OUR CHRISTIAN ROOTS

MK Christian Foundation and Sector Ministry

We are aware that the use of ‘Christian’ in our organisation’s name engenders differing responses; not all positive, which we fully understand!

The organisation was established by and continues to be part of the local Christian community; however we positively seek to, and indeed do, work and learn with staff, clients and communities from all faiths and none.

The intention of those from the Christian Community is not to proselytise but to work in ways that express our belief in a God who is concerned for all aspects of life and particularly for hard-pressed groups in our communities.

The Christian Foundation and Sector Ministry emerged from the Church’s ecumenical adventures in the growing New Town of Milton Keynes. As churches took the opportunity to work in new ways with each other, they also sought to develop innovative patterns of working with the emerging communities, exploring new meanings of ‘being church’ and new patterns of ministry. One strand of these explorations was developed by a team of ‘Sector Ministers’ who came together in the early 1980’s.

The Christian Foundation charity was created as one of the vehicles for these ventures. The focus of our work has always been the everyday ‘sectors’ of life: work; education; business; health; family; community; and environment. Through commitment to neighbourhoods and local communities of geography, interest and concern, we learn with others how together we can challenge disadvantage, exclusion, injustice and the abuse of the environment. From our faith perspective we believe we see in these activities the signs of God’s activity in our community with which we seek to join and share.

Over the years this led to our engagement with many local issues such as: waste and recycling; unemployment and training; teenage pregnancy and period poverty; childcare and play; education and school exclusion; food security and healthy eating; affordable housing and homelessness; regeneration and community cohesion; transport and cycling; renewable energy and climate change.

We continue to be involved with many of these issues but more recently have found social enterprise offers us a new and creative way for us to work with them. The enterprises provide a profoundly practical way to immerse ourselves and create real responses to questions arising in our local neighbourhood and the wider world. In addition they have proved particularly effective in providing contexts for young people struggling with education and employment.The enterprises offer opportunities for working together on demanding common tasks, enabling our young people and others to co-create their futures, ‘learning, changing and growing’ with us as they support us to deliver our wider mission.