Is urban church planting really that different?
Urban Expression (in partnership with the Regeneration Trust) is running an Urban Church Planting course in East London between 12 January and 16 February 2004. We think this is the first specialised course on urban church planting in the UK. And we are claiming that church planting in urban areas is significantly different from church planting elsewhere (in the suburbs, villages or small towns). We've suggested the following differences:
1. The historic weakness of the church in urban communities means that there are fewer resources for church planting than usual.
(a) Most church planting initiatives in the 1990s depended on large churches sending out teams of people to establish new churches in their vicinity: church planting was overwhelmingly local. But few urban churches can spare enough people for this.
(b) The urban churches that do have the resources to plant tend to be in the city centre and generally focus on professionals, students and the business community. Many of their members live in the inner city but the city-centre churches gather them out of these areas into large and successful churches.
2. The dominant influence of middle-class culture within the churches (numerically and mediated through books, conferences, music, etc.) hinders the development of indigenous urban churches.
(a) There have been numerous urban church planting initiatives over the years, but many of these have failed because those involved were unwilling or unable to grapple with the urban culture into which they were planting and tried to import a model of church that did not fit the local culture.
(b) Even where such initiatives have seemed to succeed, failure to develop indigenous leadership has resulted in dependence on outside support and inability to penetrate the local community and incarnate the gospel there.
(c) The middle-class norm within the church also encourages Christian to move out of urban areas into city centre churches or the suburbs, further weakening the urban churches.
3. There is deep-rooted suspicion of church planting incomers in urban communities that takes time to overcome.
(a) Many urban communities are suspicious of newcomers – especially middle-class do-gooders. They have long experience of schemes and projects, being patronised and co-opted, being invited to belong to things they neither shaped nor asked for. They are not impressed by another church being dumped on their community.
(b) They also know that most middle-class do-gooders don’t last very long in urban communities: social workers, teachers and church leaders start with good intentions but soon move on to less demanding areas.
4. There is a density of social need and deprivation in urban communities that places additional demands on church planters.
(a) The balance between those with economic, social, psychological, educational and other needs in the community and those able to act as resource people is very different from other areas. Church planters shoulder additional burdens, are conscious of more needs than they can respond do and risk burn-out.
(b) Adding new members to a church plant tends to increase the demands on church planters rather than sharing the load or increasing the workforce.
5. Urban communities are usually culturally diverse and often fluid, so the tasks of cultural analysis and incarnating the gospel are demanding and persistent.
(a) Cultural analysis and contextual exegesis are crucial for church planting anywhere, but this is more complex in many urban communities, where shifting populations, the interplay between different ethnic communities and subcultures, changing dynamics across the generations and other factors demand more of church planters.
(b) This diversity raises important questions about the kinds of churches to plant: do these aim to cut across cultural divides or work within cultures? What degree of diversity can any church sustain?
6. There are various practical, social and environmental issues that add to the challenge of urban church planting:
(a) The high cost and low availability of suitable housing.
(b) The lack of funding for church planters.
(c) Concerns about the environment, education, health and security.
(d) The spiritual, physical and emotional demands on church planters.
(e) The challenge of crossing cultures and moving beyond the comfort zone.
7. There are also strategic barriers:
(a) Assuming ways of planting churches that have worked elsewhere will work here.
(b) Assuming we already know what the church we want to plant will be like.
(c) Assuming we are bringing God with us into the inner city.
(d) Assuming church planting is the end rather than the means.
What do you think? Are these differences as significant as we have suggested? Are there others? What are the implications for urban church planters?
Is Urban Church Planting any different?
Just a few reflections from having fairly recently moved from a English suburban model of church into urban church planting.
Urban Church planting couldn't be more different.....
But I am not sure it should be much different, it is just that in Suburbia you can be half asleep and kind of get away with it, at the moment, despite worrying statistics, church in English suburbia is apparently surviving quite nicely thank you without having to radically change. However subtle signs are happening like people reflecting on the facts that "the young people stop going to church when they hit 16, I wonder why" or "we brought a friend along to a service and they found it quite difficult to sit through the whole thing" etc. One day there will need to be some more reflection on mission that goes beyond getting a video projector and powerpoint.
I recently went to visit a large church on the outskits of London and a very well meaning lady prayed for us in Wapping.... she said, and I quote her exact words "Dear Lord, we thank you that we have so much and they have so little...." This is a key to why Urban innercity church planting is so different at the moment, it is because Urban Inner City churches have so little and they recognise this fact..... so little in the way of money, resources, people power, experience, energy, and there are so many issues to face..... poverty, language, racism, housing, crime, drugs, ill health, isolation, polution, stress, bad education etc.
Much existing training for church leaders assumes that the church already has so much in place, but an urban church planter cannot assume anything is in place at all. In fact the Urban Church planter has to be prepared to do a lot of preparation work even before trying to put stuff in place. Does bible college teach you about how to live and love in a non-christian community that is so multi-cultrally diverse? An overseas missionary training college might bring some helpful insights but even then the shock of being launched into an area like Tower Hamlets, without the right support could send someone completely 'round the bend'. Spercific Urban Church planting training is essential if we want people to remain encouraged and eager to remain long term in the poorer parts of our city's.
In saying this I do think that mission is mission where ever you are, and yes Church planting for the inner city is requiring specialist training at the moment, but with the globalisation of our world its nothing that suburbia and eventually rural areas wouldn't benifit from as well. The best thing that could happen to Suburbia would be for it to recognise that it too has nothing, or at least to give away until it gets to that place, because once the nothingness decends on you the real challenge of mission cannot escape you. There is a tendency to reflect on the horrors of innercity work and say how hard it is, but in fact for me it has become a much easier place to be in than suburbia, at least you know what you have and havn't got, and at least you know what you've got to do even if it does seem an impossible task. (In the inner city I just need some reminding that with God's help nothing is impossible, and hopfully a good inner city training course would do just that!)
Karen