September 15, 2011
Tarik’s story
As you might expect the Coventry foodbank project elicits many comments and opinions from the general public, sometimes not positive. We frequently collect at supermarkets around the city and shoppers will stop and have conversations with us about the project.
The most common question is ‘who is this food going to?’
I quite instinctively know where this conversation is going. A recent Daily Mail article about the plight of 23 families whose children go Frederick Bird highlighted the prejudice. The article twisted a genuine need for food by 150 people into a jingoistic article on benefit scroungers. The article (which will be the subject of a press complaint) was a malicious twist of the truth into a lie.
Who is the food going to? Well the simple answer is; people in crisis in Coventry. 2,000 mouths fed in the first six months. And no you haven’t misread that, there isn’t an extra ‘0’ here. But sometime… [more]
0 comments
April 07, 2011
Five years ago, I was working for Coventry City Council as a Neighbourhood Manager as part of a national project working in deprived city areas. It was a job that did good things, but I was not really feeling fulfilled. I was living with my two children, then both aged under ten and we were still readjusting our lives after the sudden death of their dad two years previously. That death had obviously changed so many things for me – it brought my faith in God out of a coma, forced me to be more involved in a community and made me ask what really was I put on earth to do. If the kids’ dad’s purpose on this earth was complete at the age of 37… then what really was mine? What was my purpose? And how could I earn to provide for my kids and give them my time and influence as well?
I realised that some people don’t live lives that have real purpose, they do something that pays the bills, buys them the latest gad… [more]
1 comment
January 09, 2011
A Word Over Mosaic Church
Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread out to the east and to the west; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.
Isaiah 53 v 2 and 3
1: Enlarge your tent – God has breakthrough for you and the way to do this is to enlarge your tent.
2: Stretch your curtains wide – well if you do this then everyone can see in and see what you’re doing – so it’s kind of an invitation to let lots of people benefit from what we do in the Community.
3: Do not hold back – 2 Corinthians 9 v 7 he who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, but he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully.
4: Lengthen your cords – God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine, according to the power that works in u… [more]
0 comments