Notes from the Gospel and Class Conference 2018

These are my notes from the very significant Gospel and Class Conference organised by the Acts 29 Church in Hard Places collaborative:

Session 1

- Ian Williamson - Ephesians 3:1-12 - What does it really mean to be worthy of the prefix 'gospel'?

1. Willing to take risks and make painful sacrifices for the sake of others (v1)
2.   Being One Body - equality and impartiality - overcoming post-Fall division of class (v6)
3.     Humility - gospel exposes our sinfulness, our uselessness without God
        - Jesus beaten and mocked as he died for us - smashes our pride (v7-8)
4.   Being the united-diverse church displaying the wisdom of God (v10-11)
5. Willing to struggle, make mistakes, have hard conversations - worth it (v12-13)

-Mez McConnell - What's the problem with the church in the UK?

• Class is about power not money: those who are used to taking orders versus those who are used to giving orders.
• Saved by the wrath of God. 
• Became a traitor to own people - had committed the cardinal sin of bettering self. Testimony was a horror story for the entertainment of the middle class - kept in bondage to the past. 
• Resisted at every turn - theological education, missionary, pastor, 20Schemes.
• Food banks versus moving, listening, sharing lives. Poverty Safari. 

Session 2

- Andy Pride - Advice from a middle-class pastor on a council estate

1. Recognise the emotions privilege provokes. Appreciate the them/us divide, the anger at injustice, the suspicion of outsiders (the enemy), the caricatures on both sides, the instinctive responses. 
2. Don't underestimate how long it takes to build trust. Earned by works slowly and lost in a moment. Distrust of authority. Think about perception of eldership. 
3. Eat and drink (Matt. 11:19). Middle class you can earn trust through preaching well. Working class you earn trust through life. Hanging out feels inefficient.
4. Handle the grey (versus the black and white). Look beyond behaviour to the real issue (e.g. children who haven't eaten well). Slow down. Remember where you're starting from. 
5. Be aware of the power of dominant culture. Be aware of your culture - naturally invisible to you. If you're not aware of the culture of your church then it's your culture.Your community must feel at home. The strong must become weak (1 Cor. 9:22). 
6. Don't Over-Lead because you are aiming for peak efficiency. Under-Lead. Train insiders. Harder work than training someone of same culture as you.

 - Sharon (Shabba) Dickens - Struggles of a working-class women's worker

• Estate culture:
• matriarchal by necessity not ideological feminism,
• direct communication,
• resilient women (not necessarily aggressive or unsubmissive),
• pop over any time means that; have cups of tea at each other's houses and feed each other's kids if they're around at tea time but not dinner parties
• have people come and live with you - that is normal - discipleship by example
• Women's ministry:
• not enough women's workers nationally, 
• especially virtually no estate women in women's ministry,
• Mary Poppins 'practically perfect in every way' ideal women's worker - squeaky clean with no messy background, not a tough resilient woman
• Single mums:
• stereotype of out of control kids versus reality of lots of out of control middle class kids
• tokenistic friendships and tokenistic opportunities for service in middle class churches
• need to invest in discipleship and training, have high expectations 

Session 3

- John Stevens - Prioritising funding, training and evangelism for UK estates

• FIEC 600 churches. Wanting to listen to those 40 FIEC pastors working in hard places.
• Estate context and mixed demographics contexts.
• Different strategies and contextualised ministry models will be needed in different places - don't insist on one biblical model - e.g. paid and unpaid, house church and building.
• Middle class fear, guilt, paralysis about estates. Middle class churches in hard spiritual contexts, apathy, few conversions. 
• Council estates should be A priority but that doesn't mean THE only priority, though addressing the imbalance necessary. E.g. rural ministry and ethnic minorities also a priority for church planting and revitalisation.
• FIEC can build trust, broker relationships (e.g. London-Liverpool partnership)
• Don't want patronising giving with strings attached
• Small dying churches are often the ones sitting on money
• Will take time to change culture of evangelicalism

- Ian Williamson - Finding a way forwards

- Steve Timmis - Leading the way in changing culture

1. Preach and teach the biblical theme of God saving and using the poor and weak (Exodus, Jesus, Acts, 1 Cor. 1)
2. Pray it and sing it to move the affections
3. Model it and mentor it - do it, move house
4. Structure and resource it - training, budget
5. Repeat and repeat

Session 4

- Mez McConnell - James 2

• Favouritism = big deal in the Bible. 
• God's passion for the poor - Psalm 41:1; 74:21; Prov. 29:7; Luke 6:20. 
• Mistaken for someone coming to a food bank, then they find he's the speaker at their church - give massively more honour to a guest speaker than to a scruffy-looking homeless guy
• Who do we see as a 'big win' for the kingdom? Do we see university educated people as better? People with more money as better
• We are ALL judging people - middle class and working class do it all the time. It is EVIL (v4) We all need to repent. 
• Look forward to Jesus returning and ending all this nonsense

- Q&A times

• 20 years waiting for this opportunity to speak to the middle class church - been very patient
• Working/under class more classist than anyone 
• Need resources. Need equal partnerships
• Senior pastors need to lead the way of going to council estates. As some go then others will follow
• Look at representation of non-middle class people at every level: pew, seminary, boards, partnerships, conference speakers
• 20Schemes do exchanges - sending w/class apprentices to m/class churches and receiving m/class apprentices to their churches - very helpful cross-cultural experience
• Having people to live in your home as intense discipleship experience
• Preaching has got locked into one middle class style. We need to think about:
• emotion - preach like these things are true - not a lecture
• giving examples of how it has helped me personally with my battle against sin, be less guarded, more vulnerable
• show real life application
• personality, not all the same style - we shouldn't be clones of each other
• Need to get on with planting churches in poorer areas
• Not a new method of doing church - gather, read/preach/sing/pray Bible, go home

Personal reflections and take aways

• On culture:
• The massive importance of knowing that you have a culture. 
• All cultures are sinful - we all judge each other, all facets of our culture are spoiled by sin, and we all have cultural blindspots and sinful elements that need to be rooted out. 
• We need to come together around the Bible and help each other see what the Bible really says and where we are not letting it impact us personally and culturally.
• Examples: a) having people stay in your house (normal or prohibitively risky?); b) presenting a good face to the world (reserved or hypocritical pretense?)
• All cultures are racist and classist but the weight of responsibility to change falls on the dominant culture (James 2, 1 Cor. 9, Acts 6).
• Am I just chasing what the world wants - comfort, good education for kids, respect? Do we really see that our treasure is in heaven and everything here that people chase after is empty and passing away? Are we willing to take serious risks with relationships, location, hospitality?
• Power shifts - need to happen at the level of boards and decision making esp. re financial distribution and who speaks.
• Preaching is important but only part of gospel ministry. And when we do preach, let's not all sound the same. Listen to different models. Help each other see the Bible emphases that we have missed - e.g. poverty, fasting, obedience, hospitality.
• Paul put a lot of effort into winning over people suspicious of his ministry (e.g. 2 Cor.).
• Partners kept backing Paul even when his church planting ministry seemed be fruitless, when he was in prison, when he was suffering.
• If I really treated every I met as created in the image of God, worthy of full honour, regardless of age, gender, colour, ethnicity, class, disability, what a huge difference that would make. Lord forgive me. Lord change me.
• Preach the glorious Lord Jesus Christ (James 2:1) - he is the one who unites us.