In honour of Refugee Week, Luke Stewart reflects on the 2025 theme of Community as a Superpower, and how the Difference habits can help us build stronger, more welcoming places for people starting over in a new place.
In the UK, today is the beginning of Refugee Week1 – an annual arts and culture festival that celebrates the resilience, creativity, and contributions of refugees and people seeking asylum around the world, leading up to World Refugee Day on 20 June.
Around the world today there are 43.7 million refugees2 – a figure that demonstrates the devastating impact of conflict and persecution. Refugee Week highlights the inspiring stories of people who have rebuilt their lives in safe countries, as well as the compassion and hospitality shown by many host communities. It also recognises the reasons why so many people continue to be forcibly displaced from their home country.
Sadly, for many refugees their experience of hostility and division does not come to an end when they find safety in a new country. In the UK, the public conversation about refugees has become heated and divisive, fuelled by harmful narratives and sometimes irresponsible political rhetoric. Last summer this hostility and distrust erupted into violent racist riots across the country, as misinformation spread following the tragic murder of three girls in Southport.
This violence and conflict brought the best and worst of humanity into sharp contrast. Across the country, ordinary people responded rapidly to protect those being targeted and repair the vast amounts of damage in the community3. There was a collective determination to show that the criminal activity and disorder did not represent who we are as a nation.
It is fitting, then, that the theme for this year’s Refugee Week is Community as a Superpower. Community creates proximity and understanding between people. It creates a shared identity and provides a support network for those in need. When refugees are welcomed into communities, they cease to become an isolated group, unjustly scapegoated for society’s problems and become known individuals, neighbours, and friends.
The Church gives us a model for what it could look like to be part of such a community. In Ephesians 2:19, Paul writes that Christians are ‘no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people’. We see the practical outworking of community in Acts 4:32-37, where the early Church shared and sold their possessions to ensure that ‘there was no needy person among them.’
Community is also a gift that we can extend outwards to others. Hebrews 13:1-2 urges us to ‘keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.’
The Christian experience is one of being welcomed into God’s community and given the chance of a new life. When we welcome and support people in our communities who are seeking safety in a new country, we reflect God’s heart for hospitality and reconciliation. There are many churches around the UK doing just this, with over 1,400 signed up to the Welcome Churches network4.
The three habits
The three habits at the heart of the Difference course help us learn how to welcome refugees and others into our communities. When we practise true hospitality, we see our communities grow into something new and thriving, created together with those we once saw as strangers.
Be Curious: When we listen to people’s stories and hear their perspectives, we grow in our understanding and see the person, rather than our preconceptions of them. Throughout Refugee Week there are many different events to hear about the refugee experience – why not take a look at what’s happening?
Be Present: The brokenness and conflict in our world can lead us towards fear and self-preservation, making us suspicious of others. But when we show up in our community, being present to those around us, we can begin to identify with them and learn to look outwards.
Reimagine: In partnership with God through prayer, we lament the conflict and persecution that forces so many people to flee their home countries. At the same time, we can find hope in the possibility for refugees to flourish and ask God to guide us into creative, courageous actions to be a welcoming new community.
Actions to take
Anyone can participate in Refugee Week – here are some suggestions to get started:
- Explore what events are being organised in your area
- Try out a simple act of welcome
- Get your church connected through Welcome Churches
- Pray – for refugees and asylum seekers, and for yourself and your community to reimagine practices of hospitality
- https://refugeeweek.org.uk/about/ ↩︎
- According to the UNHCR, the global refugee population reached 43.7 million by mid-2024, an increase of 1 per cent from the end of 2023. (https://www.unhcr.org/mid-year-trends) ↩︎
- https://www.bigissue.com/news/uk-riots-southport-sunderland-clean-up-community/ ↩︎
- https://welcomechurches.org ↩︎
Luke Stewart is Senior Campaigns and Community Engagement Officer at the Refugee Council, a national charity supporting refugees and people seeking asylum. He works to raise public awareness of the organisation’s work and of refugees’ experiences in the UK, helping to build greater understanding and support. As part of this, he leads on Fair Shot – a football-focused content campaign that engages fans across the country in a positive conversation about refugees.
