Increasing numbers of congregations are now working towards their Church of Sanctuary recognition. This strengthens their commitment to work together to learn about real-life situations and stories of people who flee danger to their lives seeking sanctuary elsewhere; to embed values and cultures of welcome, protective hospitality and safety; and to do this with pride and share their witness with others.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) and the Methodist Church offer online support and resources, and the study guide Hospitality and Sanctuary for All. The Church of Sanctuary website offers stories and experiences to learn from.
A Church of Sanctuary conference is planned for England on 8 June 2024, to be held in Carrs Lane Church Centre, Birmingham. Contributors include the General Secretary of CTBI Nicola Brady, Suffragan Bishop of Dover Bishop Rose Hudson Wilkins, General Secretary of Churches Together in England Bishop Mike Royal, Professor Robert Beckford, bible scholar Dr Jayme Reaves and myself. Refugee witness and voices will be heard alongside congregations recently awarded the Church of Sanctuary certificate and will share their stories. The purpose of the conference is to resource and support congregations in the Church of Sanctuary process, to build networks, and to strengthen the Church of Sanctuary momentum and movement.
Church of Sanctuary is increasingly seen, within the wider City of Sanctuary movement, as a prophetic, local-based strategy to challenge hostility with hospitality. There are well over 100 City of Sanctuary groups in cities, towns, villages, and places of sanctuary. Two-thirds of our universities are now declared Universities of Sanctuary. There are hundreds of Schools of Sanctuary. Churches are integral to this movement with many already declared Church of Sanctuary, proud to stand in solidarity alongside people seeking sanctuary, letting others know about the positive contributions of refugees to society. Churches work with strong local and global networks, they are becoming the beacons of support, and their wisdom and voice carry great weight.
It is significant that churches are showing a strategic alternative to “stop the boats”. The government’s hostile environment includes anti-refugee rhetoric, stopping small refugee boats crossing the English Channel, and the threat to detain, deport and send “illegal immigrants” to Rwanda. Boats are much in the news today. Boats are not only prominent in politics. They are a metaphor of Church and life and loss.
According to a report by the International Organisation for Migration of the United Nations over 25,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea between 2014 and 2024. Where are these deaths mourned in Europe?
Yet, boats remind us that the sea is no barrier to travellers. The sea is a connecting highway, predating roads. Sea waters have their dangers, but they are also a call to movement, connection and openness, with focus on journey more than destination. Connection is in our DNA as human beings. It is connection we miss and mourn when separated from those precious to us.
Christian witness often portrays the Church as a boat afloat on the ocean of the world with a mast in the form of a cross, symbolising movement, faith, reaching out in connection and relationships. After all the word ecumenical has its roots in the Greek word oikumene meaning the whole inhabited earth, and embraces, shelters, and protects all people. Roof and room for all.
Take a closer look at traditional church buildings. Ecclesial architecture reflects boats, recalling the rescue mission symbolised in Noah and the Ark, Paul’s sailing missions and shipwrecks, and the place of boats in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus rescued those in danger in a boat on choppy waters, he used a boat as a pulpit to speak from. Biblically water represents danger. Boats represent safety. Is this the message of the Church as a boat? So many church roofs look like boats. Sometimes, the wooden arches under these roofs are like the ribs of a boat’s hull, it may feel like sitting under an overturned boat.
Congregations sit in a central area called the nave, a word derived from the Latin navis which means ship, and gives us the word navigation. Sometimes, certainly in Celtic spirituality, Christian pilgrimage is portrayed as a boat journey of pilgrims to the shores of heaven. This is imagery that provokes reflection and response. We cannot ignore those in danger, and those who drown in sea waters.
The message of people crossing on treacherous waters across the waters like the English Channel is clear. We take these dangerous journeys for safety and protection. Listen to us not myths. Pay attention to our journeys. We are thankful for all search and rescue boats. We value connection and community. So, how can people have safe routes of travel, how can boats become symbols of rescue and safety? How can churches connect with those separated from home and loved ones, and engage with this message and ministry?
Churches have not always been the sanctuary they enshrine. We can pay more attention to our motif, and uphold the sacredness of movement, safety, building sanctuary, and without giving the impression that getting into our boat is the only route to salvation.
Churches working with refugees to build welcoming and hospitable responses for refugees arriving in the UK across the English Channel are lighting up ways to challenge hostility with protective hospitality. In January 2024, Victoria Hall Methodist Church, Sheffield, was declared a Church of Sanctuary. Victoria Hall is the original base of City of Sanctuary; it all started from a small room in this building twenty years ago.
The Church of Sanctuary award is not a reward. It is a way of honouring churches working hard to ensure that people seeking sanctuary among us have the protective hospitality in communities and congregations and cultures of welcome and safety.
This is a constructive example of standing up to racist rhetoric and behaviour around refugees, a faith-based response and challenge to the declared intention of our government to build a hostile environment here to deter refugees from coming to the UK.
Churches take pride in welcoming all. Many churches go beyond welcome and are thoroughly engaged with supporting refugees and people seeking sanctuary, to build protective hospitality in community. Here congregations are offering good leadership, and more congregations are joining in.
Inderjit Bhogal, January 2024