Adolescence: a free webinar for churches, 16th Sept 2025, 16:30 - 18:00

An opportunity to explore and respond to the urgent issues exposed by the Netflix drama, Adolescence, and their implications for churches.

Adolescence: a free webinar for churches, 16th September 2025, 16:30 - 18:00

join us for an insightful webinar for churches centred on understanding and responding to the urgent issues exposed by Netflix’s critically acclaimed series Adolescence.

This four-episode, single-take British drama follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller, accused of murdering a classmate, and probes the devastating impact of toxic masculinity, online radicalisation, cyberbullying, peer pressure, knife crime, and the digital pressures facing boys today. Co-created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, the series is praised for its emotional realism and raw performances and serves as a powerful conversation starter about youth vulnerability, responsibility, and healing within our communities.

In this webinar for church leaders, parents, and youth workers, we will explore implications for engaging with young people in a rapidly changing digital world.

You can register your place here.  

For more information, don't hesitate to get in touch with Sarah Lane Cawte at sarah.lane.cawte@freechurches.org.uk

This event flyer is available to download here.

A Date for the Diary! The First CoNNECT Day II

The First CoNNECT Day II

12 March 2026, 10.30 - 16.00

An opportunity for Networking, Nurturing, Encouragement and Community together!

The First CoNNECT Day II will focus on exploring and developing case study research. Whether you are an experienced researcher or just beginning your journey, this event promises valuable discussions and inspiring ideas that could shape your future work. Don’t miss this opportunity to coNNECT. Together, we can push boundaries and create case studies that make a meaningful impact!

Stay tuned for more details, and mark your calendar - this is an event you won’t want to miss!

The Welcome Directory's next Prison Awareness Course is starting in September!

This three-part webinar series explores what it means to welcome prison leavers into your faith or belief community. You will increase your knowledge, understanding and capacity for welcoming prison leavers appropriately. The course is delivered online between 7:30-9pm and the Autumn 2025 dates are:

·         Part 1: Tues 9th Sept 

·         Part 2: Tues 16th Sept

·         Part 3: Tues 23rd Sept

Can't make it? No problem! Register your interest for the Winter series of the course here. Visit the Welcome Directory website HERE for more information.

Extended Time to take part in the National Churches Survey 2025

The National Churches Trust is conducting a major survey to better understand the challenges faced by those who care for the UK’s 38,500 churches. This is an excellent opportunity to gather valuable information on how church buildings across England and Wales are used to support their communities. 

So far, there has been a strong response to the National Churches Survey, with around 2,200 responses. However, the National Churches Trust is keen to increase that number to ensure the survey has the greatest impact. 

The deadline has therefore been extended to Sunday, 13th July. This will be the final date for responses. We encourage anyone who has not yet participated to take this opportunity to do so.  We are particularly eager to see Free Churches represented in the survey. 

Please see below a short message from the National Churches Trust, including a link to take part:   

If you work or volunteer at a church, chapel or meeting house, we want to hear from you. You response will provide essential evidence to build a clearer picture – to tell a stronger, more informed story about your church, and others like it, so that together we can address some of the biggest challenges facing churches and help ensure their future. Please take part now in The National Churches Survey to give your place of worship a voice.

Os ydych yn gweithio neu’n gwirfoddoli mewn eglwys, capel neu dy gyfarfod, rydym eisiau clywed gennych chi. Bydd eich ymateb yn darparu tystiolaeth hanfodol i adeiladu darlun cliriach – i adrodd stori gryfach, fwy gwybodus am eich eglwys chi, ac eraill tebyg, fel y gallwn fynd i’r afael gyda’n gilydd â rhai o’r heriau mwyaf sy’n wynebu eglwysi a helpu i sicrhau eu dyfodol.Cymerwch ran yn Arolwg Cenedlaethol yr Eglwysi. 

Getting to know: Rev Dr Tessa Henry-Robinson

Churches Together in England welcomes Rev Dr Tessa, Free Churches Group CTE President for 2025 to 2028.

As her term of office begins, Rev Dr Tessa (TH-R) spoke to CTE’s Senior Communications Manager, Sarah Ball (SB)

SB: Welcome to the CTE Presidency Rev Dr Tessa. How did your ecumenical journey begin?

TH-R: My ecumenical journey began long before I understood the word. As a child in Trinidad and Tobago, I lived the beauty and complexity of the Christian tradition through my family. My father was born in Tobago and raised in the Methodist tradition. My mother was born in Trinidad and raised in a Roman Catholic and Pentecostal household. I was baptised in the Methodist Church, educated in Roman Catholic and Anglican schools, and worshipped in Pentecostal settings during holidays with my maternal grandparents.

From early on, I encountered difference as a gift. That beginning shaped my lens, and helped me to see the rich variety within the body of Christ as something to honour, not to fear. My journey continues to unfold as one committed to the hard work of shared mission, mutual respect, and spiritual integrity across denominational lines.

SB: What was your first ecumenical experience? How formative was this?

TH-R: My earliest (formal) ecumenical experience came in the early 2000s while I was a member of Christ Church Bellingham. I was part of a small team tasked with building relationships across five local churches. That experience was not only informative. It was deeply formative. It taught me that unity across Christian traditions is not just an abstract hope. It is a relational task that demands presence, humility, and trust.

As I worshipped, dialogued, and shared life with colleagues from a range of denominational backgrounds, I began to sense the Spirit moving in ways I had not seen before. I witnessed how God works through different liturgies, languages, and leadership models. Some tensions surfaced, of course. But they were not held as obstacles, they were used as invitations and opportunities to grow deeper in grace. Ecumenical work has never been about erasing difference, it is about honouring difference, engaging it with love, and letting it stretch us toward fuller faithfulness.

Unity, for me, is the hard and holy commitment to keep choosing one another because of our differences, not despite them.

SB: You are a URC Minister, how has being part of that church influenced your thoughts on Christian unity?

TH-R: The United Reformed Church is itself a living sign of ecumenical commitment. Its very formation brought together multiple denominations in pursuit of a more faithful expression of the Church. To be a URC minister is to have been shaped in the context of being reformed and always reforming in a denomination that not only values being reformed and building unity, but was born from “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei”, “The church reformed, always being reformed according to the Word of God.” My ministerial formation has been rooted in the conviction that Christian unity matters—that we can be deeply faithful to our own traditions while also working generously across them.

The URC has given me space to live this conviction in practice: through shared worship, collaborative ministry, and openness to the Spirit speaking through other voices and traditions. I have been formed by a community that has moved from just talking about being a multicultural church with an intercultural habit, and becoming anti-racist, to being in the process of seeking, diligently, to embody these principles. This experience has instilled in me a deep hope that visible unity in the Body of Christ is not only possible, but essential to our witness in the world today.