Stronger Together

Last week, CAP released their 2026 Client Report: Stronger Together. You can read the full report here.

The report highlights two main themes from client feedback for the report:

1. Debt is getting harder to repay

Unmanageable debt has become more difficult to repay as costs of essentials continue to rise:

Average priority debt levels of clients (rent, council tax, energy) have soared by 88%, from £2,300 to £4,300 since 2014

Less than a quarter (24%) of clients the charity helps now have the resources to repay their way out of debt in a suitable timeframe, compared to 40% back in 2014.

Everyone should be able to afford the basics, but we know that people are struggling to afford the essentials. We’re seeing debt and poverty deepening, becoming more complex and difficult to overcome.

2. Spiralling debt is dangerous to people’s health

Debt often results in families unable to afford healthy food, living in cold, damp unsafe properties and in spiraling levels of isolation, anxiety and depression. We know that over a third (35%) of UK adults worry about their finances every day, and almost half of clients (46%) have told us they considered ending their own life because of their debts, showing how dangerous unmanageable debt can be.

But there is hope. For 30 years local churches across the UK have partnered with CAP to provide face-to-face debt advice, money coaching and job clubs, restoring joy, hope and resilience to families in need. Local church support of debt centres including Ely and District CAP have helped over £500m debt repaid or written off. Over 80,000 people receive free debt advice. Over 100,000 people provided face-to-face money or job coaching. We want people in our community to know that our churches are here to offer support.

We are stronger together and we know poverty can be beaten. By working together and walking alongside people through their toughest storms, churches working with Christians Against Poverty are restoring hope and building the long-term financial resilience our region needs. Our Ely and District CAP debt centre team, with the support of our local churches can bring the practical help of the CAP Journey Out of Debt, Money Coaching, Schools Money Coaching and more to help tackle poverty and debt in our community. And more, they bring the strength of the love of Jesus into the lives or each client.

Questions such as "Why is their suffering in the world if God can do anything" can be hard to answer, especially when asked by those who are living in a place of darkness and suffering. But in Jesus we have an answer. Sin and death entered the world when Adam and Eve chose free will and in Jesus God shows His love for us despite the wrong choices we may make. Jesus' humanity means that He knows suffering, suffers for us and suffers with us. He is God at a human level. He is wholly human, but also wholly divine, His love and forgiveness are all embracing and His strength a support for the whole of life's journey. As Children of God, living in the light, love and power of Jesus, we are stronger together to mend this broken world and help build the Kingdom here and now.

Romans 8: 17 - 21 (NIV)

17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

Prayer

Please pray for the CAP Sunday service at St Mary's on Sunday, that this would be a great opportunity to tell the congregation about the work of Ely and District CAP and demonstrate just this one kind of Kingdom work going on in our community. CAP is a movement of over 30,000 people standing together so that no one in the East of England has to face debt and poverty alone and sharing the opportunities to support CAP, both nationally and locally, can help more in our community become involved in putting an end to poverty.

Please pray for all those waiting for their first appointments, now booking into July and August. Pray especially for Kim next week as she moves into the next stage of her journey as a Deby Coach with her first First Visit.

Please pray for continuing opportunities for outreach work and the strengthen of links with other services, such as social prescribers and the Job Centre, that this will help bring the message of the help and hope that CAP can bring into the lives of those struggling with poverty and debt in our community.