Celebrating our centenary

BRF’s centenary – sharing the story

As we saw in the first of our centenary articles, BRF’s founder Leslie Mannering cast a vision for revived personal and corporate discipleship – and the far-reaching ministry of BRF’s Bible reading notes began. Over the years the charity expanded into new areas, and today we are thankful for our four flourishing ministries: Anna Chaplaincy for Older People, Living Faith, Messy Church and Parenting for Faith.

Fulfilling the vision

Three priorities

Prayer is at the heart of BRF, and our prayer diary, weekly prayer email, annual Festival of Prayer, and prayer and spirituality resources are all ways in which people can develop a life of prayer while also praying for our work.

We help people read and apply the Bible today with our different series of Bible reading notes and through a range of other print and digital resources.

And we’re building community through our events programme, social media, articles and blogs, and the whole-church Holy Habits discipleship initiative.

Working it out

We integrate these three priorities across our four areas of work:

• in Anna Chaplaincy, as we offer spiritual care to those in later life, whatever their faith background

• in our Living Faith ministry, whether it’s reflections from one of our five series of Bible reading notes, a Lent book, a prayer and spirituality resource or an online women’s event

• in Messy Church, as we enable faith to grow in people of all ages who might not encounter church in any other way

• and in Parenting for Faith, as we help parents, carers and churches nurture the faith journeys of young people.

Sharing the story

Our new video for our centenary year, Sharing the Story, gives a two-minute snapshot of BRF’s journey and how Leslie Mannering’s original idea ‘took off’.

In two minutes we could only attempt the briefest sketch of our work both past and present, but we used the image of a paper plane to capture both the journey we’ve come on together and the direct connection between our earliest days and today’s ministry. We accelerate through the early years to the present day and then zoom in, recasting the original vision for today’s audience and giving a flavour of the exciting things we’re doing.

We hope that those who see the video will be inspired to stand alongside us – to give, pray and get involved.

All about the people

Ultimately, we wanted to communicate the breadth of BRF’s ministry. It’s all about people sharing their stories, from the Anna Chaplain to the Messy Church leader; from the parent chatting with their child to the author or speaker sharing their insights about life and faith.

As Leslie Mannering said:

‘It is the living dynamic of personal religion and personal service for Christ that really moves men and things.’

Journeying on

We continue to work out Leslie Mannering’s vision, responding to the ever-changing contexts we find ourselves in. In this centenary year, we’re celebrating everything that God has done through BRF so far, and we’re excited for how we can continue to share God’s story together with all of our friends and supporters.

As Richard Fisher says in the video:

‘Over the years countless people have helped us share the story. We’re so thankful for this partnership in the gospel.’

Will you help us share the story?