The Diocese of Guildford has committed to the objective that our Cathedral, churches, schools, Church House and diocesan structures – including their leadership – reflect the racial diversity of their communities.
Today, on the 75th Anniversary of Windrush, the Diocese has launched its Racial Justice Covenant and Anti-Racism toolkit during its Triennial conference for parish leaders.
The Covenant – a ‘charter for change’ – is a commitment for parishes to sign up to every two years and provides a way for parish leaders to deal with racism within their churches.
The toolkit - which uses the four foundational principles of the Covenant to underpin all the resources, offers parishes some introductory tools for putting those principles into practice.
The principles are as follows:
- Disciples: We commit to Jesus Christ as individuals, as churches and as part of society.
- Diversity: We commit to encourage, build up and celebrate the racial diversity of the Body of Christ across Guildford Diocese.
- Representation: We commit to improve the inclusion, participation, and representation of UKME/GMH people in our congregations, our lay and ordained leadership and in our diocesan staff.
- Accountability: We commit to accountability and transparency in parish and diocesan systems, structures, and processes, with clear goals for racial diversity and inclusion
Diversity is fundamental to God’s creation, a gift to be enjoyed and relished. Yet in so many of its dimensions – not least in regard to race – diversity is a gift that is challenging and complicated.
As a diocese we commit to pursuing its benefits and tackling the barriers by ensuring ‘Growing diversity’ is part of our Transforming Church Transforming Lives framework.
We hope this toolkit will help each of us in our commitment and capacity to work with people from different ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds. This calls for an awareness and understanding of the responsibilities, attitudes, and ethnic and cultural sensitivities necessary to: create sustainable long-term anti-racists behaviours and actions; release potential in God’s church, and enable the flourishing of all God’s people.