The season of Lent begins on 14 Feb 2024
It may seem a bit early to be thinking about Lent, but the Clewer initiative have deliberately made the full resource available from now, so you have lots of time to review the content and consider how to use it effectively in your church or community.
- Visit the True Freedom microsite.
- Download the resource.
- Consider if there is a group of people you could tell about the resource.
- Could it form the basis of a weekly Lent Bible study in your church?
- Ask your church leader to review the material
- Encourage individuals to use the resource on their own throughout Lent
True Freedom, a six-week course for Lent, draws on themes from the book of Galatians, and encourages individuals and churches to respond to modern slavery in their communities.
The resource is part of an ongoing collaboration, which began in March 2020, between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and The Clewer Initiative. The collaboration has a particular focus on ending child slavery.
As part of the creative process, The Clewer Initiative and World Council of Churches organised an online consultation where modern slavery practitioners and church leaders from around the world gathered to discuss early drafts of the material.
This was vital in ensuring that the resource was relevant in different contexts. During the consultation, people were able to share examples of where they had seen churches taking action against modern slavery and we have included many of these stories in the final version.
True Freedom includes:
- a short Bible study on the book of Galatians
- a reflection written by Revd Dr Kenneth Mtata (WCC Programme Director for Public Witness and Diakonia) and Bishop Alastair Redfern (Chair of The Clewer Initiative)
- questions for group discussion or personal reflection
- victim stories
- a prayer
- art work to contemplate and discuss
- case studies from churches in the UK, Italy, Tanzania, Hong Kong, Ghana, Uruguay, Jamaica and the Cayman Island.
- information and statistics about modern slavery
- action points that are appropriate for different contexts.