City Rise, St Mark’s Battersea

We recently spoke to Marie Veitch (below) who is the City Transformation Coordinator at City Rise, St Mark’s Battersea, which is part of the Diocese of Southwark.

Marie said that she sees her role at the church as being a bridge between the church and the community, and there are many opportunities for the members of the church to get involved in serving the community. The church hosts Wandsworth Foodbank, a domestic violence drop-in, a single parent lunch and a weekly women's drop-in as well as many other activities. Marie said that "we are just looking to be a resource for our community, and we're looking to extend God's love into our community. We're just wanting to play our part in what God's wanting to do in our part of London."

Adding value to the support they were already giving

The church initially found out about Acts 435 whilst trying to find something that would enable them to provide practical needs for people, that they themselves didn't have the resources for. Marie said that they wanted to "add value" to what they were already doing. Marie said they needed to know how they could support specific needs as they came across them "because if you are giving someone an emergency food parcel, which addresses that need, but they haven't got a working cooker, then they aren't going to be able to cook the food, and you're making it more difficult for those already living in hardship."

The process of becoming an Advocate

The church then signed up to partner with Acts 435, and nominated Marie as their Advocate (Acts 435 representative). We asked Marie how she found the practicality of being an Acts 435 Advocate:

"The process is really clear, all the information is really accessible in the handbook, and how to post requests is clear. Once you're in the swing of it and you find the language for how you are going to talk about the requests so that they're not too wordy and are honouring of the recipients and the situations they're in then there's a rhythm that you sort of find. It doesn't take up too much time, and it feels straightforward. I'm not techy and so the fact that I'm just using my words to tell someone's story is all really good for me."

Stories of those supported by Acts 435

Marie told us of many stories of people who the church has been able to support with help from Acts 435. She told me of a family who is now part of their church, but first came into the building through the domestic violence drop-in service. They were in quite a difficult situation as they had been moved into temporary accommodation with nothing, but they needed a place to store clothes. Marie said: "it was a lovely way to be able to support and honour the mum and her son to help them with just the everyday things like where do you put school uniform, and most of us do not even think about that because we've already got a place to put our clothes. By being able to come alongside a family, and just provide something very practical, and shows that we care as a church, as individuals in our congregation often support our requests."

Providing an opportunity for the church congregation

Marie went on to talk about this connection between the church and the community: "we have quite a large congregation at St Mark's but people are quite time poor but are wanting to help and wanting to get involved. So, Acts 435 has provided a fantastic opportunity for everybody in the congregation, if they wish, to play their part in helping somebody in their community."

The church has an automated system that makes it easy for Marie to send out email alerts to those that want to be informed when she posts requests onto the Acts 435 website. She said that the congregation is so keen to help that often requests get met within 20 minutes!

We finally asked Marie what she would say about being an Advocate, and a partner church, and she said:

"I think it's an opportunity to help somebody feel seen and help somebody feel supported, which might be part of a journey for them where they're not just seen and supported but maybe it will help them on their journey to faith as well. It can show them that the Church is there for them, and that there are people in the Church who want to come alongside them, and that you might be part of their journey to getting more connected into Church too."