Group Profile

Contact Details

Convenor: Richard Tetlow
Location: Birmingham
Phone: 0121 4494892

About Us

We have 12-15 regular members, but formation of an additional group is always possible for newcomers, so do come. Just let the convenor know beforehand please.

Venue & Meeting Times

We meet in members' homes in or around the Moseley/Bournville area. After meeting together for some time we find that we have enough material and enthusiasm to meet monthly, usually on the first Monday. This can vary so please see our group programme for details of individual meetings.

Group History

Our group developed from a conference in Birmingham in January 2011 on the theme: ‘Reclaiming a radical faith for the 21st century: an exploration together’.

It was billed as ‘A conference for Christians to reclaim a radical faith from a presentation of a personal understanding of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths’. The speakers were Muslim, Jewish and Christian. The progressive motivation was to urge that progressive Christians consider their stance in the light of the other great world faiths. It was organised by the West Midland / Birmingham Branch of PCN Britain. At the time Birmingham had no PCN group.

However, 16 of the 48 people present did come from Birmingham. Nearly all of these agreed to form a group in Birmingham.

The first meeting considered ‘What is at stake for you concerning your faith?’ Ideas, feelings and needs in relation to ‘the church’ flowed freely. The second in August took ‘Issues with church worship’ when we absorbed ourselves in the very issues that PCN newsletter readers would expect! Our November meeting followed a presentation by Brian Parr on ‘How do we manage the issues in church worship?’ in which he used Adrian Alker’s experience and quoted from Spong’s ‘Why Christianity must change or die’. In December we held a PCN-type Christmas party with a Christmas quiz devised by the convenor. Then for February we enjoyed the unusual stimulus of two members having a dialogue on ‘Staying in the church – or not!’ followed by a full discussion.

Having considered a name for ourselves since our beginning, we have agreed to call ourselves ‘PCNBham, questioning, listening, thinking, acting…’.

Other Groups in West Midlands Region