Writing For Us

Thank you for considering writing for the Proximity site.

This guide is designed to help you understand what Proximity is looking for in contributions, our editorial standards, and the process for submitting and publishing your work. Our goal is to support you in creating an article that informs, inspires, and connects with Christians primarily in urban contexts within the UK, as well as sharing your unique voice.

What is Proximity?

Proximity is an urban mission resource hub equipping churches, leaders and those on the ground on estates and inner cities through online content and in-person community. We are looking for contributions that will speak into one or more of the following areas:

1. Calling the church into proximity with those experiencing urban poverty.
   By raising awareness of the disconnect between the church and those living in low-income communities Proximity calls the church to focus its missional efforts towards those on the edges of society.

2. Walking in proximity with those on the frontlines of urban mission.
   Through our online hub and in person community, Proximity resources and supports Christians living and ministering in urban contexts.

3. Pointing to the proximity of Christ in our urban communities.
   By sharing the stories of those involved in urban ministry we highlight best practice and share key learning, celebrating how God is moving in estates.

Our values are innovation, community and learning, you can read more on our mission & vision page.

Our primary audience is UK urban mission practitioners, church leaders and those living out faith in under-resourced areas, predominantly urban neighbourhoods. We are ecumenical.

Our editorial values are authentic, informative, practical and hopeful.

We want to engage our audience from the beginning. Start with a strong opening sentence or story. Try to link back to that in your conclusion. It’s helpful to think about one sentence that could sum up your article and ensure that that idea runs through every paragraph and is strongly visible in your introduction and conclusion. Avoid jargon and long descriptions, aim to be concise and clear.

We avoid “them and us” language. We avoid creating divisions and “othering” people. It’s important to Proximity that we don’t talk about “the poor” as a separate group, for example.

We want substance. This can come in the form of real-life examples or statistics and research to back up your ideas. If you use statistics or research make sure they can be easily understood and that you show how they are relevant. Tell us about mistakes you’ve made and how you’ve learnt from them. Make people curious by asking a good question. Make people laugh if you can!

Articles should be concise. Ideally between 500 and 1,000 words long.

The blog will be used on the Proximity site and social media. It could also feature on the Message Trust site and socials. Direct quotes may also be used across Proximity and Message Trust websites, social media, print media, digital marketing and communications activity.

We would like all blogs available as audio. Proximity may record and release your written content using a third-party actor to read. If you would like to record yourself reading your blog please choose somewhere quiet to record, with lots of soft furnishings (a bedroom or lounge is good). Record at least two versions. Use the best quality microphone you have, that may be your phone, laptop, or a plug-in microphone.

You can include a prayer. We encourage you to include a short prayer, which we aim to feature alongside your blog.

Please provide a paragraph of bio about yourself as the author and a recent, good quality photo. Include any relevant work, articles, books, expertise, or experiences connected to your blog and state your worshipping community. Your bio and photo will appear online.

Formatting – use short paragraphs incorporating headers, subheadings, bullets and bold portions of text that will help make the articles more readable for users.
External links – please provide links to credible external sources.
Citing – please credit any books, blogs or other sources you are quoting from, including any facts and statistics. Please do not quote more than 100 words from the same external source.
Scripture – please cite any scripture you are quoting from, including book name, chapter, verse and translation. Please do not quote more than 70 words of scripture in one passage.
Originality – all submissions must be completely original and not published on other websites.
Respect – please do not be defamatory or use excessively negative language.
Confidentiality – please practice safe protection/confidentiality and/or consent of any identities used in the blog.