ZERO INTOLERANCE CAMPAIGN

I'm sorry I shall miss seeing you all this evening.

I wanted to say a bit more about Zero Intolerance So Pamela is going to read this for me:-.

You will remember that Pamela and I went to a talk given by Roberta Romminger, the General Secretary of the URC, and at the last church meeting Pamela introduced you to Zero Intolerance, the URC's campaign for welcoming everybody into church.

This campaign has been written by the same advertising group who developed “Make Poverty History” – we all remember how powerful that was.

Briefly, every congregation is invited to think carefully and pray about being part of the campaign and what it will mean to be a totally welcoming church. We will have to look at ourselves and our church; look deep into –

who we are and how we are;

what we do and how we do it.

We will have to consider whether we would welcome absolutely anybody, without exception, into our church family, befriend them, sit with them, eat with them, count them as equals, befriend them and love them as a brother or sister.

If we can say 'Yes', then now is the time to explore further. We will have help with this next stage in the shape of a 'Companion' someone from outside our church.

This won't be the final decision to join the campaign. That will come at the end of the exploring process.

We might become a 'Z I ' church which means we would be included on the campaign website and our church would be advertised as a welcoming church.

There is an Information Sheet for you to take home tonight.

These will also be available on Sunday at church. It will also be printed in the June Newsletter with this explanation [See pp 4,5. Ed.], so everyone has a chance to think about it.

Let us keep Zero Intolerance very much alive in our minds and in our prayers and be ready for discussion in the coming weeks and months.

It is only at the end of the process, that we will have to make a final decision about signing up for the Campaign.