He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8 NIV)
Hounslow Methodist Church has always been keen to engage in Social Action and has been involved in many forms of charity work, including fund-raising, raising the awareness of causes and encouraging our congregation to participate in local issues. Over time we felt that we needed to develop this further so several years ago the church set up a campaigning group to look into how the church can engage in local, national and international social issues in a more active way.
As Christians, we are called to stand up to injustice wherever we find it, and at Hounslow, we are increasingly finding this an important part of our faith. Recently we have been involved in the campaign for justice for Bangladeshi Garment workers and promoting the “Flesh and Blood” campaign encouraging Christians to sign up to be organ donors. Before the 2015 general election, we held a Question time evening involving prospective (and the then current) MP’s entitled “Faith in Politics?”. We regularly post updates from these and other campaigns we support on our website and newsletter. We are currently engaged in our “In Harmony with Creation” campaigning which aims to highlight environmental issues, climate change and improve our members and the church as a wholes impact on the environment.
What can I do?
There are plenty of options of what you can do, one of the easiest is to keep an eye on the church website and see what comes up as an issue for our church. Other charities and sites such as 38 Degrees also run regular campaigns. If you find something you are passionate in and would like to draw its attention to our church then please contact us or speak to a member of the campaigning group.
If there is an issue particularly close to your heart, you can also contact your MP to ask about what is happening to resolve it. To find out your member of parliament you can use the UK Parliament website which has contact details for all MP’s. The MP for the church constituency (Brentford and Isleworth) is Ruth Cadbury.