Reaching Yorkshire

Anyone who has read this blog knows how hard Yorkshire is to reach with the gospel.  The work is slow and laborious, often 3 steps forward 2 back, (sometimes 3 back).  Yorkshire is the only county never to have had a revival, it languishes way behind other counties in terms of living, growing, gospel centred churches and number of Christians as a percentage of the population.

I've been wondering why this is for along time.  It was whilst reading Tim Chester's 'Unreached' Growing churches in working-class and deprived areas that I began to formulate something of a hypothesis about this.  The book is excellent, every pastor, elder and church leader in the country should buy one.  In fact why not order enough for your leadership team and discuss a chapter every time you meet?  What is so good is that it exposes how middle class British Christianity is but also addresses some of the significant needs and opportunities there are among the working class and deprived class in the UK.  As well as helping us understand something about the culture.

But what I have found particularly stimulating is seeing parallels between the culture, ideals and attitudes described in the book and those of people from Yorkshire whether working class or not:

There is a suspicion of authority figures government and big organisations, in part historical, in part deserved and in part just a fruit of being northern when everything is perceived as taking place in the South (beginning to pick this resentment up myself!).  I wonder if that means church leaders have to overcome a sense of suspicion of authority before people will even come to church, therefore long term pastorates are vital, as are pastors who are out of the office and with people.  Churches themselves are seen as part of the machinery of government and must show their love of people not programs or politics.

People have a sense of being from Yorkshire not of being British.  Take the Olympics for example - one of the points of pride on local radio and TV was having a medal table for Yorkshire along with Team GB. There is a sense of being part of the UK but being distinctive regionally and not wanting that to change.  Again I wonder if that is something churches have to overcome, especially if its leaders are not native Yorkshire folk, how? By showing a commitment to the locality, love the people by serving them where there needs are.  If there is no community space provide one, if litter is an issue organise work days, if the issue is debt provide debt counselling and so on.  We need to show people that we are for them and love them and value them before they will listen and this can take a long time (stubbornness is a Yorkshire trait too!)

Yorkshire people are open and forthright, they don't just tell you that a spade is a spade but whether its a good spade or a useless one (I've toned down the language they would use) whether you ask for their opinion or not.  It is little wonder that academic preaching doesn't reach these people, that they see little point in it.  They value honesty and forthrightness and that is the sort of preaching they need to hear.  They need the Bible to be taught in honesty and applied readily and practically.  They are an intensely practical people and they need to see what difference it makes day-to-day to worship God, Father, Son and Spirit.

They are just a couple of the areas where I wonder if Yorkshire folk are distinctive.  I wonder how much of that explains why we aren't reaching people in Yorkshire with the gospel.  I wonder how much of the Yorkshire mentality is similar to that of the working class that churches in the UK simply don't reach?  Valuing people and relationships above anything else, not being partuclarly aspirational, and so on all add to the mix.

I hate to think what the percentage of the indigenous Yorkshire population in bible teaching churches is on any given Sunday.  I wonder if many of our Yorkshire churches are populated by interlopers from other counties, aspirational students and young professionals, and so on, and when we preach to those in front of us (which we naturally do) we move further away from the people our churches historically were put in place to reach.

What would it look like to preach and teach the gospel in Yorkshire to Yorkshire?  Would it be less academic (notice I didn't say less biblical), would it be more practical and down to earth, would it be more confrontational?  Would our churches need to be more long term in our commitment?

I love where God has put me to minister, I love Doncaster, the people, the honesty, the willingness to love and help.  But it is a county and a town desperately in need of the gospel.