New Lincoln training curacy combines cathedral and parish ministry; Mission to Seafarers: “New convention means protection, justice”; Rowan Williams to speak at Festival of Wellbeing
New Lincoln training curacy combines cathedral and parish ministry
A new training post in Lincoln is being offered to combine the experiences of working in a cathedral setting with day to day life in a parish ministry.
The post is being created by the Bishop of Lincoln in partnership with Lincoln Cathedral and St John the Baptist church on Lincoln’s Ermine Estate.
It will be overseen by Canon John Patrick of Lincoln Cathedral and the Reverend Stephen Hoy, parish priest of St John, Ermine.
The Ermine estate in the north of the city is home to around 5,600 people and contains extensive social housing. It is within the third most deprived ward in the city, with a third of residents suffering fuel poverty.
The diocesean office says the area lacks major funding, has a “continuing” drugs problem, and that community projects have “usually closed after only a short period”.
However, churches on the estate are “very active” in supporting community development and members of St John’s have formal roles on local bodies, including Ermine Primary Academy, the local Sure Start, and the Neighbourhood Police Panel.
The training curacy coincides with St John’s 50th anniversary year, which has been celebrated throughout the year with the development of a community choir project, and 18-month oral history and heritage project, a family fun day in June, and a concert by soprano Elizabeth Watts.
The post is being offered to someone with “intellectual and emotional maturity” who is able to contribute to the life of the two Christian communities.
“We are looking for a person who will be able to view this appointment as one of constructive priestly formation but be able to maintain their own integrity and not be diverted by the distractions and diversions that such a position could offer,” the diocesan office said.”This is a unique and challenging post that will combine the experience of cathedral ministry with a rooting and grounding in the everyday life of a council estate and its parish church.”
Mission to Seafarers: “New convention means protection, justice.”
Anglican agency Mission to Seafarers (MtS) has welcomed a new convention that, when it comes into force next week, will mean significantly better working conditions for millions of seafarers worldwide.
The International Labour Organisation’s Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) marks a new era for the 1.3 million seafarers whose ships carry 90 per cent of the world’s trade.
The Convention has been ratified by some 60 countries and comes into force on 20 August. It will update more than 60 maritime labour standards to create a comprehensive system of care covering such issues as welfare, employment conditions, training and medical care.
This is important because far too many seafarers – particularly those from developing world nations where other jobs are scare – are vulnerable to unscrupulous ship owners and employment agencies who exploit them.
“The MLC’s entry into force means that an equal system of justice for everyone – from the first-time seafarer to the experienced shipowner – is in place for the first time,” said MtS Worldwide’s Justice and Welfare Officer the Revd Canon Ken Peters.
“The international community now has a suite of conventions that together provide for training and education, safety of life at sea, environmental issues and now welfare and working conditions, thanks to the MLC.”
Mr Peters has worked with the ILO since as far back as 2001 on the Convention which covers:
• Conditions of work and employment;
• The welfare of seafarers, including their living conditions on ships;
• Guidelines relating to the terms of work contracts;
• Issues concerning family contacts and support;
• The right to fair treatment
• Regulation of employment agencies; and
• The encouragement of Port Welfare Committees to oversee the conditions of the Convention.
The Convention will sit alongside the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW); International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) and is referred to by many as the “fourth pillar” of seafarers’ rights.
The Mission to Seafarers is an Anglican agency that works in over 260 ports caring for seafarers of all ranks, nationalities and beliefs. Through its global network of chaplains, staff and volunteers it offers practical, emotional and spiritual support to seafarers through ship visits, drop-in centres and a range of welfare and emergency support services.
Rowan Williams to speak at Festival of Wellbeing
Christian Aid chair Rowan Williams will be speaking about how our pursuit of knowledge affects human relationships and can be the source of “frustration and injustice” at the Resurgence Trust’s Festival of Wellbeing in October 2013.
The festival, organised by Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, will focus on ‘the shift from economic growth to growth in wellbeing’ and is being held at the Bishopsgate Institute in London on Saturday 12 October.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury will talk about how knowledge has to come through experience and sharing life with others:
“Our culture has a very clear and very dysfunctional idea of what it is to ‘know’ things,’” he said. “We still regularly talk as though it was a matter of a disembodied mind surveying a dead landscape. Other ways of thinking about this need revisiting, especially those that stress that knowing is some sort of sharing of life: we know the world as part of it, not as something separate.
“This is an essential aspect of a religious approach to the world, but it’s also a profoundly important principle for our human relations, our politics and economics. We need to get beyond a picture of knowledge that assumes we are disembodied minds managing dead matter. This is the source of many of our current tangles of frustration and injustice.”
Also speaking at this year’s festival will be poet and Booker prize-winning novelist Ben Okri, author Tony Juniper, poet Ruth Padel and campaigning journalist Tamsin Omond, among others.
Editor-in-chief of Resurgence and Ecologist Magazine, Satish Kumar, who is hosting the event said the festival would examine the nature of wellbeing from multiple perspectives.
He said: “I am honoured and delighted that Rowan Williams will be speaking at our Festival of Wellbeing. He brings with him a unique level of wisdom and intelligence which blends economy, social justice and spirituality. This will enhance our event which focuses on wellbeing from a variety of angles including environmental, personal and social.
“The Festival of Wellbeing provides an extraordinary combination of economists, environmentalists, business leaders, spiritual leaders and activists within the field of development.”
* For more information, or to buy a ticket for the event, visit www.resurgence.org/wellbeing