Join Us for a Hybrid Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Use in Churches and Faith-Based Organisations

A Hybrid Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Ethical Use in Churches and Faith-Based Organisations

Date: Thursday, 13th March 2025

Time: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Location: Free Churches House, 27 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9HH

We’re excited to invite you to an engaging and thought-provoking seminar exploring the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within churches and faith-based organisations. This event will address how AI can transform faith-based work, from organising services and social action to optimising resources and improving outcomes for vulnerable and marginalised groups.

Keynote Speakers

We’re honoured to welcome:

Revd Professor David Wilkinson – ECLAS (Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science)

Sara Speicher – World Association for Christian Communication (WACC)

What to Expect

The integration of AI offers immense potential for churches and faith-based organisations. However, with these opportunities come critical ethical questions:

• How can AI be harnessed to uphold the values of human dignity and justice?

• What risks does it pose to vulnerable communities?

• How can faith-based organisations develop guidelines for ethical AI use?

Organised by Eurodiaconia, the Free Churches Group, and the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), this seminar will provide a platform for:

• Exploring the risks and opportunities of AI in faith-based social action.

• Discussing its implications for vulnerable communities.

• Reflecting on how churches can integrate AI ethically in their mission-driven work.

This seminar marks the beginning of a series designed to foster a shared understanding of AI and its implications for faith-based organisations.

Spaces are limited, so secure your place today! Join us in person or online for this timely discussion on the future of AI and ethics in faith-based contexts.

We look forward to seeing you there and building a collective vision for ethical AI in service to communities.

Revd Paul Rochester

General Secretary

Photo by Pixabay.

Nourishing Roots - with Ruth Perrin, 31st Jan 2023, 10:00-16:00

Location: St Antony's Priory 74 Claypath Durham, DH1 1QT

Date: 31st Jan 2023, 10:00 - 16:00

Register your place HERE.

A day of reflection and spiritual refreshment for Free Church chaplains within the quiet and peaceful surrounds of St Antony's Priory, Durham. This day is part of our tri-annual 'Nourishing Roots' sessions where we seek to help refresh our spirits and have a time of retreat away from our busy ministries.

Our reflections will be led by Dr Ruth Perrin, an experienced minister, trainer, researcher and mentor; she has been exploring and encouraging faith development for two decades and is passionate about helping people to draw close to Jesus and explore their part in his kingdom plans.

A buffet lunch will be provided - please advise us of any dietary requirements in advance.

The day is free of charge, but there are only 15 spaces available due to the size of the meeting room. We will initially have tickets available for six prison chaplains, six hospital chaplains, and three education chaplains. Tickets may be made more widely available in weeks to come.

Connecting Communities, Serving People, The Church & Social Cohesion

Connecting Communities, Serving People, The Church & Social Cohesion will take place on the afternoon of 30th September and be hosted at Liverpool Town Hall.

This event flyer is available to download HERE.

Shaping our Every Day Prayer – Zoom Conference September 22, 2021

Joint Liturgical Group of Great Britain presents

“Shaping our everyday prayer”

A Zoom Conference for all who pray and lead prayer in Christian Communities

22nd September 2021

2.30 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. (Zoom will open at 2:00)

For more info, please visit HERE.

Join in at Zoom link HERE

There is no registration fee, but donations will be accepted on the day, for the costs of the day and the on-going work of the Joint Liturgy Group.

Contemplation & Prayer — Fr. David Birchall will lead the Conference in imaginative contemplation and reflective prayer.

Watch and Pray: responding to visual art as a practice of prayer — Revd Peter Gardner will invite us to open our eyes, to look with attentive curiosity and to consider what we would choose to look at when we pray. He will reflect on ways that contemporary visual art practice can enhance our ways of seeing and transform our everyday prayer as individuals and worshipping communities.

About our presenters:

Fr. David Birchall joined the Jesuits in 1976 and was ordained in 1985. For nine years he was the Director of St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality centre. He is currently Director of the Ignatian Spiritual centre in Glasgow.

Rev Peter Gardner lives and works in Glasgow. Visual artist and Church of Scotland minister, Peter studied at the University of St Andrews, Edinburgh University and Leith School of Art. Ordained in 1988, Peter has served in rural and city centre Parishes and currently is the Church’s pioneer minister among the visual arts communities of Glasgow. Together with his wife Heidi, they form visual artist duo Gardner & Gardner. Their art practice focuses on temporary, site-specific installations and interventions, often set within the context of worshipping communities and their buildings, introducing a conceptual element into the sacred architecture and drawing attention to the sacred found in contemporary culture.

An Invitation to Hope: Mission through Prayer and Lament, 9 February 2021, 10 am

An Invitation to Hope: Mission through Prayer and Lament will take place on 9 February 2021, 10 am to 11.30 am. Please join us and please pass this invitation on to your friends and colleagues. Christian leaders from all spheres are warmly encouraged to attend.

We are in the middle of a protracted pandemic. Not just in wider society but among church leaders, there's a sense of weariness about Covid – and also a wariness about the larger convulsions affecting our society that the present focus has somewhat masked. How are we called to lead in this context? It’s time to come together to pray, reflect and ask a key question: what is God saying to us?

Many of you will have attended the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast last June, and the webinar afterwards on Mission during Lockdown and Beyond. Following on from that, we are delighted to let you know that we are hosting another webinar in February in which we are inviting the Church to pray and lament for our nation, as we seek God for his missional heart for this cultural moment. Please join us at this significant time.

Led by Christian leaders from multiple traditions and cultural spheres, we will spend time in lament, prayer and reflection, asking God what he is doing and how we can partner with him in a new wave of mission across our country. We so hope you will be able to join us.

Do have a look at the short video from our Chief Executive, Paul Williams to find out more. You can book your free place now.

Please visit the Bible Society website HERE for details of the programme.