Yesterday I wrote about our city going bankrupt and what that might mean for us. As I explained in the article, there’s actually a lot of uncertainty and the honest answer to “what does this mean?” Is that we really don’t know yet. It is entirely possible that for most of us we’ll see very little difference to our lives. That’s down to a few things including the reality that who is responsible for what is a lot more complex and confused than it was in the past. For that reason, perhaps surprisingly, I’m not sure that most people will be as anxious about the situation as we think they might be. We may well find out that life goes on pretty much as normal. This may not have the same affect as when we thought the banks were going to go bust or when the Government announced they had no money. So, I think we will need to watch this space over the next few months to see how things start to transpire.
There are some things that I think we can say, things that God might be doing with us and saying to us through a situation like this. I want to pick up on a couple of these things here. I’d encourage you to watch this interview with Esther Rai who is on the staff at Gas Street Church in the centre of Birmingham heading up their Love Your Neighbour Project.
There’s some helpful and challenging things in what she says and I think that you can take home those lessons for your own context even if outside of Birmingham.
First of all, I think the first thing it has done, especially at the start of a new term is to remind us that we start by praying for our city and community. Esther talks about how that was one of the first things her team did that morning in response to the news. Our own church has part of its vision
- We want to see Jesus the most talked about person in our city
- We want to be for the good of our city
This week’s news reminded us that if we are serious about those things then we need to give lots of time to pray for our city. So, when our church family got together to pray last night, we set aside quite a bit of time praying for Birmingham.
Can I encourage you to pray for your own city and community? Could I also encourage you to pray for our city and especially churches here in Birmingham. Pray for the Church Central church family: North, South, Hope (formally East). Pray for Esther and for Gas Street. Other churches in the city include The Gate, Grace Church Stirchley, City Church, Second City, Christ Church Birmingham, Oikos, Crossway and Monyhull.
Secondly, I was quite taken with Esther’s phrase that
we believe in the non-anxious presence of Jesus.”
We want to introduce people to the one who said that we do not need to be anxious about anything because we can cast our cares on him. We want to help people find the peace that this world cannot give. When the government fails, a bank collapses, a high profile celebrity messes up or your local authority goes bankrupt, all of those things are statements reminding us that this world is not dependable. If we build our lives on those things then we are building on sand instead of the rock. That’s why this city needs Jesus to be the most talked about person. We want to point people to the one who is faithful and kind.
Thirdly, Esther, passionately and powerfully reminds us of our responsibility as followers of Jesus to the poor and vulnerable in our communities. We should be putting love in action. I’m just doing some reading and prep work in the book of James at the moment and this reminds us that faith is evidenced by works, specifically by compassion moving from fine words to concrete action.
Fourthly, in some respects, I wonder if we as churches may find ourselves being amongst the more anxious and where that might challenge us. Whilst I agree with Esther about love in action, I’ve not always been convinced that the things we’ve done were what we should have been doing. I’ve been open in the past in saying that from experience I’m not convinced that food banks are the right response to poverty for example. However, my wider concern is to do with dependence. Esther mentions that church mercy ministries have benefited a lot from grants from local councils as well as other bodies. She particularly mentions funding for warm places. This is another example where I think people were quick to offer something that may have been less helpful than first assumed. If we were taking grants in order to open our buildings in cold weather was that really the best use of public funds to help the most vulnerable. If we rely heavily on public funds then have we simply become an agent of the state? Does that potentially constrain both our thinking and what we do? Would we do those things still and would we do them in the same way if we weren’t getting grants?
It is good to remember that we cannot rely on public funds. It’s also good to be reminded that we don’t need to. God is the one who is rich in infinite resources and so it is to him that we should depend on. This also means that we might want to be more courageous in thinking about what is truly godly and compassionate and so, even challenge some of the models and approaches that have been encouraged on all sides of the political spectrum.
The fall of Birmingham Council should both challenge us and encourage us as God’s people.
Faithroots 