Heald Green United Reformed Church

Dear friends,

The season of lent is a time of reflection and self examination, and not by accident, is also the time of fairtrade Fortnight, which this year runs from 26th February to the 11th March.

The title for our own lent course this year is as you know from recent sermons, ‘The Power of Small Choices’, and by coincidence the theme of this years Fairtrade Fortnight is ‘Change Today – Choose Fairtrade’.

Choice is a powerful thing, and to many a luxury they are denied, so for those of us who have a choice, we also have a responsibility to use it responsibly.

The success of the Fairtrade movement is all about the power of small choices, and in no small way the Fairtrade movement owes much of its success to the church – that is, ordinary people like you and me, committed to making a difference – for Christ’s sake!

If during this lent season we look back and reflect on the growth of the Fairtrade movement and our involvement in it, we can see several stages of its development and our growing understanding of it.

First was the coffee no one liked and which only the most committed drank out of a sense of duty! Only for sale in churches and charity shops, and accounting for less that 1% of the UK’s total coffee sales.

Next came the Supermarket campaign, you may have taken part. Church members saved their supermarket receipts and after a period of time presented them to their local store with a note attached saying, ‘This is how much I spend in your store, and I would like you to stock Fairtrade goods, if not, I may have to start shopping somewhere that does’. It was simple, to the point but most importantly, effective; try finding a major supermarket today which doesn’t at the very least stock Fairtrade tea and coffee, if not a much wider range of products.

The next stage was strangely a much tougher task, and we still have a little way to go. Convincing people Fairtrade wasn’t a brand name in itself, but an award given to any product which met the strict criteria of the Fairtrade Foundation.

The problem was, so many people could remember their first encounter with Fairtrade coffee and said, ‘Oh I’ve had that stuff and I didn’t like it!’ We’ll today there is no excuse, there are dozens of different brands and blends of coffee all bearing the Fairtrade Mark, so why not try a few till you find your favourite.

And finally, the Fairtrade movement and the churches relationship with it has moved forward again to where we are today. We’re re-learning about the power of small choices AND that Fairtrade isn’t just a good cause that we support now and again, a product we buy only on the occasions when we are feeling charitable, but is a lifestyle choice, a Kingdom principle!

Once we know about Fairtrade, once we know the difference buying Fairtrade makes to peoples lives, and the misery some multinational companies are causing. Once we know there is a small choice we can make which we will hardly feel the effects of, just spending a few pence more, but which through the Fairtrade Mark we know will have real life changing effects in other parts of the world. Once we know all this, how with a good conscience as followers of Christ can we ever buy non-fairtrade goods again?

So this year I pray the Fairtrade movement takes another stride forward, as we as a church commit to saying, not only will we use Fairtrade goods in our church, but we will all strive to use them in our own homes, only using non-fairtrade products when there is no choice, and not when we simply choose not to!

Remember the power of small choices WILL change the world!

Mike