Director, Andy Flannagan reflects on 2009

What a year! Christmas is a time to sit down, take a breath and be thankful, so that’s what I’m going to do over the next few moments. I hope you don’t mind joining me.

At Christians we so often ask God to provide for our needs, to bless our endeavours and to keep us from harm. What we are not so good at doing is stopping to realise how many of those prayers have been answered and to say thank you. So let me put it on record. Thank you, Lord.

I firmly believe that the substantial growth in numbers, influence and opportunities for CSM in 2009 has taken place because members have been praying. Whether in ones and twos at home using the prayer updates from the website, at the monthly prayer gatherings, or at local branch meetings, many prayers have been offered. They have been the foundation of anything we have been able to achieve. So to those of you who have been praying and supporting in many other ways, thank you too.

So looking back...

At the beginning of 2009, I had the challenge of beginning a completely new job!

Perhaps the best way to describe how things have moved forward is by telling you about what happened last night. At the start of this year, we were sitting in a small office on the 4th floor of Westminster Central Hall. There weren’t too many people up on that floor, and to be honest it was pretty isolated. Every attempt to make connections, or influence in any way needed a walk or a phone call, or an email. This brings me to last night, because Jen and I shared an evening with many of the Labour Party staff and various Cabinet Ministers. Many of these folks are now friends or acquaintances; people who know about us and what we do. I’m not naive enough to think that we are suddenly central to government thinking, but relationship-building, I believe, is key, if we are to be the critical friend and prophetic voice that we so desire to be. We are a praying presence at Labour Headquarters, and are able to give advice and counsel to many. Hopefully our presence is also changing people’s perceptions about the numerical and intellectual strength of the movement, rather than allowing us to be written off as a relic from a bygone age.

It is also wonderful to see that the age of ideas is back! For many, many years CSM members have been campaigning for the institution of a currency transaction tax and we went out of our way to get an event at the Labour Party Conference this year, again making the case for the tax. Even as we prepared for this event, we were warned that Government ministers may not attend if the tax was even mentioned in the title. But through many conversations and presentations, only a few weeks later, the Prime Minister himself is boldly fronting the idea at the G20. The age of ideas is back!

We are praying for similar success for our campaign to see the separation of retail and casino banking. If you haven’t yet written to your MP about this, please do so, encouraging them to sign the EDM, as mentioned on the CSM website. We are encouraged by the new regulation of the banking sector, but it is not enough. Wholesale restructuring is required to ensure that banks are never again “too big to fail” and that the public will not bear the cost of financial risk-taking.

Something else I have also been saying to folks as I travel up and down the country is that “The future is there for the taking”. The more I see, the more I believe that the doors are wide open for CSM members to have a massive influence on the future of politics. There are so many opportunities to get involved in local politics, and often CSM members are very used to being reliable and punctual for meetings, through their church experience. They also do what they promise to do before the next meeting! You’ll usually be given a significant job pretty quickly because of this. A great example of this is CSM member Gavin Shuker – a young man who I knew as one of the young people we worked with in Luton when I was still involved in youth-work. Having attended a Luton comprehensive school, Gavin got a scholarship to Cambridge, but always intended to come home and serve the town he loved, so he was involved with a group of others in setting up a community-based church in Luton. He also got involved with the local party, helping with administration and the website, and quickly became an invaluable member of the team. To cut a long story short, Sunday, 13 December 2009, Gavin was selected last Sunday, as a 28 year old, to be Luton South’s parliamentary candidate for next year’s general election. An incredible story which I hope encourages you to believe that incredible things can happen when our prayers are mixed in with our activism. I repeat, the future is there for the taking.

I continue to pray that we will more and more become a missional movement, engaged in politics at every level, where we aren’t asking, “What is CSM doing?”, but realising that CSM is made up of everything that WE are doing all over the country. When we are on a mission together, in those places that stretch us, it is then that we realise the need for fellowship, support and prayer. At that point we aren’t just meeting for the sake of meeting, but because we know we need to! All of us know from experience that the relationships that have longevity and depth in our lives are those that are formed when we engage with others in a common task, for example a sports team, or a team that goes on a foreign trip together. There is a solidarity and sister/brotherhood that comes from working together that is difficult to replicate.

Other highlights of this year include:

Getting married in July!

CSM 102

An excellent meeting between the Archbishop of Canterbury and a whole host of Labour MPs and Peers. His thoughtful input was greatly appreciated by all those present, especially in the wake of the expenses scandal.

Excellent attendance at the monthly London prayer gatherings, and news of similar gatherings starting to gain momentum around the country.

We ran more events than any other organisation at the Labour Party Conference this year (13!), all of which were well attended. Stephen Pound MP said that one event was the “best fringe event I have ever attended at a party conference”, and Jon Cruddas MP said that when you looked through our programme, CSM were “the only people asking the important questions”. We even got a mention in the General Secretary’s speech.

Completing the difficult logistics of the office move from Westminster Central Hall to the Labour Party Headquarters, with all of its attendant complications!

Making great progress towards stabilising CSM’s finances and administrative structures in an attempt to make CSM sustainable. Jay Hart has done incredible work alongside our wonderful volunteers in making this possible.

The ballooning number of volunteers and interns who are coming to gain experience with us.

The web-team that is forming to keep the website active and engaging. We are getting hundreds more hits on the new site and the quality of articles is excellent.

The virtual web office system is enabling many CSM Officers, along with others to make their contribution to CSM from a computer near them, rather than all work being CSM office-based. This has greatly increased our capacity.

So there is much to be thankful for, and there is so much more that I have no space for at the moment.

If just falls to me now to wish you a Christmas break that is truly restful. I pray we’ll make the time to be still and know that He is God, so we can be guided, inspired, envisioned and empowered for 2010. There is so much opportunity, but as the Psalmist said, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labour in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

Happy Christmas,
AF Sig

Andy Flannagan, CSM Director, 17/12/2009