Canada Advocacy Workshop: Faith In Action

What is it?

Faith in Action: Practicing Biblical Advocacy is a workshop that can help you and your congregation or small group learn how to navigate the political system to have your voice heard by local, provincial, and national leaders. Contacting elected officials may be daunting, but sharing your well-informed opinion can make a real difference on the justice issues that you care about, and can bring about long-term changes to unjust systems.

The workshop was developed for Canada, but a U.S. version will be made available upon request.

What you'll learn

• You will develop your key advocacy message
• You will learn to write an effective advocacy message
• You will set up in-person meetings with elected representatives
• You will plan and role-play your talking points

Workshop overview

Session One

This session examines the biblical basis for advocacy, and God’s call to his people to do justice. It also reviews how advocacy is an important tool that allows our voices to be heard and can contribute to real change in policies that affect the most vulnerable in our society. Finally, it starts the participants on their advocacy journey by helping them identify their elected officials, and narrowing down the justice issue they wish to advocate on into a succinct key message.

Session Two

This session walks the participants through a series of research methods in order to gather information about their justice issue. With this information they are then able to craft their Call to Action, a strong and effective advocacy statement to their elected officials.

Session Three

This session demystifies the process of contacting elected officials by giving demonstrations and instructions on how to script calls and write letters. It also provides a step-by-step guide on how to prepare detailed meetings notes to use while conducting effective in-person meetings.

Session Four

This session focuses on how to conduct meetings with elected officials, including tips for running an effective meeting. It completes with a role playing activity allowing the participants to practice a meeting using all of the tools collected in previous sessions.

How much time does it take?

This workshop is designed in 4 sessions that each take approximately 90 minutes. It can be completed in a full day with breaks between sessions, or in 4 separate sessions.

Interested in hosting Faith in Action: Practicing Biblical Advocacy?

Sign up to receive the workshop at crcna.org/FaithInAction. Cindy Stover, CRC Justice Mobilizer in Canada, will follow up with you to support you.