When reviewing Kirsten Birkett’s book “Class and the Evangelical Church” I noted that she acknowledges that there is already a wealth of work that has been done on the subject. I also expressed disappointment that she doesn’t really engage with that great wealth of work and limits herself primarily to two book with a couple of others coming in for honourable mentions.
As I said then, there are plenty of resources out there, not always through traditional print publishers. In fact when it comes to urban missiology, the place to start is not in the book shop or seminary library but online through blogs and websites.
Anyway, I’ve been asked if I could share a list of recommendation. So here goes. Note this list is about the broader subject or urban mission and so will link heavily to issues concerning class but will also touch on other areas of concern for reaching the urban unreached including the impact of immigration and multiculturalism.
So, for starters, my own contribution includes lots of articles, comment and resources here on this website. You may find it helpful to start by checking out the Urban Church tag. Back in 2018, I took a short sabbatical with the specific intent of putting time and research into the question of urban mission. The result was my e-book “Hope for the City” which is available free here. It may be of interest for a few reasons. First, I do spend a bit of time engaging with the wider secular discussion about class, the working class and those who feel left behind. I also engaged with socio-political commentary including Owen Jones’ book “Chavs” coming from the Left and Douglas Carswell’s Rebel from the Right. Secondly, I sought to flesh out a strategy for urban mission based around the subversive fulfilment approach of missiologist JH Bavinck.
Tim Chester’s Unreached is perhaps one of the earlier examples of conservative evangelical engagement with urban mission and reaching deprived communities.
My friend Steve Kneale is a pastor in one of the mot deprived wards in England. He blogs at Building Jerusalem. Steve has also written “The Teeth of our exertions.”
Two recent books, the ones actually prominently cited in Birkett’s book are “The least, the last and the lost” edited by Mez McConnell of 20 Schemes. Mez along with Mike MicKinleyhas also written “Church in hard places.” Nathalie Brown and Paul Brown write Invisible Divides with a lot of autobiographical material.
20 Schemes is a project that was set up with the aim of reaching Scotland’s neediest council estates (schemes). They host a blog on their website.
Similar to 20 Schemes, Medhurst Ministries operate in the north of England
Meanwhile in the South East/London, you have Duncan Forbes writing about Council Estate ministry.
If I could make three more comments it would be
- There is a genuine and healthy diversity as well as common themes between all of these. I’m not saying tby referencing them here that IK agree with all they say or they with me but I think they are well worth paying attention to.
- All of them have a serious concern and have put real work into training and developing workers with in depth, rigorous content.
- Similarly in terms of discussion about whether or not working Class Christians and pastors in working class contexts should be grateful to have an academic’s input, most of the people I know have also put the effort in academically too.
This is a starter list. If I’ve missed you off then please add in your details in the comments!
Faithroots 