IN the King’s Christmas message he expressed a desire for faiths to meet in order to work together for the good of their communities.

King Charles said, “As I meet people of different faiths, I find it enormously encouraging to hear how much we have in common; a shared longing for peace and a deep respect for all life. If we can find time in our journey through life to think on these virtues we can all make the future more hopeful.”

In the final days of Hannukah, and as the Christian community prepared for the festival of Christmas, leaders of Harlow’s faith community met for the second time to chat about how we could develop our friendship, and explore our common desire for peace and prosperity in our community.

The meeting brought together Rabbi Irit Leader of the Harlow Synagogue, Abdul Khaliq President of the Harlow Islamic Centre, Neela Hibbert a Buddhist who also heads up Harlow Ethnic Minority Umbrella, and Revd Darren McIndoe Harlow Area Dean.

Future meetings will look to develop our understanding of each other’s faiths, as we look at ways that wider representatives from Harlow’s faith community can come together in an expression of unity, goodwill and a desire to understand and learn from each other.

We will be inviting the wider community to be part of our Faithful Friends meetings once we have agreed dates, venues and times for us to come together, with each faith taking a turn at hosting those of other faiths and none that are interested in developing our friendships together.