On Thursday July 4th the UK General Election is being held. We are a polling station for our local area, which means no one is allowed to enter the chapel that day except to vote. (We will be running week 2 of our scheduled "Belong, Believe, Become" course that evening as normal, and will talk to attendees about arrangements)
Help Needed!
The polling station is open from 7am 'til 10pm, and lots of people will come through our doors that day, many for the first time. These people are also our closest neighbours. We would love to live up to our name, Welcome Church, so we'd like to serve free tea, coffee and cakes in the front hall for anyone who turns up to vote.
This means we're looking for some friendly, chatty, welcoming people, who have time available that day, to help us serve people and chat to them - what a great chance to connect with our neighbours! If you have a free hour or two and are happy to help, you can sign up for one hour time slots using this link here - and do feel free to sign up for more than one slot if that works for you. It would be great if we could cover the whole day between us 🙂
(One small point of clarity: we are not political as a church, and this is not a chance to lobby people on how they vote. This is about making friends and showing a true Welcome Church welcome)
Three Useful Election Resources
I mentioned the engaGE24 website a few weeks ago, a Christian website which has information about policies, video interviews with Christian MPs and more. They even have an 'election quiz', where you can find out which party's policies you most align with by answering a series of questions.
If you're still unsure who to vote for, here are links to two more great Christian resources. Like us, none of these resources will tell you which way to vote, but they are designed to help you think.
Firstly: in May, Jubilee Plus launched "Voting Like Jesus". Jubilee Plus approach this from the point of view of caring for the poor, and base what they say around the call of Micah 6v8 to, "Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly" before God. The link above will take you to their website, where you can read it all through online or download a copy. We have a few hard copies available, but only a few, so do start with the website.
Secondly: the Christian Institute have launched Election Briefing 2024. This is an interactive website where you can view information by party or by issue, and see where the parties stand on whatever matters most to you. The Christian Institute's focus is almost entirely on ethical and moral issues, viewed from a Biblical perspective. We have a few copies of their booklet available too, but you can download a PDF copy here.
Enjoy!
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