Build a bridge between your church and our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land.

Sharing in their lives nourishes us, showing us what the gospel looks like in the lands of Christ and his first followers. We invite you to join with us by encouraging your congregation to Pray, Act, Give and Visit.

Ephesians 2:19 “Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners but inhabitants of the City of the Holy One and children of the household of God.”

Pray

Your prayers truly matter. Our beneficiaries frequently tell us that your prayers are a source of strength and inspiration. They draw comfort from knowing that people across the world are praying for them as they face the challenges of life amid conflict, poverty and injustice.

• What can you do?

We ask you to encourage your church congregation to gather together regularly in prayer for our brothers and sisters.

• Organise a service or reflection time to pray for those in the Holy Land.
  
  
• Register with our Prayer Bank, as a prayer group or as a parish and encourage all members of the group to register.

We will post regular prayer, reflections and other updates on our prayer page and we encourage you to comment with your own blessings and prayers so that we might come together as one community. We will also email you with these latest prayers and reflections for your use throughout the year.

Act

We can help your church connect meaningfully in its social witness to the plight of Christians in the Holy Land.

What can you do?

• A simple first step is to identify a ‘Friends of the Holy Land Ambassador’ for your church from among your congregation. A volunteer to help you maintain the bridge. Their role would be to ensure that the church congregation and the local Christian community is kept up to date by helping to distribute our newsletter twice a year along with our prayer cards for everyone who’d like one. Please let us know the Ambassador's contact details by emailing or calling our office so that we can make sure to liaise with them with these materials.
  
  
• You could invite a Friends of the Holy Land speaker to your church to speak either at a special event or to share a short reflection on a Sunday morning. We love getting out and about to meet our supporting churches, particularly because we love to thank you in person.

Please call the office on 01926 512980 or email [email protected] with your details or register your church so we can arrange this for the year ahead.

Give

We are all looking forward to the coming months when restrictions will ease and people begin to be more comfortable with returning to regular worship and social gatherings. This brings a wonderful opportunity for your church to organise a fundraising event providing practical help to our sisters and brothers.

Such an event will strengthen the bridge you are building and could be the catalyst for your congregation to demonstrate an increased commitment to their faith. Moreover, there are many examples where fundraising events also strengthen a community’s relationships as well as being good for individual mental health.  

We can help as we know of many places to find ideas for fundraising events, some of them we share on our website. Once you have an event planned we can also help you with marketing materials and promotional support to help increase participation. Contact the office (call us on 01926 512980 or email [email protected]) once you have some outline plan for your event. 

You may prefer to participate in events that we will be planning later in the year as a group. Follow our monthly updates for news of these plans. If you don't already receive emails from us and would like to, contact us via email ([email protected]) and let us know.

Visit

A Holy Land Pilgrimage provides a wonderful opportunity for us to step away from the recent trials and fears of life and to seek a time of quiet reflection. There is no better way to bring the Bible alive than to visit the Land where Jesus walked and connect with the 'living stones' who live there. Friends of the Holy Land have the experience to help in your planning and the local connections to make your pilgrimage unforgettable.

What can you do?

• Encourage your congregation to find and join a pilgrimage.
  There are some planned pilgrimages for 2022 accepting bookings; we share details of some of them on our website. 
  
  
• Organise your own pilgrimage within your parish, deanery or wider ecumenical community. Someone has to take the first step.
  Please do talk to us for help in organising your visit and itinerary - we have years of experience of visiting the Holy Land and we can facilitate meetings with our active Christian families and projects in the Holy Land to bring your visit to life. 

Visit our pilgrimage page for more information.

As you build a bridge between your church and our sisters and brothers in the Holy Land, you help our mission to sustain their communities and overall, work to bring peace and transformational change to all.

Thank you!