Unreached

This book, another from the helpful and prolific Tim Chester, is an excellent compilation of practical insights into planting and growing church communities in deprived working-class parts of the United Kingdom. I got the book in response to a UCCF mission trip to Grimsby last year, where several of us students stayed with a local church in the East Marsh area and helped run missional outreach events, youth clubs and community development programmes in the midst of what is a thoroughly impoverished town. We've revisited Grimsby as a team a few times since, and the most recent visit prompted me to consider possibilities for my future involvement with church plants, given the immense need of deprived areas. So to a book I turned, seeking not direction but guidance.

   The book's a product of Reaching the Unreached, a working group of christians involved in mission to Britain's poor, with anecdotes and advice distilled into a rough guide on how to do church in working-class communities. It skips the "why" other than a short but hard-hittingly truthful indictment of current church culture being predominantly, arguably damagingly, middle-class. So then we go straight into the "how" of engaging with and properly integrating with different class cultures in deprived areas, and finding within them new workable methods of gospel witness, in word and in deed, for both evangelism and discipleship. There's a consistent emphasis on social action's importance in terms of showing Christlike love by meeting needs, but more fundamental is the emphasis on the gospel message of humanity's need for repentance and salvation by the grace of Jesus Christ. I summarise here, of course - the book goes into many applications of how these messages can be put across effectively therein - but I would do no justice in attempting to list key points or topics, hence my vagueness in discussing the content. The book's theological aspects are well-grounded, the pointers on working-class mission are from reliable long-term experienced workers, the cultural examinations are empirical and reasonable. The only gripe I might have with it is that the model of "working-class culture" related to is somewhat stereotyped; but generalisations of subjects are helpful to make if you're giving generalised advice, and besides it comes with plenty of caveats as to use individual judgement in dealing with specific groups, areas, minorities, persons, etc.

   Basically the advice is trustworthy and good, and if you're seriously considering getting (or already are) involved with church activity in working-class or deprived areas, this would be a great source of both encouragement and aided understanding. And if you're not (non-christian readers, you're off the hook for this bit), why not? There's huge need in Britain's poorer parts, and if God would give his Son to die for a sinner like you or me, what right would we have to deny the Word from other humans in an attempt for us to cling onto several middle-class comforts? Thinking about this has struck me harder than the book itself - the book's more of just a guide than a direction, as I said. The direction is a calling to do what's right, and bringing betterment to areas which are materially deprived and worse, spiritually dry, seems like an important choice.