Last week I had the privilege (and surprise) of being asked to speak at the Gospel Yorkshire conference. As ever in those sorts of situations there are things that I didn't get to address or talk about or nuance quite as I would have liked. One of those was a perceived North South divide, the other was some issues to do with class. I thought I'd try to type myself a bit clearer on those issues.
North South divide
This is a reality, the North of England has a lower percentage of believers per head of the population that most of the South, barring the South West I think. And therefore just as in matters of normal life there is a natural influence that comes with this. This can mean that those of us in the North develop a bit of a chip on our shoulder (or on both as I'm sometimes asked if I have - slightly ironic as I was born in Ipswich and am not quite a qualified naturalised Northerner as I've only lived in the north for 20 years).
On Thursday I made reference to a comment about Southern churches with a Yorkshire postcode. What I was trying to get at was the idea that as churches in the North and Yorkshire we need to contextualise. We ought to reflect and speak the gospel into the area and towns we meet in, the issues it faces, the hopes and aspirations it has, in light of its unique local history. This will mean that it is different from churches in other areas, not just North South, but East West and even within a town. What I was trying to get at was that we need to exegete our local culture. Our churches if we reach locals will reflect local culture, but more than that we will reach locals best if we address the local culture with the gospel. There's loads more I could share on that but I'll leave it at that for now.
That does not mean we do not need help. I'd love churches across the UK to see the North, and especially Yorkshire, as missionary country. I'd love them to encourage people to think about moving and serving in existing churches here. There are faithful, gospel loving churches in lots of towns and cities sprinkled across the North that would be greatly blessed by the presence of more people who love Jesus and are willing to serve no matter where they are from.
One of the issues we face in Doncaster is that we are short of leaders, now long term I'd love to have more Yorkshire accents being heard from our pulpit, but that is a long term project in a town where evangelical Christianity among the population is below 0.5%. But in the short and medium term we need workers to come and join us, to labour in the harvest field to see won and discipled those very people who will be leaders of the future. It is not a problem to have southern voices at a Gospel Yorkshire conference or preaching from a pulpit, but I personally feel it will be if in 10-15 years we aren't hearing more Yorkshire accents too.
Addressing the Class issue
This is another subject which we touched on on Thursday and which I'd like to just share some thoughts. I hope I made clear that the gospel and God's kingdom is for all classes, as well as all ethnicity's, languages etc. God's vision of his Kingdom is vast. But we naturally tend to reach people like us. We don't deliberately set out to it is what we drift into. We tend to spend time with those like us because we share loves, likes, hobbies, neighbourhoods etc... and so that is who we meet. We need to be deliberate in reaching those not like us. I think class is one of those areas, Christianity in the UK is predominantly middle class which means we will predominantly reach the middle class. Unless we are intentional about reaching the working class (45% of the population). Hence my focus on reaching the working class, especially in light of Yorkshire having a working class mentality.
That does not mean that you have to be working class to reach the working class. It means we have to love people and seek out those different from us. We need middle class background people to move into areas of gospel need and love those they find there, love them enough to commit to them and take the gospel to them and disciple them. That will be hard, it requires wisdom and humility to listen to the culture, especially one very different from our own, and discern it's gospel echoes as well as the places it has been warped by sin. It requires compassion and humility to walk alongside and learn with rather than assume we come to teach or solve problems. I know because I've learnt some of those lessons the hard way through mistakes I've made serving such a community with my background and assumptions.
So come and help us. No matter your class or county of origin. If you love Jesus and love people and are prepared to listen and learn and love there are harvest fields that are ripe for harvest but where there are currently few workers.
2 comments:
Appreciated this Al. Can you give any examples or a sense of what reflecting local culture looks like for you guys? Hoping what we're involved with in Barrow attempts this, but helpful to see what others are doing to gauge how much we're really putting it into practice!
Hi Robin
We've spent quite a lot of time listening to locals and thinking about the presenting issues, needs, wants and how the gospel speaks into those. So it would be reflected in a flexibility about timings, start times are approximate not definite as that reflects local issues and pressured lives. Application is just that rather than implication. Our local culture wants definite outcomes applied in detail, not just ideas but be left to work out application themselves. Though we're trying at the same time to develop application skills but having a time of discussion based on three questions at the end of every service. In our area the culture is quite blunt, you tackle an issue head on not subtly, we are both trying to harness the good that brings in terms of application, Bible teaching and rebuking others, but also be wary of the way that can quickly become sinful and wound people by majoring on the one another's in the way we treat each other.
Local poverty means we engage by meeting around food when we can. Issues of self esteem and lack of community are others that we're trying to address by providing avenues to build those though that is currently compromised by lack of space to meet in. Happy to provide a bit more meat on the bones if you'd like? What are you guys doing at Barrow as regards this? I'd love to learn from your experience.
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