Churches Together in England Forum

Next week I'm off to the Churches Together in England Forum. Its a 3 day conference which happens every three years, when reps from all the member churches get together to discuss issues which effect us all and to share experiences. I'm there as a representative of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, and feel really priveliged to be given this honour and chance to be involved in ecumenism on a national scale. The forum is being held at Swanwick in Derbyshire, where the famous Swanwick declaration was signed ( more on that tomorrow )

This year the forum ( whose moderator this time is my own Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton ) is called "Changing World : Changing Church?" and will look at different ways in which we as churches and individual Christians can respond to the changing world we live in.

The four themes are : Ecology, Doing Church differently, violent Crime, Interfaith relationships.

Each member of the Forum has been provided with a set of four postcards which are meant to stimulate our thoughts before we go and our discussions at the forum. I reproduce them below to allow you all to consider your thoughts on these issues and we will discuss them as FACT at some later stage. If you have any ideas and thoughts which you would like me to take to the Forum, after reading these cards just let me know.