THE term ‘Broken Britain’ has a long and distinguished pedigree: if my memory serves me correctly David Cameron pledged to "fix" Broken Britain during the campaign for the 2010 general election. But, not surprisingly, it’s still on peoples’ lips today as I discovered at a recent prayer meeting in Pembroke.

Not long after I returned home, I came across a press release informing me that Bishops in the Church of England have issued a prayer for unity in the UK, asking for God's protection from "the perils of division and hatred". The bishop who leads the working group, said ‘We know that these are anxious and fearful times for many in our country, which makes the Church’s calling for peace and reconciliation all the more pressing’.

As I pondered this, I was reminded of the church in Antioch, the city where the followers of Jesus were first given the nickname ‘Christians’, and I came to the conclusion that it has much to teach us if we want to fix ‘Broken Britain’.

To begin with they all had a common conviction; they were utterly committed to Jesus. Sadly I know we cannot say that about us as a country but I would suggest that at the very least we could all agree we want to see our nation prosper and that we will do all we can to make that happen.

In addition to this, we could follow this church’s example and agree to accept, indeed affirm one another whatever our differences and in spite of our backgrounds. If you’d visited that church you would have met Jews and Gentiles from Jerusalem, Cyprus and North Africa. You might have been introduced to a man who had been brought up in Herod’s court (the Herod who had Jesus executed) as well as a former rabbi who had once persecuted Christians. In other words, they embraced and celebrated diversity rather than reject it, and we would be a far healthier, richer society if we did so too.

It was also a community where everyone would have been taught to work together in the knowledge that everyone benefits when we all pull our weight and use our abilities for the common good. Best of all they cared for one another and their care wasn’t parochial. The evidence shows that they understood the importance of international aid, something we should all reflect on given the fact that Oxfam, among many others, has stated that cuts in the international aid budgets have made the response to the current Ebola outbreak in The Democratic Republic of Congo much more difficult.

They behaved like this of course because they wanted to live the Jesus way and I am convinced that we would be much healthier as a nation if we had the same ambition. But I would say that wouldn’t I? I’m biased; I’m a Christian.