Poverty: The Inclusive Church Resource
The Inclusive Church Resource book series is published by Darton Longman and Todd.
Designed as resource books for churches, each book has an introduction, theological reflection, stories from lived experience and a practical resource section
There are 6 books in the series.
Disability by John Hull
Mental Health by Jean Vanier and John Swinton.
Sexuality by Susannah Cornwall
Poverty by Susan Durber.
Ethnicity by Michael Jagessar
Gender by Rosemary Lain Priestley.
The book on Poverty has an introduction by Inclusive Church trustee Savi Hensman. Susan Durber is Theology Advisor for Christian Aid. The book contains stories of lived experience from individuals and churches. The resource section is drawn together by Church Action on Poverty.
This is a really exciting project for Inclusive Church and we are proud to be working in partnership with DLT.
A comment in from someone who has read the first 2 books:
"Have just received the first books, and dived into one of them. They are excellent, and all churches should have them for the clergy, and PCC."
Books can be ordered from the publishers, OR download an order form here.
Churches can be places offering a huge amount of service and support to those who live with a lack of economic power. However, similarly to the attitudes which persist in churches towards disabled people, people who are living in poverty are often the object of charity but not empowered and given agency in their lives- we ‘do to’ people rather than ‘being with’ them. Many living in poverty experience exclusion and stigma from faith communities, and there are things that churches could do better to ensure this doesn’t happen. The resources here are to support our churches in this work.
For facts and figures on poverty in the UK, go to our partner Church Action on Poverty’s website. Church Action on Poverty also have excellent video resources of people speaking about poverty from the perspective of lived experience, and there are downloadable resources like Bible study collections on their website, which the IC National Coordinator regularly contributes to.
More resources are on the misc resources page.