BCAN (Bristol Christian Action Network) Helping Christians Respond To Social Needs BCAN Home Page

Introduction

BCAN is Bristol and District Evangelical Alliance's response to a call from Sir Fred Catherwood, made in the mid 1990s. He challenged British evangelicals to rediscover their roots in Christian social care and compassion by forming 'Christian Action Networks' in their areas.

Each CAN would support local initiatives by bringing together across denominational divides both church leaders and those involved in social action ministries.

BCAN Vision

The vision of BCAN is to inspire and encourage, equip, support, facilitate and network local churches, Christian organizations and projects, their partners and all those committed to social action as they bring love, justice and hope to their communities, and especially to the poor, homeless, oppressed and the marginalized (Isaiah 58:6-7).

Services

BCAN has set up a Yahoo Group to provide various services to our members: these include an email list, a message archive, a file share, and a diary - all of which the members can contribute to.

To use these services, you will need to set up a Yahoo identity (if you don't already have one), and then subscribe to the group.

Joining is completely free, and you can choose whether you wish to be sent the emails or to view them online. Either way, you will not receive any 'spam' as a result of signing up.

• Go to BCAN - go to the Yahoo Group.
• Join BCAN - join the Yahoo Group.

Click to subscribe to bcan

Activities

BCAN is currently undertaking three main areas of activity.

• The Thursday Seminars: a series of open meetings, usually held on Thursday lunchtimes, on a wide range of topics, meeting roughly once a quarter.
• The Homeless Forum, meeting every two months.
• The Global Issues Forum, meeting two or three times a year.

BCAN People

BCAN has a steering group drawn from participating churches and organisations, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the network.

We are also grateful to some significant people who have agreed to be a BCAN patron. The Patrons are currently:

• Sir Fred Catherwood,
• Dave Day (team leader at Bristol Christian Fellowship),
• Peter Davies (senior Pastor of elim@bristol),
• Peter Kay (Pastor of Ivy Church),
• Rob Scott-Cook (senior pastor of Woodlands group of churches),
• Mike Pears (minister at Cairns Road Baptist church), and
• Anne White (a local councillor).

We are very grateful to Andrew Dow, who supported us as a patron until he moved away from Bristol early in 2005.

BCAN Elsewhere

You can read more about BCAN and its activities at these places.

• BEAMING - the Bristol EA site: select 'BCAN' from the navigation bar on the left.
• Evangelical Alliance - to reach the BCAN page on the EA CANS site, select 'Locations in which CANS exist or are being developed' then click on the 'Bristol' link.

For some more background, you can also read the EA 'Introduction to CANs'.

For further information about BCAN, please email Paul Hazelden.