The UCSG chronic illness initiative seeks to explore ways in which urban churches can provide pastoral care for people with chronic illnesses but also enable them to take a full role in the life of their churches.

A consultation at Cause for Celebration in 2005 was warmly received and this encouraged us to arrange a separate consultation in March 2006 a full report of this is available here.  In 2007 we worked with Camden URC in order to explore the issues at the local church level and developed a Bible study resource "Be Not Afraid" which we will be using with High Cross URC Tottenham in October-November 2008. Contact us for more details.  We hope to be able to work with more local churches and at some point bring together the learning from these local situations in another wider consultation.

We believe that although chronic illness has received little attention in the churches it is a fundamental aspect of church life asking profound theological and practical questions as well as opening us up to the deep resources of our faith in a way which few other experiences can.