. It will explore Community responses to the crisis.
