Incredible how God can somehow get a message delivered from the pulpit that you'd been feeling convicted of all week!

So much of what Paul spoke about this evening resonated with me and the thinking I have been doing over the past few weeks.

I do an MA in post-war recovery studies and last Thursday we had a guy called Rae Mcgrath come and speak to us. He founded the Mine Action Group about 15 years ago from scratch and ultimately their efforts led to the Ottawa Convention. Anyway, he said that if we're interested in seeing peace in the world we ought to be involved with changing the stuff that's rubbish.

And he's right. He was saying that in a secular context. But we Christians ought to be leading the way. As it is so much of what I am learning could be lifted straight from the Bible but because we've sat back and allowed the welfare state to take over or others to do the agitating we're not leading the way. And I believe we're called to be demanding the things noone else is.

So, Paul's sermon was, to my mind, ace. But it's the kind of thing it would be easy to listen to and then carry on as normal. So, to that end I thought we should perhaps start to compile a list of resources and organisations that as Christians we can get actively involved in whether they're sacred or secular.

Environment
Christian Ecology Link (http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk)

A Rocha! After Sunday evening's brilliant sermon they should have been here all along (http://www.arocha.org)
Eco congregation
(http://www.ecocongregation.org)
Carbon offsetting
(http://www.climatestewards.org.uk)

http://www.climatecare.org

Arms Trade
CAAT - Campaign Against the Arms Trade (http://www.caat.org.uk/getinvolved/christian/)

Human Rights
Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org.uk)
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (http://www.csw.org.uk)

Slavery
Stop The Traffik (http://www.stopthetraffik.org)

Peace (war is messy, please spend time thinking, reading and conceptualising your opinion on whether even 'just wars' are OK. I'm still grappling with where to stand)
Mennonite Central Committee (http://www.mcc.org)
Network of Christian Peace Organisations (http://www.ncpo.org.uk)

I'm sure there are more but it's late and my mind is going blank. but let's get involved!

oddly Bishop Poggo last night was talking about the stuff that I've just been writing my dissertation on.

Anyway, on Saturday morning I received through the post some information to the annual Fellowship of Reconciliation residential weekend looking at how to be peace makers in today's world.

It's the weekend of the 26th-28th October in Derbyshire. More details can be found here http://www.for.org.uk/node/209

If anyone is interested in going then get in touch with me!

I was also reflecting that it seems as a church we could maybe be a bit more proactive in raising awareness and funds for peace building and development initiatives globally. Maybe it is all going on and I'm just not aware of it (and if that's the case please let me know so I can get involved) but if not then if there's anyone who would be interested in at the very least praying about things as crucially important as millennium development goals or organising/participating in events for Tearfund, Wateraid, etc etc then let's do it shall we?