TITLE: the Mission of the Church in a City Centre for the 21St Century

Emmanuel URC & St Columba’s URC, Cambridge – 16 October 2016

TITLE: The Mission of the Church in a City Centre for the 21st century

1. Introduction and call to newness

Thank you for your invitation to speak about the mission of the church in a city centre for the 21st century.

I want to startby affirming what you already do: your involvement in St Columba Group Therapy Centre and the Saturday NightLite drop-in café (part of Street Pastors); your support of the Cambridge food bank; Emmanuel’s FairShare Café, Emmanuel’s hosting of theCambridge Churches Homelessness Project in winter; you have already thought about your purpose in the city centre and have decided to do more together.

God is at work here and you respond. We don’t often say that enough to churches, but what is here is the result of men and women through the centuries and in more recent times having responded faithfully to Jesus’ call to follow and to make the good news heard and seen and experienced.

But now uncertainty is before you and while it is a dominant feature of our time, that doesn’t mean it is easy to live with. But uncertainty can be good if it challenges us to think/work hard, develop our creative muscle, awakens us to mission and necessary change, and leads us to recognise our need for God.

And that is the first thing to say: About God being in this.

Nigel reminded us that God is rarely about keeping things as they are and is frequently about creating something new. God is forever creating, recreating and ultimately making all things new, and being open to God’s ongoing work in us and through us is part of being who we are - the church. And so as you engage in this process of discerning what the future will hold, please be confident that God is with you in your searching. Whatever will emerge will be under God’s good hand.

It is a privilege to be a small part of this process and to think a bit more with you what the opportunities and demands are for a city centre church today. What are the mission opportunities to which you as the URC can respond and contribute?

2. The city centre

I once went out for a night with a group of Street Pastors, in one of the many city centres that London has. This was trendy Dalston. And what struck me amongst many things was how different the city is at night and how much life there is. At night a second mobile population flows in to take advantage of all that the leisure and entertainment industry has to offer. We talked with many revelers, but we spoke with other people too: roadworkers who had come from Eastern Europe, police officers, doormen, homeless people, alcohol and drug users. All these are part of the reality of the city centre at night. Very different from the city in the daytime, where the population might typically be people going to work, tourists, businessmen, shoppers, people living in the area going about their business.

That shows you something of the complexity of the city centre and of that task before the church. City reality is multi-layered. In city centres people and cultures meet, mingle and sometimes collide. There is no typical city centre culture or person.

First of all, there are the many different groups of people that make up the city centre:

1. Those who come to work or study in the day; and the invisible army of cleaners and night workers

2. Night scene of cafes, clubs, theatre and cinema

3. The strangers, those who pass through: the businesspeople, the shoppers and tourists

4. Those who live in the city centre

5. Those attracted by anonymity: the poorest and most destitute

For all these people there is a mandate to care, as they work, live in and visit the city with its promise and dangers.

What is the city centre? The place of power and decision-making structures, economic and commercial driving forces; a very mobile population; communities of marginalized people, often those who are the poorest, the homeless and addicted, who crave anonymity but who also need support and assistance; a vigorous and attractive leisure and entertainment culture; a rapidly changing infrastructure; and churches with generally declining membership usually drawn not from the centre but from other areas of the city.

So complexity characterises the city centre. It is not easy to figure out what your mission is.

Another characteristic is connectedness. It is already implied in what went before: city centres are increasingly globally connected: people, goods, services and communications increasingly connect city centres with the rest of the world and the rest of the world flows through the city centres. That impacts on the social, economic and demographic realities of the city. Many people thrive on it and greatly benefit from it.

But this connectivity also makes for great disconnection. Global centres have margins and you don’t have to live at a geographical distance to be marginal in a global economy. City centres are global and polarised (the dual city): those who make up the different populations of a city do not meet or interact. They are worlds apart. Some benefit greatly from all that the city has to offer, many are devalued by it (i.e. the people, places and activities that are not part of the control sectors of the economy).

So complexity, connectivity and disconnection characterise the city centre.

3. God’s mission

And it is in this complex reality that the Spirit of God flows. For we gather today because we believe that God is at work in God’s world. We believe in the Missio Dei: that activity of God, by which God formed the world, called a people to be his people, over and over again, came in Jesus who proclaimed the kingdom where all have fullness of life and who continues to call people together in the power of the Spirit to be sign and foretaste of that reign.

So in that task God calls the church to be partners. It is not that the church has a mission, but God’s mission has a church.

The church’s task is to witness to the reality of the Kingdom, pointing to what Christ has done and is doing in the world. That is its raison d’etre!

Every church is called to be a mission-shaped church – to be serving, welcoming, learning, worshipping, discipling and transforming communities.

What does that mean for the mission and ministry of the church in the city centre?

1. That we follow the lead of the Spirit. God is already at work, creating, renewing, restoring. And that requires deep listening to God, each other and other people and much, much prayer. It is only through that that you will discern what your mission is. What we are doing today is only a very small beginning….

2. A commitment to where we are. Lesslie Newbigin says that the church must be church for the specific place where it lives, not for those who are members of it, - or rather for them only insofar as they are willing to be for the wider community.

3. It also means the Church is not the possession of the Christian community but a gift to the world, a sign of God’s saving care for humanity. And as such it has been given gifts to share with the world:

The gift of worship
The gift of fellowship
The gift of service and
The gift of witness.

We may not know yet what our task will be in the future, but we do have these gifts to share.

I wouldlike to explore these further through some examples from city centre churches in Amsterdam, which have tried to connect with the city ( and city dwellers) in new ways.

4. What are the mission and ministry opportunities of the church?

4.1. Worship

Story: De Preek van de Leek

City pastor Abeltje Hoogenkamp came up with the idea of the ‘Preek van de Leek’, the Layperson’s Sermon and organized it together with the city centre Singel Church. Five well-known people from media, culture and politics were invited to prepare a service in the Protestant tradition (a peace activist, a politician, a journalist, a columnist and editor of feminist magazine). Whereas normally they would write features in newspapers or give their opinions on the radio or TV, they were now given a pulpit, a Bible passage and a congregation. And even a board of Elders! The initiative got a lot of media attention and about 1250 people in total attended, many of them young and those who had not been to a church service for years.

The services became moments to share faith and values with people in and outside the church, which led to fascinating and surprising encounters.

Abeltje Hoogenkamp: “I find Scripture is relevant for secularised society and I believe that what happens in society is relevant to the church of Christ. So I wanted to find out what it would be like when those who participate in public debate courageously would turn to Scripture (with the proper support)”.

A belief in the imaginative power of worship and the enduring value of the Bible drove the project and it is this that they took to the city centre.

Worship is radical. It is much more than what happens on a Sunday morning; it is much more than the foundation that sustains us in our mission to the world (it is that too).

There is a radical-ness to worship that is a true gift to the world.

Our common practices, which may seem unremarkable to us,are a significant gift for a community. In a city context where many succumb to the powers of consumerism and greed and where many are excluded by it, baptism is a sign of God’s sovereignty in Christ and as a sign of belonging. In a fragmented, polarized city centre, Communion speaks of reconciliation and forgiveness. The Bible tells of a different reign in which all God’s creation will flourish. We pray for others where individualism reigns and articulate for others the unformed longings of their heart.

Worship connects us with different values and virtues. In worship we create symbolic alternative spaces of hope.Worship helps us to imagine.And feeding the imagination of those we encounter is what Walter Brueggemann considers the central task of the church today. He suggests there is a deep hunger for words beyond the soundbite, for preaching that is deep and courageous, for encounters with the numinous in silence or in art. In worship the church creates ‘a house for the soul’(Henk de Roest).

The church in Amsterdam has recognised that and has not kept doing what it has been doing, but has taken it outside. It has gone and seen what God is doing in the waters of culture and engaged with it.

4.2. Fellowship

Story: Wensplein voor vrede (The Wishing Square for Peace)

The Muider Church created a place of encounter for people to exchange thoughts about peace, freedom and living together in the community.

Outside the church they collected wishes from the passers by. Schools, a care home and the mosque also took part. The whole neighbourhood was involved. And from about 500 wishes, 50 were selected for a peace of art that is now the centre piece on the square.

(The artist designed a piece of art in the form of a circle, in many cultures a symbol of infinity. It looks like a big necklace and lies as if casually dropped on the square. In the necklace is a knot, symbol of the problems that any society knows. The necklace has 37 jewels in which the wishes and hopes for peace are visible. It is art with a message.)

The whole neighbourhood needed a place for encounter and that is what it became. The idea for the square shows great sensitivity for what is needed in the neighbourhood. With the collecting of wishes new partnerships were built and relationships were deepened.

True fellowship is radical. It is a gift the church has to offer to the world, especially in the city centre where many desire to belong. In the community of the church people come together who otherwise might never have met and build new relationships. The fellowship of the church offers the place where people can be welcomed, listened to and supported. Welcome and hospitality are key.

In its fellowship the church lives out what Jesus proclaimed, becomes sign and foretaste of the kingdom, pockets of an alternative lifestyle.

In our fellowship the church offers, in the words of Rowan Williams, a radically different imaginative landscape, in which people can discover possibilities of change, learn a new way of living, trusting in God and in each other, and come to flourish.

Through the fellowship of the church covenantal relationships are built that go beyond and provide the glue for the contractual relationships upon which much in the city centre rests (Jonathan Sacks).

This way of covenantal living is a gift to the city centre. And today we are called to make koinonia as much outside the church as in it, a Christ-centred secular fellowship which combines Christian self-identity and secular solidarity with everyone with whom we come into contact.

The church in Amsterdam has recognized that and has not kept doing what it has been doing, but has taken it outside. It has gone and seen what God is doing in the waters of culture and engaged with it.

4.3. Service and witness

Story: When your partner has died

Losing someone is a life changing experience. A support group for those who are grieving offers Amsterdammers an opportunity to share these experiences. The initiative was started by a church in the city centre and was joined by another one a few years later. The two churches used the expertise of a professional agency for church and neighbourhood work. They had more than 30 years experience of running such groups. The topics of discussion in the group connect seamlessly with the daily experience of those who are grieving.

One of the workers, Alice van der Laan, says: “People appreciate the church meeting this need. Through advertising and handing out flyers at doctors surgeries people end up with us. We form a group of no more than 10 people. In ten sessions we discuss things like: What did you go through? How did you say goodbye? What gives you hope for the future? There is a lot of attention for personal stories”.

The volunteers come from within and outside the church, and the church is actively involved. It is an activity that belongs to all.

The Church is called to service and this is a very clear gift to the city centre. Through service (diakonia) the church embodies the self-giving love of Christ and expresses the love of God through mercy, justice and helping where there is no helper. Our service can be a powerful witness in a city where those who are strong and can fully participate in producing and consuming are highly valued. Our service says something else: Jesus had a particular concern for the widow and the orphan, for those who mourned, for those who are ill. He healed and restored and welcomed people back into community. He had a desire to see the poor and heavy-laden come to flourishing. Our service to those who are the excluded in the city centre, to those who cannot keep up, who cannot help themselves and to see them fully alive is profoundly countercultural.

Our service is countercultural in other ways too. It calls out people’s involvement in their community and invites them to embrace a struggle wider than their own and to express venturesome love (Karl Rahner). And that is radical too for the successful city dweller, who is self-sufficient and moves in his/her own circles and networks.

And so to witness…..last but not least. Allow me one more story.

Story: The living library

In the living library Amsterdam you can borrow a remarkable or interesting human being to ask him or her what you always wanted to know but didn’t dare to ask.

The living library concept is particularly suited to exchanging faith values and life experiences in a personal conversation. The idea of a people library, or living library, arose in Denmark and spread from Finland to Australia, and to Amsterdam.

It was the Keizersgracht Church and its project worker that shaped the living library. They see it as a form of dialogue. The person you speak with is not a book to be read, but also wants to get to know the reader. That way a lively conversation can take place between people with different lifestyles, professions or religions. It can be a safe way to raise vulnerabilities such as a disability, or illness or stigma, and to take away prejudice. The first living library was about religion, whereby visitors could borrow a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu or a Christian for half an hour for a good conversation. A second one took place in the city library with clients of the mental health services, organised at their request. It became so successful that it is now an independent project of the Protestant Church of Amsterdam.