The following article first appeared in the August 27, 2013 edition of the AAC’s weekly International Update. Sign up for this free email here.
By Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream
Paul said to the Athenians “I can see that you are very religious” (Acts 17:22). There are parts of the world where people are aware of the spiritual realm, where talk about God and prayer and salvation does not cause embarrassment, where organized communal worship is a regular feature of people’s lives. If it’s Islam, then Gospel work can be hard, but in places with other religious systems, evangelism can reap abundant rewards and churches grow rapidly. Of course in such places there are also massive problems – untrained pastors, syncretistic practices and often serious poverty and deprivation – but the people are “very religious”. Where faith in Jesus has taken root, communities of poor, uneducated people are relying on Him for their daily needs, experiencing daily answers to prayer and sharing faith as well as bread with those around them.
There are other parts of the world where the language and practice of religion are not part of the culture in the same way. Like the Stoics and Epicureans of Acts 17, people are not open, and evangelism is difficult. While in parts of Latin America or Nigeria a street preacher can regularly lead 20 people to make a decision for Christ in half an hour. In France or Britain, even Christians will hurry past a street preacher, embarrassed, and the brave speaker may be more likely to get arrested than make a convert. In Port Elizabeth, South Africa, I saw new churches being planted almost every week. Sometimes, churches were planted on the same street as, and of a different style or even in opposition to, existing churches and both would be growing. In Northampton, England, many churches struggle to maintain numbers, and it’s a cause for celebration if a new church is planted by any denomination in a year.
In secularized Britain, church-planting and church growth has been a particular challenge in poorer urban areas and newly built housing estates. People in such areas are “not religious”, and increasingly so. Churches work hard to earn a hearing through community service and pastoral care, but at some point there has to be talk about God, which people find incomprehensible. Its not that ordinary people don’t believe in God (hence the “new atheism” is not the real enemy as it’s rarely found outside intellectual circles) – rather people see no relevance or interest for their lives. That means that evangelism and church planting is difficult, long-term work, but also that public discourse on issues which take for granted a religious framework, such as marriage, and spiritual basis for social service (such as the Girl Guides, here and here), is increasingly fraught with misunderstanding and the potential for causing offence.
How do we face this as the church? There are several approaches that are being advocated.
The first is denial. “There is no problem – everything is fine”. Even asking questions about the spiritual hardness of the population is seen as negative. A second approach admits that people are not interested in the things of God, so gives up on evangelism, and concentrates on social action projects often separate from the (usually) small and elderly worshipping community. Thirdly, find those who are open to spiritual issues with some memory of the Gospel, and concentrate one’s energy there. That means a base of a reasonably large suburban congregation with several generations of strong believers, from which one can reach out to relatively affluent families with some Christian heritage. This ministry is vitally important and needs to be done, but the effects do not trickle down to the swathes of “unreached” people across the country.
So how can disciples of Christ be formed among the “non-religious” of England? The key elements have to be: clergy with the willingness to “go down”, perhaps foregoing the idea that “promotion” involves a post in a bigger, richer church, or going up the ladder of the Diocesan hierarchy. Small teams of laity understanding the urgency of bringing the Gospel to the lost, experienced in prayer, creative and practical. Where necessary, partnering ecumenically with other bible-believing and mission-oriented people is helpful. The goal: Christian communities, living lives of love and service, talking about God’s word so that people are transferred from darkness to the light of Christ. There are such places: they might even be Anglican! (some might be found here). There are such places: they need encouragement and prayer because perhaps they cannot report anything spectacular; they do not have books written about them, nor do their pastors speak at conferences. There are such places, and we need more of them (like here), because they are like tiny plants stubbornly taking root and slowly growing in the barren soil.
