Q is for Quality….

The village I live in have been hosting what we call ‘The Advent Adventure’ for the last nine years. Homes, community groups and businesses volunteer to host an advent window, one for each day for the 24 days of advent. This year the theme is the A-Z of Christmas. As one of the organisers, I decided I had better allocate one of the more difficult letters to myself, so I’m doing Q.

The main elements of my window are Quality Streets and a Quiz about the Queen’s Christmas messages. As I was preparing our window I began thinking about the religion and worldviews community. I wondered if the metaphor of Quality Streets was helpful…

Colourful and Vibrant

When you open a tin of Quality Streets you notice the vibrancy and colour. My experience of the religion and worldviews community this year has seen great enthusiasm and passion. It is a community full of energy! Teachers joining evening webinars and twitter conversations, advisers and volunteers giving up time to lobby and advocate with politicians, powerful and dynamic speeches given at conferences… the list goes on.

Diverse

After you are wowed by the colourful array of chocolates, you then look at the diversity of the choice on offer! If the tin contained all the same variety, it would not meet the needs of my own family (one person does not like the purple ones). Diversity is good. The religion and worldviews community is diverse. There are many different views and opinions. I think this is healthy. It enables us to model what ‘disagreeing well’ looks like and enriches our responses to issues we face.

United Together

Yet, all these different chocolates are part of the big tin (well usually, I did see some ‘purple’ only bags on the shelves!). This makes them Quality Streets. Over the last year I have witnessed the coming together of the religion and worldviews community in a new way. There is a renewed commitment and sense of urgency around improving standards, infrastructure and provision. This has been seen most recently by a growing consensus for a funded National Plan for the subject, spearheaded by the RE Policy Unit. ‘Fund a National Plan’ should perhaps go on the front of our tin!

Quality

Lastly, they are called Quality Streets. The work I do for Culham St Gabriel’s would not be possible without the wisdom and creativity of my team and trustees, as well as some amazing colleagues in other organisations we partner with. There is true quality in our religion and worldviews community; quality of ideas, quality of commitment and quality of professional relationships.

So if you open a tin of Quality Streets this season, think about the wonderful religion and worldviews community, its vibrancy, unity in diversity and quality. Have a great festive season!

To find out more about the funding of a National Plan see www.rethinkre.org