David Westlake, Missions Director Tearfund

Tearfund: a global relief and development agency. What we’re about is getting behind local churches in some of the poorest parts of the world, bring the Good News in Jesus’ name to the last, the least and the lost. We do that mostly in the developing world but also significantly here in the UK as well. The reason that I’m involved tonight and I committed Tearfund to this project is for two reasons. Firstly, that God is doing something with his church and the second is, he is doing something with Yemisi. What God’s doing with His church, we’ve heard, is that He’s bring his Church back to His kind of mission where we’re not just concerned only with our own personal piety but we’re concerned with righteousness and justice in our communities. And thank God He’s doing that.

When I read FAM and heard the vision I saw something that was putting forward great theology, really inspiring case studies and ‘how-to’s, and connecting Christians to good practice. Because we have to be the first to admit that sometimes our zeal has outpaced our wisdom. Having something which brings together a passionate love of Biblical theology and worship of our Lord and Saviour, with inspirational stories of how to impact our communities, and do it with best practice was something that we had to get behind. Second, God was doing something with Yemisi – I don’t want to embarrass her. Sometimes you meet people who you sense the Holy Spirit is on and in, and doing something with. And the only honest response is to get behind that and say: we love what God is doing with you; we love how you’re making yourself available to God. We want to cheer you on; we want to encourage you. We want to see what God is doing with your life. Not just because you’re special; because you’re representing a new breed of Christian that God is raising up that brings his heart, and his word, and his love, and his mission to some of the darkest and poorest places of the world, and equips the church to do the same.

So, we’re here saying we’re fans of Yemisi, we’re fans of what God’s doing in her life and through her, and fans of what God’s doing in his church as he raises up a new generation of Christians and a new generation of churches which brings the whole Gospel to the whole community, wonderfully. That’s why we got involved.

Tim Bissett Director Tearfund

I can remember the conversation that Yemisi and I had in Birmingham, that was quite a time. It’s interesting that the whole idea that Yemisi had for this magazine came about through the School for Social Entrepreneurs, and one of the things that I’ve been saying to her is that all this vision is terrific, but it has to hang together financially, and that’s a real challenge. Now CUF, we’re a grant giver, and we’re good at putting little bits of money into things to get them going. We’ve stopped doing this with FAM – we’re not going to do this anymore.

Yemisi knows this, this is not bad news tonight, but what we’re going to do is support her commercially now as a going concern, a social enterprise an activity that can be sustainable for the future. And what’s extraordinary now is that from a standing start there is a print run of about 10K copies of FAM. 10K superb, well-designed, well-produced colour copies. It’s hitting a database of 4000 addresses; that again is extraordinary. It’s getting out to the kinds of organizations that we want it to. It goes out to the network of black majority churches, the Salvation Army, the Pentecostal churches; it goes to the Church of England. Wherever Yemisi can get it, it goes. It’s a terrific network. And I think what you’re getting is, numbers aside, a publication that’s going to some extraordinary people. It’s going to people who really want to read about faith, their motivation and action in our communities. It’s targeted and it’s hitting an extraordinary group of people. People involved in Kingdom activity, motivated by faith to transform some of our communities. To hit people like that is just extraordinary.

These are world changers. It’s hitting people like that. So for us, to spend a bit of money and put an ad in a magazine like that is a bit of a no-brainer. So yes, we’ve given some grants, but we’re not going to do that anymore. What we are going to do is put some money in, target our advertising spend to give something to FAM magazine.

Nims Obunge MBE Director Peace Alliance

I remember seeing Yemisi on the night that she first came to our church, and I remember seeing a remarkable transformation from a young lady who was far from walking in faith, had so many things going wrong in her life suddenly becoming the one to make faith active in the local community. I’ve seen that transformation and that’s why I totally back the drive that she has. I know that what we would like to see is not because of the individual but because of what the individual is representing and presenting to the wider community. It needs support and in one sense, dear I say it, but I think in days like this we need more Mordecais to hold the hand of Esthers.

To say here, let me show you how to make it in days like this., And I could Yemisi as one of the Esthers of our time, and I look to you to be the Mordecais of our time who are in places of influence and are able to to hold the hands of some of the younger ones that we need to raise up, and are able to show them how to make these things work. So I do appreciate the context and the conversation that you’ve given today and I say this before I go into the next phase, but I would ask you to consioder yourself a Mordecai to this project. And we will remind you no doubt.

David Burrowes MP, Shadow Justice Minister

Yemisi approached me in 2007, and came to me just contacted me – we get many contacts every day through e-mails and others – and one of those hundreds of e-mail contacts that day was from Yemisi saying I’m here, I’m in Enfield, I’ve got this vision, this great dream to have a magazine like Faith Action to really bring together the Christian communities to go out there in action. And you get this and you go, wonderful, very good, but you’re slightly skeptical but I want to do what I can to support you. But then Yemisi came to one of my surgeries, and as anyone knows who’s met Yemisi, there’s just this huge enthusiasm, passion and drive which is infectious. We’ve all been touched by that, and many more besides and so it’s wonderful for me to be able to play a small part in encouraging Yemisi to be here and see how things have progressed and how things look so good.

The challenge for us all us to be here at the launch but also to be here in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years along and ensure that we’re praying and supporting financially and actually getting others in board as well. And really from a secular point of view, as an individual who’s contacted to say they want to set this magazine up, this network, you wouldn’t give it many prospects of success otherwise. But the strength no doubt comes from this launch, and the whole project. Obviously we can attribute it to Yemisi and her whole drive and her conviction, but it comes from her dependence on the Lord, and on His strength, and that’s why it’s come so far and why we’re here, and why it’s going to go further and further. It’s a privilege to be here and be a part of this launch.

I’m also involved as the Shadow Justice Minister and I recently heard a story of a prisoner who’d been released from a local prison, let’s say Pentonville, and had been released into the community. As he said, he was released but then 20 minutes later he came back and knocked on the door of Pentonville and said hello. They said, what are you doing here? You’ve been released. He said, I’ve been released into the community – where’s the community? And he couldn’t find it. But if we take that a stage further and use that example in terms of the faith community, in some ways we are released from the church and into the community as we should be asking theb question as Christians, where is that community that I need to be working in? And Yemisi is helping to answer that question with Faith Action as to exactly what we should be doing as a response to it in all kinds of different ways.

In my role as shadow Justice Minister I’ve spent a long time being involved in a community that’s hidden. Nims spoke about how one important part of the magazine, and the project, in many ways, is the reaching out to areas of the Christian community that have been hidden, perhaps haven’t been engaged as much as they need to be. That’s a really key part of what this magazine is about. But it’s also about making sure that the Christian light is exposed on communities that are often hidden, that don’t have a voice, that are in many ways neglected.

In the area of prisons and justice that’s one community that often is hidden. It doesn’t have the windows that shine out both in terms of people seeing out and people seeing in to what’s happening. And it’s that area that I look forward to in the magazines to come, very much. Faith Action will be able to expose and show how the Christian community has such an important part to play in the whole area of prisons and in some ways, the response that Faith Action is is saying is, are we sheep or goats? It’s an interesting question to ask, but that it the place. If we look at Matthew 25 we’ll know the parable where Jesus was saying, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothers and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came and visited me. The sheep, the righteous, are surprised and ask him, when did we see you sick or in prison? In reply, Jesus says in that memorable phrase, "I tell you the truth: whatever you do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you do for me".

There’s the encouragement, the basis of the response that Faith Action is calling us to. To do our best for the disadvantaged brothers and sisters in the community. But what we need is the re-galvanising, to the Christian community and all communities. And it’s Jesus who accuses the goats of not inviting him in as a stranger, for not clothing him when he was naked, for not caring for him when he was sicj and in prison.

The opposite of his first statement is true – whatever you did not do for one of the least of these you did not do for me. That need to be involved, the need to make a difference in our community is vividly spelt out and said by Jesus. That’s the challenge that we all can get involved in those areas. Certainly, my own visits around prison establishments, I’ve been concerned about many of those hidden issues around prisons, many areas that are lacking, but I’ve been very much encouraged by the role of the Christian community. Just to mention two brief examples – and there’s many more individual and group examples of the Christian community reaching out and being concerned about those in prisons. For example, there’s the Kairos community, that will be known to some, but an initiative that started in 1996 in HMP The Verne, based on a Brazillian prison programme. They ran on a Christian principles programme that has achieved dramatic changes in prison behaviour and outlook.

The Verne saw adjudications down by 76%, saw changing behaviour and in terms of reconviction rates of those who weren’t the easiest to pick, but some of the hardest, the graduates from HMP Verne, was running at 12.5% compared to at least 40 or even 60% reconviction rates. Dramatic changes that are having a profound effect on the community. If one takes it further those principles can operate in other areas of criminal justice, those practical principles that affect the way people act and behave.

Another example, a prison fellowship again lead by Chuck Austin in America, that in England and Wales worked with 120 of those prayer groups of 900 volunteers or more, of individuals from across denominations. And that’s the flavour of Faith Action, across all different denominations they engaged in reaching out to the prison community. And they’re involved very much with the Sycamore Tree project of restorative justice. Principles at the heart of Christianity, within the Bible, applied at a practical level in prisons, ensuring that victims of crime, who can often be forgotten, are effectively shut out of prisons, are much engaged in the story, in forgiving and ensuring that there is proper justice.

And those examples work in other areas of criminal justice – I can’t mention criminal justice without mentioning the Street Pastors I’m going to go out with at the weekend – they’re one organization that shows the power of prayer, the support, the dependence on the Lord, on the strength of vision and leadership or individuals and volunteers. Of Christians throughout, staring with a group of 8 on the streets of Brixton and being out there reaching out to their community, and now 125 teams of volunteers the length and breadth of the country, wanting to be a shoulder to cry on and to point people in the right direction but also restore those broken relationships which we sadly do see throughout our communities.

They’re beacons of light in our community and that is what Faith Action is indeed seeking to do, to ensure that those beacons of light are showing the love of Christ and the example of Christ to government, to churches, to all communities.

What I see in terms of Faith Action magazine, how it can really play its part, is those ideas, those initiatives to circulate those around, for people to pass those on as a resource for communities to ensure that they evaluate and hear what governments are doing but also that they’re there to inform and tell government that this is the way you should be going, and tell brothers and sisters about what ways we can respond to our faith. And, because in many ways the government can’t come up with all the answers, nor should they do, it’ll be society that has a responsibility and it’ll be the Christian community that is going to be taking the lead.

As I, and I’m sure you, believe, it’s only really a society transformed by God’s grace that will lead communities to have that restoration that we all want. That brings me back to my comments from the beginning – for change to be felt throughout society we need to live out our faith as the Lord Christ intended. And so let us all be sheep rather than goats – that’s why we’re here, as sheep – and Faith Action can help to ensure that we’re following Christ’s lead, following Christ’s compassionate love to the loveless. Faith Action magazine has a role to play in facilitating that and I’m immensely grateful to Yemisi for all the work she’s done today, and for the privilege of being part of this launch of this magazine.