Rosie Venner, ECCR’s National Programme Manager, explains why we’ve launched our new programme, Money Makes Change, and what it’s all about.
It’s been an exciting few months behind the scenes at ECCR!
Money Makes Change is the new name and brand for our education programme and includes resources for individuals, small groups and churches. We’ve been working hard to get it ready to share with you, and we launched the programme this week, along with the first in a series of resources. Read more about it here!
Money Makes Change has grown out of two strands of work – our regional work with churches in the South West and the West Midlands (Ethical Money Churches) and the Your Faith, Your Finance website that was launched in 2013 in partnership with Quaker Peace and Social Witness. Our new programme brings together our work with churches and individuals in a way that we hope is accessible and appealing to a wide audience.
The name, Money Makes Change, came about as we wrestled with how to link the language of finance to the themes of community, connection and action. We hope the simplicity and alliteration will make it easy to remember!
The strapline ‘Connecting faith and finance for a fairer world’ spells out the purpose of the programme. We want to help people understand how the daily decisions we all make about money can impact our neighbours, locally and globally, and all of God’s creation. Conversation and prayer around our finances can, and should, lead to action – and we look forward to hearing stories of what this looks like in practice as churches and individuals explore our resources this year.
Our new logo can be interpreted in many ways. It could be a person, a coin and a note or a combination of the two. It may be interpreted as someone offering to the world the resources they are stewarding, reminding us of 1 Peter 4:10:
Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. We hope it conveys the inclusive, positive approach of the programme. We’d love to hear what you see!
If your new year’s resolution has anything to do with living more sustainably and helping create a fairer world, and you’d like to get others involved too, then do look at our first resource – an interactive workshop for small groups – and let us know what you think.
Let’s make 2020 the year we take seriously the call to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly, in every area of our lives, including how we use our money.