by Fr Alex Frost, Vicar of St Matthews, Burnley and member of General Synod
In my capacity as Vicar, St Matthew’s Burnley, I sometimes wonder how Urban Ministry is perceived or understood within the Church of England community. Particularly if you are not living in it daily as I do in my parish of over 17,000 people where only the tiniest of numbers attend church on a weekly basis.
So, what is the perception versus reality in modern day Britain in 2022?
Maybe one of the perceptions is that urban estates are simply full of lazy good for nothing spongers, who want everything literally on a plate, including food, fuel, and freebies. Maybe the perception is that these areas are full of uneducated layabouts who make their own bed and should lie in it, and if that bed happens to be sleeping bag outside Tesco’s, then it’s someone else’s problem and not theirs. Maybe there is a perception that urban deprivation is all made-up poppycock nonsense and propaganda to build an agenda against a political ideology; just an imaginatively-created fairy tale by the ‘Left’ to create political and social discontent.
I think one of the key dangers faced by the Church of England with its aura and aroma of middle- to upper-class arrogance is that it takes the moral high ground by believing that throwing clergy and the commissioners’ cash at the problem, Christianity will burst into life like bluebells in greenbelt Surrey.
The reality is that the pandemic has brought huge issues to Urban settings that already had huge issues long before COVID 19 was even a thing. Many Urban estates and communities have been dealing with their own localised pandemic and were already rationing toilet rolls and petrol long before the cost-of-living crisis we are facing at present. For many families living at this sharp end of existence, life is simply about surviving from one day to the next. Trust me when I tell you the last thing many of these folks want is some Christians in the Marks and Spencer summer range rocking up on the estate with a ‘vision’ or a ‘plan’ to lead them into still waters whilst Matt Redman belts out 10,000 Reasons on the portable speakers.
The reality is that our urban settings at times are very tough, at times they are very sad whilst at other times they are funny and joyful. In my past life as a stand-up comedian, I used to think hard about my material, but here on the estates the landscape is a hive of humour and hilarity. Often, it’s a case of ‘If we don’t laugh, we might die’. If we don’t laugh at one other, we might hurt one another. During the pandemic I have felt extremely blessed to walk alongside many of these incredible characters. I’m also very fortunate that I have been afforded the opportunity to give a voice to some of these people via my new book ‘Our Daily Bread’, published by Harper Collins North and out in October. At times the stories are harrowing and deeply upsetting, but underneath all the pain and hardship are some of the most resilient and faithful people you could wish to find.
They are people that have gone way beyond ‘Been there, got the T-shirt’; they are people who been fully kitted out in a lifetime of challenge, poverty, and let-down. They are all people who have lost faith in ‘services’, politicians, and policing. These are communities who have had so little engagement with faith groups that they have never had the opportunity to discover a faith in Jesus because it’s never even been there as an option. Instead, they have experienced a creaking out-of-touch Church that in many cases only opens its doors to exude a complex fragrance of exclusive traditional theologies that’s as easily lost on newly-confirmed teenagers as it is on a single parent on benefits.
So where is the hope? One of the great joys of an abandonment of estate ministry by the church is that slates have been cleared like that etch-a-sketch classic toy. The church has been dormant for so long in so many places, that few people know what it was even like, other than the trail of damage that has been left behind by homophobia, bigotry and intolerance. The joy can be found in a new ministry that truly reflects Jesus’ encouragement to love thy neighbour as thyself and serve the most needy.
We have much work to do at St Matthew’s, Burnley, but our ministry through the pandemic has opened our church doors to a fragile and broken community. We have simply tried to serve, be that food, friendship or faith. Not too pushy, not too judgy, always inclusive, never exclusive, in the hope that our visitors might find something of worth: worth in themselves, worth in each other, worth in our church and in Jesus our redeemer.
Wherever you are or whatever you believe about the cost-of-living crisis, I can tell you it exists, it is real. It is painful, it is traumatic and that’s what makes it necessary for our national church to do more in our urban settings. Just two sessions into being a newly-elected General Synod member reminds me that we are not doing enough. Only when we place the most marginalised people in our society at the heart of our church will we grow and make a difference. If we don’t, we face a church in palliative decline and our future could be terminal. That’s what is at stake: this is where we are, and for that we must truly repent.
Any thoughts?