« Back to Issue 29

Editorial

By Paul Beasley-Murray.

Chelmsford, the county town of Essex where I minister, is only 35 minutes away from London by fast train, and yet at times we seem light years away from the metropolis. This is particularly true when it comes to multi-ethnicity, with its twin brother, multi-culturalism. Although with a population of over 150,000, we are not a small town, for many years we have been an almost exclusively white town. But now, thank God, a change is beginning to take place and people from other countries and cultures, in particular from Africa, are beginning to settle among us.

To my delight our church is beginning to reflect these changes in our community, with increasing numbers of people of African origins joining our church community and attending our services. The challenge which we face is how we might make the most of this special opportunity ('kairos') for the Gospel.

The other evening I invited to my home three African couples who have recently become church members, to find out how they felt we might respond to what is for us a new situation. They made the following points and suggestions:

1. Most Africans coming to Britain have Christian roots and are looking for friendship. For them, church is a safe place to find friends. They encouraged us therefore to organise more social events, with a view to integrating people of different races. In so far as Africans delight in eating together, we agreed to put on more meals at church - indeed, meals prepared by Africans are quite an attraction. Another suggestion was to have an African fashion show - in a town like ours that would be a crowd-puller! And since many Africans are keen to play football, we agreed also to explore the possibility of starting our own church football team.

2. The key people to exploit this Gospel opportunity are our African members themselves. The fact is that there is on the part of many black people a sense of insecurity in relating to white people. They wonder to what extent will they be welcomed and valued? This insecurity causes a good number of African Christians in our town to travel into London in order to attend black-led churches there. Our African members felt that they, and not the white ministers, were the best people to follow up visitors.

3. Many Africans do not know how to access services and entitlements available to them, and as a result struggle unnecessarily. For example, although they may be well qualified and have a college or university degree, because they are desperate for money and do not know how to market themselves, they will often take low-paid menial jobs (e.g. domestic work or work in care homes). Our African members suggested that we set up a Saturday information/resource centre for Africans (and people of other races too?) in the community. We are fortunate in having a Friendship Centre (with toilets, drinks machine and computers) which we could set aside for this purpose.

4. Africans are musical people, who enjoy lively worship. They also enjoy singing - many of our African members have sung in choirs. We agreed therefore to explore the possibility of setting up a mixed Gospel Choir.

I am very conscious that we are belatedly catching up where many churches have been for many years. Rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, I wondered what advice readers of Ministry Today might have to offer us. I'm sure many of our readers have rich experience of living and ministering in multi-cultural and multi-ethnic areas and are far better equipped to offer help and advice to others entering this area of ministry for the first time. We would be delighted to receive an article outlining how others have sought to address this challenge.

And now to this edition of Ministry Today. The latter years of the twentieth century led to an explosion in the number of people specialising in pastoral counselling. While this was in many ways a good thing, there was a tendency for ministers to feel that, if they were unable to offer such counselling, they were less effective than those who could. In an article derived from his latest book, former Ministry Today Board member, Alistair Ross, himself a highly trained and respected counsellor, begins to redress the balance, arguing that the role of the carer is just as important as that of the counsellor.

Some time ago, we published an article by Philip Clements-Jewery, in which he questioned the effectiveness of current evangelistic methods, under the title of "Why Isn't It Working?" The article prompted a response from an Anglican priest, Simon Tatton-Brown. We put them in touch with each other and invited them to have a debate. In this edition of the journal, we publish the edited content of their conversation. We think readers will find it highly stimulating.

Angela Berners-Wilson has the unenviable distinction of being the first woman to be ordained priest in the Church of England. Ten years on from that historic occasion, she reflects on her experience of ministry. Ivor Moody gives us a sense of what is involved in chaplaincy in a modern university and Hedgehog, provocative as ever, asks some prickly questions about the recent Jeffrey John debacle.

All in all, we think this is another excellent edition of Ministry Today, and we're confident you'll agree. So when you've finished reading it, why not lend it to a friend and encourage them to take out their own subscription?