Overcoming poverty of aspiration

I'm just back from the Mainstream Conference at Swanwick. I was hoping to blog while I was up there as I had great free internet access in my room (thanks Hayes conference centre) but I was too tired when I finally crashed out from catching up with mates!

It was a good conference overall. The highlight was Malcolm Duncan, the movement director of Faithworks. He is a truly brilliant communicator who is also a highly original and creative thinker - a rare combination, I find. He offered us an inspiring and achievable theology of social action and community transformation and challenged us to go do it - all in under an hour.

He has a new book out called Kingdom Come: the local church as a catalyst for social change. I've not read it yet but if it's half as good as his conference presentation, it will be a blast.

In the question and answer session on the final morning of the conference, he spoke in passing about poverty, drawing our attention to something he's written (that I'm looking for) on the five aspects of poverty. Three of these - which are spoken of a lot by sociologists of religion - are material, civic (ie being powerless and therefore disengaged) and spiritual (using the term in its broadest sense).

To this Malcolm added two - poverty of identity (so many people not having any idea of who they are and why they matter) and poverty of aspiration. This last one resonated particularly with me. It's about people having no hope, thinking the best days are behind them, hankering for the good old days. We hear it every time people talk about society going to the dogs and things being so much better when we were young.

It is this poverty that robs the church of its power and relevance because it suggests that Christian eschatology has nothing to give us that resources our present work for God. we pray 'thy Kingdom come' but expect everything to stay the same - and so it does.

Relaunching our housing project

Received my copy of Michael Holmes' The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (third edition) yesterday. What a beautiful book. Stunningly laid out and printed, wonderfully bound so that it lies flat when open - even on p4-5.

It is, of course, showing up the total inadequacy of my Greek!

Still I am continuing to find getting into these writings fascinating.

It's been pretty busy leading up to a reception today we hosted to promote our housing advice centre called iPad. About 45 people crammed into the space we use for offering this service to hear the assistant director of housing explaining the need for it and me outlining what we do - which is basically to offer hospitality and welcome to those struggling in some way with their life as a tenant and to major on helping them to sort out their budgeting and household management skills. It's not rocket science but a lot find it helpful. We also have people praying regularly for clients and workers alike.

Among the questions we were asked by a Bromley Housing department employee was this one: 'do you pray with the clients or for them while they are in the room?' No, I said; we send an email with prayer needs to our regular prayer partners. OK, she said, it's just that I had a client in serious arrears on her rent because of spending too much money on alcohol. So I suggested she went to church. She did. They prayed for her and it turned her life around. I recommend you do it too!

Not quite the response I was expecting!

I've got my first carol service of the season tomorrow - then Christmas will really have started! (good grief - and it's only 6 December!)

The value of not drawing attention to ourselves

Over at the continually provocative View from the basement, Brodie poses an interesting question about what word best describes the post-Christendom church if power describes Christendom. There have been lots of good suggestions. I went for anonymous and justified it by saying the following:

'I think 'anonymous' is a possible way of contrasting Christendom and post-Christendom. The church under Christendom was all about profile as well as power, it's about seeking attention from the world, the church has a 'look at me' mentality because it believes that if the world looks at the church, it will believe it's message. This is nonsense, of course, in our changed world. Anonymity provides us with the opportunity to live our lives as followers of Jesus without that living being distorted by the thought of having an audience. It gives us the possibility of being stumbled over by those who didn't know they were looking for us and who in finding us enter a conversation of equals. Maybe I'm just being optimistic and maybe I'm feeling the pressure of feeling constantly in a goldfish bowl in the church I lead! I also don't think it contradicts Jesus calling us the salt of the earth and light of the world because I'm not sure that our being these things ought to be a self-conscious act on our part that invites attention being paid to us. after all, a candle does not sit on the table saying 'look at me', it provides light so that we can see other things. likewise salt preserves or makes things grow (whichever interpretation we go for) and doesn't draw attention to itself - unless there's so much of it that it swamps every other flavour (hardly what Jesus had in mind). '

At the conference I attended last week we had an excellent plenary given by Maeve Sherlock, former head of the Refugee Council, adviser to Gordon Brown and just embarking on a PhD in theology at Durham. She has only come to faith within the last few years and spoke of her attitude towards the church before meeting Jesus.

Basically, she said, she felt the church was invisible, having no impact on her life, no call on her time and certainly no message worth her while pausing to reflect on. She just didn't see it. It was completely anonymous.

However, looking back, following her conversion, she said she began to note individuals and organisations who had left a mark because there was something about them. In particular, a number of individuals who worked with refugees and their families who'd impressed her at the time because of their concern for and commitment to the needs of refugees, who she now discovers are Christians.

It was the cumulative effect of so many 'anonymous' Christians, just getting on with doing what God had called them to do, that she believes was a key factor in God drawing her to himself. Had these individuals or groups been constantly shouting 'look at us - we do this because we're Christians', she'd have been repelled and run a mile.

So maybe a key value for Christian groups as well as individuals doing stuff in the community is this: just do it - don't justify it, theologise publicly about it, put Christian badges on while you do it - just do it...

Breakfast chat

I've just had breakfast with Les Issac - founder of Street Pastors, prolific traveller and one of those people who regularly sits with senior politicians and police officers and yet seems entirely untainted by it. I should add that I wasn't alone; there were 15 or so of us gathered at a regular inter-church breakfast.

He spoke briefly about a prayer event he's organising to seek God in relation to the recent spate of gun and knife crimes in south London. He asked whether anyone had a word from the Lord to share on that occasion. That always sets me thinking - is God going to say something new and startlingly original or is he going to remind us of our calling as his people in this great city?

I felt him reminding me that we are called to be a people of peace, shalom; in a world of violence we are to be a people who live together in peace and make peace in the communities in which we live.

Peace is an essential building block of community. At it's most basic, it's knowing that I will be safe in the company of my brothers and sisters in church, that if I share difficult things, I'll not be shouted at, bullied or put down. Sadly, of course, that isn't always the case. All too often churches are places where those with the loudest voices and biggest personalities get their way, wielding unhelpful influence over the lives of those around them.

So maybe our first calling in the light of these terrible events in our city is to recommit ourselves to living at peace with one another.

Peace, of course, in the bible is more than just the absence of conflict - though that's an essential first step - it's also about the presence of wholeness and well-being, right relationships with God and one another. And, most crucially, it's about seeking the blessing of that shalom for our neighbours, working for their good, for their shalom, ensuring that the widest numbers possible get a taste of God's agenda for them.

So in communities wracked by violence, it's about being a peace-making presence, a people who offer different options for young people, support for parents, a place of safety and belonging for all. It's also about using our resources to create social capital in our neighbourhoods through skills training, job creation, offering second, third and fourth chances to those who've messed up and want a shot at starting their lives over.

Where are the churches who are doing this?