Since 2012 we have funded the Student Christian Movement’s Faith in Action project through three phases, helping students put their faith to work for justice.
The call to follow Jesus, Bonhoeffer insists, is not an easy deal. Discipleship can never be a matter of cheap grace.
It requires sacrifice and even suffering in order to bring justice and equity to the poor and downtrodden. The Church, Bonhoeffer argues, is there to express Christ’s will for the world: to speak up for what is right and to challenge that which is not.
Our support for SCM’s Faith in Action internships has placed young people in programmes and services, public and private, where they could explore and even challenge practices at risk of failing to provide justice and care, particularly for the most vulnerable in society.
Phase 1
In each of three years, two recent graduates divided their time between working as interns in organisations working for peace and justice and, based on those experiences, contributing to SCM’s activities at branch and national level.
2012/3 ASSIST Sheffield, an asylum seekers support group
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2012/3 West Midlands Trafficking Task Force
2013/4 Concern Universal, an international development group
2013/4 Zheroes, combating food waste
2014/5 South London Youth Offending Team
2014/5 Northampton MIND
Phase 2
A review of Phase One pointed to the loss of momentum each year as new interns took up the work, and proposed a full-time worker for three years to embed the project securely within the whole life of the SCM.
2015/8 Faith in Action Project Worker, full time
Phase 3
A review of Phase Two agreed that Faith in Action could be better delivered by including it in the responsibilities of SCM’s growing team of Regional Staff, with one of them leading the work.
2018 Faith in Action lead worker
Project Worker
Ruth was brought up Methodist but is now an Anglican with Anabaptist sympathies. She has worked as a Pastoral Assistant for the churches of St Mark and St Peter in Mansfield and for Christian…
Peacemaker Teams on their UK outreach project. A two-week delegation with CPT alongside First Nations communities in Canada in 2011 first moved her to Christian activism. She has been involved with projects from Street Angels in Leeds to community organising with Citizens UK in Mansfield, and studies theology part-time at the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham.
Intern
Jacque became involved in SCM at its 2012 conference, during the first year of her Mathematics degree at Aberystwyth University. She graduated in 2014, and focused on the issue of mental health during her internship with SCM.
Intern
Stephen graduated from the University of London in Classical Civilisation. During his internship he concentrated on food waste: it perplexes him that so much food ends up in landfill. He believes God loves food…
too, and wants to see it reaching needy hands rather than bin bags, a fight he hopes will grow across student communities in the UK.
Our interns and workers have tackled some of the hardest questions facing society.
Project Bonhoeffer continues to bring together a support network of senior, and not-so-senior, friends who share a concern to renew the SCM for future generations of students, as it did for them, enriching their lives with both vision and vocation.
Get involved
Hear about the next seminar first, apply to the Bursary Fund, or simply ask us a question.
