The Story so far...
Redeeming Our Communities (ROC) was launched in the North West in September 2004. Debra Green had been coordinating inter-church meetings across the Greater Manchester region for a number of years, and had also been developing links with members of the police force. In 1998 a meeting was gathered to thank the members of Greater Manchester Police and 'Thank You' posters were placed in every police station across Greater Manchester.
The fruit of this meeting was significant- relationships between the church and police in the city began to develop in a new way. The story of these developments can be read in Debra and Frank Green's book, "City Changing Prayer". Following Festival Manchester in 2003, which saw 500 churches from all denominations working on community projects, many people began to consult with Debra on how they could learn from the experience in Manchester and Redeeming Our Communities initiative was launched in 2004.
Launch of Redeeming our Communities
The launch in 2004 saw thousands of people from the North West including civic leaders join together at the Reebok Stadium to thank the police, and also to pledge to see violent crime reduced in the region over the next 12 months through prayer and action. The pledge was met: 11 months after that meeting the Metro newspaper reported that violent crime in the region had fallen by 11%, bucking national trends.
In the months following this, interest in the initiative began to grow. People from around the country were beginning to get the vision of Redeeming Our Communities, and demand was such that a National Launch was held in 2006 at the at the NEC Arena. After the National Launch, attended by 7,000, the initiative grew, with ROC Ambassadors joining the team in regions throughout the UK. We began to hear stories of community transformation across the nation, some of which were collected together for Debra's 2008 book 'Redeeming Our Communities: 21st Century Miracles of Social Transformation'. We also hosted conferences to train and equip those who wanted to bring the Redeeming Our Communities model to their towns and cities.
10 Cities strategy
Representatives of police forces around the UK were present at another city-wide event in 2008 with a focus of reducing gang violence and the police saw the value in working with the church, and we began to receive requests to hold events in other cities. These requests, amongst others, prompted us to consider the best strategy in taking Redeeming Our Communities forward. We felt strongly that it would be best to commit to a strategy of working closely with police forces in 10 cities or regions over the next 3 years, and developed a new strategic plan along those lines. It was agreed that Manchester and Merseyside would be the first of these regions to launch, with their events taking place in June 2009. We are continuing to work closely with GMP and Merseyside police. ROC launched in Birmingham and London in 2010, in Nottingham, Eastbourne and Plymouth in 2011, and Belfast launches in 2012.
A full history of Redeeming Our Communities, with details of the events, can be downloaded here. |
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