Churches Together in King’s Lynn.
Peace and Justice Forum held at Gaywood Church Rooms on Saturday 18th January 2025.
Part One of Two.
The meeting was chaired and opened by Revd Kyla Sorensen:
Kyla thanked everyone for coming to the meeting and opened the meeting in prayer: ‘Loving God we pray your blessing on today. We thank you for everyone who has come together today because we care about what happens here in King’s Lynn, we care about each other Lord, as you love us, so we try to love each other. And so, Lord, we pray your blessing on today, on all of the talks, on everything we say, think and do together and we look forward to a future following your way, loving our neighbour here in King’s Lynn, Amen.
Kyla introduced and welcomed our speakers: Bishop Rob Wickham, CEO of the Church Urban Fund (CUF)our key note speaker, Vicki Price from North Lynn and the first speaker who is the Mayor of King’s Lynn, Cllr Paul Bland.
Cllr Paul Bland: I am delighted to join everyone for this important event. I know last year you held the inaugural peace and justice forum and I am very happy to see it return again. As Mayor I am in a position where I am invited to meet and visit lots of groups and organisations within the borough and to see the amazing work that they are doing in supporting many people. I’ve seen the work of the Foodbank, the Night Shelter and the Purfleet Trust, just to mention a few. I look forward to speaking to as many of you as I can today. I think from my point of view it is important to recognise that there are issues around poverty and homelessness along with other social and economic issues. But no one person, probably, has all the answers, but working collectively we can come together to address the issues and work out what we can do to contribute as an individual or as an organisation. I know that my two Council colleagues, Jo and Ben will talk in more detail about projects that they are involved in and I do not wish to steal their thunder. I would just like to say that it is important that we recognise all the people involved in working in the support network and in particular the volunteers across all organisation on which we depend so much. Thank you.
Cllr Jo Rust: I am really pleased to be back here because I came to the first Peace and Justice conference last year and I thought it was absolutely incredible. I was really pleased that I was able to spend all day there and to listen to the amazing things that people had to say and contribute and I am so glad that it has come back this year. It is also so nice to see some friend’s faces that I have not seen for a while. I used to come regularly to the Friendship Café that is held on a Wednesday and see the people, friends and carers of those with dementia and that does such a good job.
Homelessness:
I have been asked specifically to speak about homelessness and the impact it has on the lives of our residents. I am a Cabinet member for people and communities and, as such, homelessness and rough sleeping falls under my portfolio. But before I was a cabinet member, I was concerned about homelessness and rough sleeping in any case, so it isn’t something that I have just been presented with and a role that I have taken up, I was campaigning and working to eradicate homelessness before that and before I was a councillor as well.
Sleeping out in the town centre:
Because homelessness isn’t something that has just popped up, it has been growing and getting worse for years now. Something then made it crystal clear that this is a serious issue. I slept out with a group of us, and we are going back some years, but it was in the town centre was the first time. A band stand had been located in the town centre and it was where all the cameras were and everyone was safe, and what we were doing was that we were sleeping outside to raise awareness. I was talking to this young lad who was there and he was in his late teens or early 20s. He had been a rough sleeper from the age of 13 to 17. He was a child and he had been forced to sleep out. The relationship with his parents had broken down and I think that, in itself, is a tragedy because children are the sum of their parts. They are not born evil, they’re not born bad, but there is a culmination of what they have been exposed to and I asked this young man, when was the time he felt safest when he was rough sleeping? He said it was when he was sleeping in the bushes at Lynn Sport because nobody could see him. Because when he had been visibly rough sleeping he had been spat at, urinated at and assaulted. This was a child. Now I’ve got 2 children and they are now adults and 2 grandchildren who are 5 and 4. I would hate to think that they would be exposed to that sort of thing.
Children who have been in care:
We also know, in regards to rough sleeping, that children who have been in care are 20% more likely to end up as rough sleepers compared to those otherwise. Children who have been through the care system are also more likely to end up in prison or to go into the judicial services. So, there is a lot that we need to do to improve the lot of children in care. Our local Council have signed the ‘Care Leavers Covenant’. The Borough Council does not have statutory responsibility for young people, Norfolk County Council are the statutory carers for young people. As a Borough Council we can take some responsibility for what happens to young people in care. This includes giving them a guaranteed interview for a job, asking employers to give a guaranteed interview if you have been through the care system. Looking at whether you need accommodation and what can we do to make that easier for you. So, our Borough Council have put in place measures to support children who have left the care system. And we have to remember as well, if you are a young person that has left the care system you may have no support as other children do. If they need to go to the doctor, they may have nobody to go with them. If they get a puncture in their tyre, they have never been taught by a parent how to repair that puncture so that there is lots of support that is missing from the lives of people who have been in care. Our Borough Council wants to support them so that we can avoid them becoming homeless.
The Council’s homelessness and rough sleeping strategy:
The other week our Council launched its homelessness and rough sleeping strategy and that is really what I am here to talk about, but there are so many things that fall under homelessness and rough sleeping and poverty, obviously, is one of them. But also, mental health, alcohol addiction and drug addiction all contribute to the reasons that people become homelessness. The strategy seeks to support people person by person. People are not born bad so if a person becomes addicted to substances there is usually a reason for it. But in today’s society people are told that they have to sort their addiction problems out before their mental health problems will be acknowledged. However, there is now a push towards a dual diagnosis which is really important so that the two problems can be treated together. These problems mean that they may be unable to sustain their permanent accommodation even if it has been found for them.
The Homelessness Prevention Grant:
Our Council gets what is called an HPG a homelessness prevention grant. We can spend that in a variety of different ways. There are a cohort of people who have a cycle. They present time and time again as homeless and it is because of their difficult lives, because of their addiction problems. We have got lots of amazing partners in the town that will provide support for addiction but we have to acknowledge that our mental health services provided by the NHS are less than adequate and that is really unfortunate. We have got one of the worst mental health trusts in the UK. It’s been rated inadequate time and time again, and I sympathise with the staff. I worked at the Norfolk County Council when the executive board of the Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health Trust made the decision to make redundant loads and loads of experienced staff and then they suddenly wondered why it all went wrong and had to get other staff in to replace them. But they couldn’t, you can’t make redundant people with years and years of experience. It happened in the prison service as well. You can’t expect new people to come in without those skills and experience. But our local support organisations which help, whether it is Purfleet, whether it is CGL, or the Benjamin Foundation, there are lots of organisation out there that are providing support. It is very often provided by people with lived experience and that can make a difference. If support is an abstract concept to you because you have just read about it in a book sometimes it is hard to provide that proper empathy and understanding that is needed.
Families:
The other cohort of people that we are being presented with is families. We are seeing more and more families that have never faced homelessness before so we are also offering services to support them to avoid them becoming homeless in the first place.
Cllr Ben Jones: I am the Youth Champion for the Borough. We passed a motion back in October to try to get young people’s voices heard. The future is going to be theirs so they should have a say in what goes on. What has happened since October is that we have had a meeting to find out how young people would like to progress this motion. One of the things that we formulated was a plan to set up a Youth Advisor Board which the Borough Council would attend and we would exchange information. We do not want to step on other people’s toes who are already working in youth provision but we want to solidify it as one single youth voice so that we capture all the different groups who are doing great work in their areas to have a collective voice and hold the Council to account and we want to make sure that these young people have an opportunity to question us at full Council meetings to ask us why are you doing this and really just to show them how democracy works and give them an insight into making decisions. One of the key things is for them to feel like they belong and have a purpose with hope and opportunity for the future. If there is a Churches Together youth group, they could join in this process via the Youth Advisor Board which is located on Saturday Market Place in Lynn.
Questions:
Inequality:
A question was asked about the book The Spirit Level by the epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. This book shows that there is a correlation between social problems and inequality. Cllr Rust said that our Borough Council is taking steps to become a Marmot Place. On the 12th March our Council is launching the initiative that we are becoming a Marmot Place. Sir Michael Marmot is part of the Institute of Health Inequalities so this is all about addressing health inequalities and making our society more equal for those who have less. Health inequalities are a massive factor, and if you are unable to access your health needs you can’t fulfil your potential. Over the next 2 years the Institute of Health Inequalities will look at all the services that are on offer, for example at the Beacon Church, the Foodbank etc, so that we can have a really coherent picture of what is on offer. Then we will look to see where our gaps are. After 2 years of data collection, we will have a report so that we can see where the Borough Council needs to take action to fill the gaps in the services.
Dentistry:
Another question was asked about one of the obvious inequalities; in the provision of dental care. Cllr Rust said that as a Cabinet it is not in our gift to address this problem. But, if a new NHS dentist came to King’s Lynn, we could help to provide a Council owned property at a subsidised rent. Norfolk County Council are in overall control of dentists and most are private. I have contacted the College of West Anglia to ask if they could work towards having a school of dentistry there.
Vicki Price vicki.price@dioceseofnorwich.org : Vicki has 2 roles.
- The first is her work with the Beacon Church on the North Lynn estate as a lay pioneer minister which is someone who does work out of the church in the community, thinking of new ways to engage with new kinds of people
- and the second is as the Imagine Norfolk Together which is an initiative which was put together by the diocese of Norwich and the Church Urban Fund who bishop Rob is the CEO of and our aim is to help churches to work together across social issues and in places where problems are located.
The Beacon Church on the North Lynn estate:
I have lived and worked now for 5 years in North Lynn and I continue to set up the newly renovated Beacon Church which is a Methodist Church which has been in North Lynn for almost 60 years now. In 2020 we had lockdown and the church was closed for renovation because it was no longer fit for purpose. We gutted it and in 2022, when lockdown was finished, we finally started the renovation so we were without a building for that time. Over the years North Lynn has been shaded with a negative reputation. It is a housing estate of about 7,000 people and has a broad mix of social and privately rented housing.
Deprivation:
It is a ward that is identified as one of the most deprived areas of North Norfolk and according to the Church Urban Fund data it ranks about the top 2% of the highest deprivation statistics across the country. The life expectancy can be can be up to 15 years lower than that of surrounding areas. In comparison to the Woottons, which is just a 2 mile walk up the road, there is about a 10-year life expectancy gap. About 32% of children live in poverty. Income deprivation and child poverty are statistically worse than the national average. A substantial percentage of the population is under 60 and half of all the people are between the age of 25 and 64. But even with that low age profiles there is more long-term illness and disability which is significantly worse than the English average. The number of deaths which are preventable are also worse than the English average.
North Lynn is a place where, too often, it has been forgotten due to its reputation and it is a place where projects, funding and charities have turned up, promised the earth and then left again a couple of years later. Many of the very obvious community assets have been stripped away, for example, a ‘Sure Start’ centre and community hubs and clubs. It is a place where people, by their own admission, have often been dumped from other parts of the country and a place where people have often wanted to move away.
The complexity of poverty:
The Church Urban Fund have put together a diagram of the complexity of poverty. It is not just the obvious material need, its an intersecting web of multiple issues and challenges that effect identity, relationships and access to resources. There is a lack of self-worth and resilience and a lack of mental well-being. There is poverty of relationships where with social isolation and a lack of supportive networks, and there is also a lack of resources and a lack of money. All of these things intersect, one influences the other and when problems arise others become more susceptible so that we can’t just address one issue. It is about helping people to embed in their communities and develop resilient relationships and we are trying to see what that looks like in practice.
So, this idea of a web helps us to understand how all of these strands are interconnected. No elements stand alone but they overlap and interconnect with each other and they all have an impact on how people are able to thrive. And what is true for individuals is also true for whole communities. A neighbourhood feels the effects of poverty, its not only a lack of resources, but also a lack of trusting life-giving relationships between neighbours. It is all felt within a profoundly negative sense of collective identity from local history and about how people from other places talk about places like ours.
We need trusting meaningful relationships:
North Lynn can be very self-deprecating and you can begin to believe this and it is difficult to imagine a different way forward. We believe that for long-term sustainable change to happen for our whole community we need to build trusting meaningful relationships, learning together what a good quality of relationships can really look like in North Lynn. These have to be our key focuses as a church engaging well as a friend and a neighbour and if we ever want to be part of this in a real sense for people trapped in these cycles of poverty.
A brand-new community café:
My husband John and I moved to North Lynn in 2020 and the renovation work on the church began in 2022. We finally opened the new building which included a brand-new community café in 2023. It was quite unsurprising that there was quite a lot of excitement and enthusiasm from a lot of people to finally get one after 3 years of lockdown and not having anywhere to meet. People were really really keen and said: ‘Right, what can we do for our community. What are the issues and what can we put on to make our community better?’ But we had a feeling that, having the café we could just focus on being a church, listening and fostering those connections and building trust before we really jumped into anything else.
Empowering people:
So, we were keen not to just do to or for people like so many people had done in the past but to help to empower people to uncover their own gifts and what they have to exchange in the community. We wanted to come alongside our neighbours and friend and say ‘What do you have to bring to our community?’ Because that’s the question that hadn’t been asked over however many years North Lynn has developed as a community. As a church we have a key opportunity to just be along side people and say ‘actually what is your full potential and what gifts can you bring?’ And that has been our real focus. There had been nothing in the community space like the café where people could just come and be themselves with no strings attached. So as a church being present on the estate for the last 60 years, we had been placed in such a fortunate position that we could be really intentional about stewarding this asset that we had been given for everyone and not just our own church community. And that is the beautiful thing about being involved in community development and social engagement at the church in that, not matter if the leadership changes the church body isn’t going anywhere and, for the most part, it is not dependent on funds to keep it going. The church is just a group of local people committed to the flourishing of the people in their place and there is not much that can stop that from continuing to be the case in almost every parish and community across the country.
ABCD:
So, we not only wanted to be involved but to be a core part of the community at the Beacon and we have taken the approach that is often called the asset based community development approach or ABCD for how we are part of building a community throughout the week and not just on Sunday mornings. ABCD is a well-known approach which the Church Urban Fund encourages and I am sure that bishop Rob will be going into more detail about how we do that well. Essentially, it is about having a mindset of what treasures already exist in our community and shifting from a scarcity mindset of feeling overwhelmed by all the needs to saying, actually, lets have an abundance mindset.
An abundance mindset:
An abundance mindset is theologically rooted because our God is the God of abundance. Just look at the example of the wedding at Cana. They just wanted wine and God is far more generous, not just for what we needed but he goes above and beyond what we could possibly expect. It would be very easy for us to concentrate on the fact that we have a very small congregation. In North Lynn we have about 15 people who regularly join us on a Sunday morning. We could very easily say, that’s all we have got and we have an aging congregation and so little time and how do we really make an impact where we are. But starting to look around at the assets, means that your whole view is opened up by being interrupted by the guests around you in your community. And we trust that God has brought us to this place to include these people in the vision to be part of the rebuilding of the community in North Lynn. God is working in ways far bigger than we can understand. There are more assets in our community to be found. Even is we offered a little we could begin to weave them together but we have to listen first and avoid that parish thing with your own mindset and coming in with solutions. We simply have to go in and encourage that natural meeting space which we continue to do through the café, through having the garden project open, and through the local Food Hub. Having those spaces where we can just get to know people and to listen and to say that we are here just like you are here.
Recruiting volunteers:
Before we started, we knew that we would not be able to open a café without the support of the local people. We have such little time to commit so how are we going to run a café? We had to open it up and say ‘Would anyone like to come and volunteer for us and increase their skills and be part of this space where we just get to know each other?’ Now we have a team of about 15 core volunteers from all over the estate who are getting out of their houses, increasing their skills, and are being brilliant shining lights in our community, who feel really connected to the church and feeling part of who we are and how we are growing together. And after that they go into deeper questions of life and relationships and how we go deeper in this journey.
Building trust:
So, we have been able to build up this trust through the consistency of presence. Building this kind of trust takes a lot of time and when we see people multiple days a week, they are community, whether they are part of the church or not. Deeper questions about life and relationship expects to mould how we become church. Rowen Williams famously said that mission is finding out what God is doing and joining in with it. And seeing God work through everyone, and being open to using us in unexpected ways, we are having a mindset of abundance, thinking about what the endless possibilities could be, searching to find the talents, gifts and resources that God has already placed in our community and celebrating them first. Working in partnership with others we found that we were able to achieve far more than we ever could have if we were trying to do it alone. And this has been our approach in looking for volunteers. Noticing people of peace who want to work alongside us, and watching and waiting to see who emerges through an open invitation and conversations shared around the same goals. Through positive and open interactions, we are able to grow that trust and relationships together and we are open to being interrupted by where they might go.
A powerful witness to love and generosity:
In doing so we are offering a powerful witness of love and generosity to those we are engaging with. We don’t believe that God’s Kingdom has limits on who can join in this life-giving work and flourishing in this place. Just as church we need to be attentive to those gifts that are being offered and really discerning about how to join in well and not be expected to be the one that is always hosting and offering our own gifts. Sometimes we do need to step back and be the guests.
Feeding the five thousand:
In the feeding of the five thousand Jesus asked ‘What do you have, go and see?’ He revealed that the crowd already had more than enough when they came together. So, offering what we have and asking others to pitch in isn’t about people working hard to get what they need because it demonstrates that God is already at work and already doing things that we just need to uncover. This approach and mindset have been really life-giving and it could be a life-giving tool for churches like ours who are seeking to join in the mission of God in our local context, engaging and supporting communities, tackling various aspects of poverty and justice and growing a resilient community. This is an approach which invites us to see abundance in this place itself, its histories and stories, of which the church is often best placed to be privy to for the relationships that we can weave together.
ABCD is an incarnational approach which calls us to be outsiders in our community, to be with people outside of Sunday mornings. In this stepping out and not putting ourselves at the centre or of the hero of the story but of people seeking out what has taken place before us concerning how we can join in.
Community activities:
So, since re-opening the Beacon in 2023, some of the things that we are currently seeing are, the café, just having it open as a space for people to be and to volunteer, learn and join in and build up relationships in community by seeing each other on a regular basis. It also helps us to partner with various volunteer agencies such as health visitors who come in and do baby weighing. A community meal is also a key weekly event. It’s a space which is not just about putting on food for people but it is really about that we are going to eat food anyway so why don’t we eat food all together, have a chat and see who comes. We believe a lot happens around food and when we gather people can share more of their lives so a lot of our volunteers and families we are engaged with come to that. It is such a joy to see them all catching up with each other and building that community that otherwise may not have been there.
Youth support:
I have to mention Pete’s project which has just been such a joy to see develop over the past year. It came to us through the targeted youth support service, which is the Council’s youth provision. We knew Ben quite well from doing other work across North Lynn. He said that it would be really good if we could open up the Beacon for young people to just come and drop in. That’s great but can we do this with you, rather than just hiring it out to you. They were really open and we have had support from many services and groups which come to be part of this project. Every week on Friday after school we see 40+, 50, sometimes 60 young people from the estate, just using the space enjoying karaoke, basketball or whatever crafts we have got going on that day. It is such a valuable resource for us to get to know those young people and their families and we see them throughout the week. These are all our neighbours, some come to community meals, some engage in other café things throughout the week and its such a key catalyst to be able to sit with young people and ask them how their week has been and what has been going on.
RISE:
The biggest thing that we are developing at the moment is a project called RISE, https://www.norfolk.police.uk/news/norfolk/news/news/2024/november/rise-project-launched-in-north-lynn/which came to us through our collaboration with the police. We were really keen to not have everything happen in the Beacon. We were asking what gifts do you have to bring and how can we gather outside of the church building and the police came to us and said that they were thinking of doing a similar thing which is about crime prevention and ensuring that crime does not come back again. The police call this a ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ strategy for getting rid of crime. As professionals we have come together, knocking on doors and doing a survey of all of North Lynn asking what people have to offer, what they like about North Lynn and what they don’t like about North Lynn. With the results of that survey, we plan to work alongside our neighbours to build up even more resilience together.
Imagine Norfolk Together:
In my role for Imagine Norfolk Together, we are taking a step back and taking a borough wide look at how we can engage with injustice, poverty and social inequalities across the borough of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk. What could the church be doing to engage with these issues and how could we collaborate together to have a wider impact than that which we are just doing on our own? If we had a better understanding of all the churches in West Norfolk, how could we pool our resources to better make an impact? So, what gifts do we know that we already have to help us to do this? Well, we have at least 100 churches across West Norfolk of all different denominations, shapes and sizes. I think we can agree that all churches are aiming to build up meaningful relationships and make a real difference to the next generation. We can come across children and families on our own church’s doorstep, but in reality, children and families don’t observe our church boundaries, they are not fixed in their parish. They go to school, they go to the pub, and they travel all over the borough. So, people outside the church may be more aware of the offerings for young people in the community than the church people themselves. For example, what are they doing for young people at the King’s Centre church? It would be amazing if we all had a really clear idea of what each church was doing in a coordinated way which would have the best impact we could in the lives of children and young people.
Home Grown:
And this is where the idea of Home Grown comes in.
The name came up as an acronym: Helping Our Mission Growing Equipping Outreach in West Norfolk. How can we become more coordinated in our outreach for children and young people? So, the process is to connect churches together to understand each other and our current situation based on research which is already out there. We have collected a lot of the best research from many organisations, Lily, Church Urban Fund and many others, who have already done a lot of the mapping on what the issues are. Our hope is that we can build up a relationship across the churches in King’s Lynn and West Norfolk so that we can see the gaps and decide to take action on really clear priorities that come up from that research.
Part of this work will increase the capacity building, appreciating that we don’t have all the answers between us. We will need to do more training and we will need to equip ourselves to be best placed to respond to the needs of children and young people. But the key part is collective action. Once we have that capacity, and we have got that desire and we know exactly from the research what the key issues are, then, we will be taking that action and setting this out for children and young people across the borough.
We hope that we will become an asset to the Council and to other services, partnering with other agencies in our area.
An amazing story:
The story so far about how we got here is quite amazing, picking up and noticing what God is already doing in this area. The idea of collaborating across the churches has come from a number of sources. There is a really strong desire to see church unity which has come from Churches Together who had a real refresh in the last year from the last Peace and Justice Forum until now. There is also a bi-monthly worship united event which is calling all churches to come together to worship and pray specifically for our town and just to come and get to know each other and to pray because we believe as Christians that everything has to be soaked in prayer. It is not about what we can do but about what God is already doing. There is historic work that we can learn from. There are many churches that have been engaged in schools work over many years. How can we work together as churches to engage with schools in their RE classes or prayer spaces and there is even a life exhibition for churches happening next week at the London Rd Methodist Church. This is being run by the CROWNS trust. They are asking all churches to come together to help put that on.
It is so exciting to hear that the Council are engaging with the Marmot Place project. All this is happening spontaneously at the same time. These are things that have sprung up with conversations with bishop Jane who was really keen for us to collaborate more around children and youth work. It has also come up because I work for an international charity called Viva that does this kind of work. So, it’s all converging and I am really excited and I hope that you can see how this is all coming to be together.
There is a mapping survey for families and for schools about how we can collaborate. The first prayer and share meeting will be at St John’s Church 4pm to 6pm on Friday 24th January. All of this will culminate in a launch event on 20th September 2025 where we will draw all of this research together, have a whole day event where we share everything that we have learnt and start to have those inspiring conversations about what that can look like for churches to come together. You could join our working group to plan the next steps going forward.
Part Two.
Bishop Rob Wickham, CEO of the Church Urban Fund:
I wanted to start off by saying a big thank you to you, because it is a real treat to be here this afternoon. It is a real treat for a number of reasons, and I love these sorts of events because I know that I am surrounded by people that get it. No one would be sitting in this church today had they not felt compelled, because of the importance of the subject matter. Because when we are thinking about tackling poverty or responding to need, or responding to the extraordinary levels of poverty certainly that we have just heard about in terms of our facts and figures from Lynn, actually requires action and what does that action look like. And we are going to come on to that in just a few moments time.
The Kingdom of God:
There is a critical question though that I would like us to think about in the first half. It is about being rooted in a biblical understanding of the importance of social action and social justice. Of creating an environment and creating a community which resonates and speaks something of the values of the Kingdom of God. What does that look like, to build a sense of community which reflects something of the image and the values of the Kingdom of God. And when we are thinking about these sorts of issues, particularly about poverty, none of us are passive spectators. All of us are active participants, which is why it is great that we are all able to gather together for a day like today, to think about what does active participation actually mean and actually look like.
What I am going to present to you in the course of the next two key note speeches is actually a series of coat pegs. A series, some of which you will enjoy, some of which you won’t enjoy, but these are a series of coat pegs that actually you can use in terms of creating what the right kind, and the appropriate kind, of social response, social action response, may be to the challenges that we face in this part of town.
A question then: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’
Am I my sibling’s keeper? You’ll know the question; the question comes from the book of Genesis. The question emerges from a murder. The first murder that takes place in the scriptures. It’s a bust up between two brothers. You’ll know the story well. Cain had killed Abel. It’s a gruesome story, it’s a ghastly story, it’s a story that talks about deep visceral hate and it leads to this tragic loss of life, emerging from threat, emerging from fear, those deep visceral responses that all of us, at some point in our lives, will have faced and felt. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to the story of Cain and Abel. Some of those feelings that we see emanating from that scripture are ones that I have felt myself. I am sure that I am not alone as I respond in that way. But as God walks, and as God hears the cries of the blood on the ground, it is God who is a God of justice and fairness who is asking the question of what has been going on here.
The response from Cain is a critical response and it is a response that all of us need to contemplate and respond to: ‘Lord, am I my sibling’s keeper? Am I my brother’s or my sister’s keeper?’ The way we respond to that fundamental question will affect the way in which we view the building of community. The way in which we view what does a flourishing Kingdom of God look like in our midst. If the answer is yes, I am, I take responsibility as my sibling’s keeper, that in itself leads to life. We see that in the person of Jesus Christ. He said yes to that question. It took him to the cross and eventually to eternity for you and for me, rooted in peace and forgiveness. If we say no, I will help that group but, actually, I am not that group’s keeper, then we are leading to the answer no. And the answer no will eventually lead to destruction and death. A fundamental biblical question at the beginning of God’s love affair with us in the scriptures. Am I my sibling’s keeper?
The Visitation:
Of course, as we know when we think of God’s love affair with humanity, it is God who takes decisive action. We have got this extraordinary image here which comes from Luke chapter 1. Mary and Elizabeth are both pregnant. Mary scarpers, of course, as you are aware, when she is pregnant, to find a place of refuge. She goes to her cousin Elizabeth, and there is this beautiful touching moment, quite literally touching, when these two women, perhaps neither of whom should be pregnant, one is 14 years old, one is post-menopausal. This encounter should not be taking place. But it is a deep sense of God’s miraculous opinion, view point, dedication, desire for you, that this moment takes place in the scriptures.
The Magnificat:
And as you will remember, as the child John leaps in the womb at the moment of this encounter as these two women come together, Mary does not respond with, this is all very good and pointing to herself, she responds with the words of scripture coming from all sorts of parts of the prophets, from the psalms, in the words that she uses. This is the extraordinary moment of the Magnificat. She presents for us God’s image of a flourishing humanity, which is deeply unsettling. It is deeply painful in so many different ways, if we are serious about the reality of the Magnificat coming alive. ‘He brings down the mighty and the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly,’ says Mary. ‘He will fill the hungry with good things, but the rich he will send empty away.’ This is God making an extraordinary announcement about who the person of Jesus it and what Jesus intends to do in his ministry. She is presenting an extraordinary image of what flourishing humanity needs in order for it to be flourishing. So, in this moment, that should not be taking place, this moment which is impossible, we have the emergence of the possible, of God’s interaction, motivated by his love for you. The Ode to Theotocos.
The Wedding Feast at Cana:
I think I mentioned earlier about this image. This is the image of the Wedding Feast at Cana. Now I love this image. Not only do I enjoy a good drop of wine every so often, and I am sure that I am not the only one in this hall this afternoon who does, but the extraordinary moment which we see in this image stems again from Mary just uttering the words and pointing to Jesus, just do whatever he tells you. And in this moment at the beginning of John’s gospel, the first miracle that we see in John’s gospel at this wedding, we have a perfect example of asset-based community development, more of which I am going to speak about a bit later on: ABCD that Vicki has described for us. Because what I find extraordinary about this gospel reading, the Wedding at Cana, is for the miracle to take place, nothing new is introduced. There is no new resource, there is no new strategy, there’s no new strap line, there’s no new whatever it might be, the latest thing that we take off the shelf and think; ‘Oh, we’d better try this’. Everything that is required for this miracle to take place is already in the room. It just needs to be thought about differently. There is an asset there, stone water jars. Jesus says ‘think about them differently’. So, it’s not about washing your feet, it’s about something else. And so often, it seems to me, when we cry poverty, in terms of the poverty of resources, actually the challenge is what do we see that is under our nose and think of it in a slightly different way. Unlocking something so beautiful, so desirable, so fantastic, that the Wedding at Cana comes alive in our midst. Another hook that we can think about.
The raising of Lazarus:
The next hook which I would like us to think about is one that I find so profound, in again John’s Gospel, we have got the raising of Lazarus. You will remember the story; Lazarus dies. He gets wrapped up, as people did in those days and gets placed in a tomb. Mary and Martha, of course, they are desperate, they want Jesus to be there. Of course, the challenge to Jesus, because he says he is not going to come just yet, it’s not right. So, he is not there in the moment that Lazarus dies. He deliberately keeps away. ‘Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ And then, do you remember the story, we have Jesus come in to the place of the tomb. It is the shortest verse in the scripture as you will remember; Jesus weeps. Jesus has such compassion in his gut that he starts to weep. And that is the moment, of course, where he asks everyone to get out of the way and he says, ‘Lazarus come out’.
‘Lord don’t open the tomb because he has been dead several days and the stench will be awful’. But no, ‘Lazarus come out’. Then you hear the most extraordinary words from Jesus, you hear Jesus saying; ‘Unbind him and let him go free.’ You see, in this critical moment, that which captivated, that which contained Lazarus, is now removed, and he comes back as a slightly different person, I would imagine after an experience like that. But the remarkable thing about Lazarus is that nowhere in the scriptures does he speak. His sisters say quite a lot. Now it may be that he does not speak because his sisters don’t let him speak. Or it may be that he can’t speak. It may be that he is unable to speak. That he has such a disability which prevents him from going out to work, prevents him from taking a full place in society, and yet Jesus, who let’s face it, could have raised anyone from the dead, chose Lazarus. Why did he choose Lazarus?
A focus for our ministry:
Well, I think it is a pinpoint towards the focus of our ministry, to go to the most marginalised, to go to those who are voiceless, and provide spaces for stories to be told. You see, this is a complete overturning of the power dynamics which are operating at the time. That Lazarus, if he can’t speak, to be the focus, not the person who is perhaps just tolerated, or the person who is a bit getting in the way.
Jesus and Peter on the shore line:
And my final picture which I want to present to you is this extraordinary one. You will know the story, again from John’s gospel, you can see a bit of a theme arising there can’t you, there is an extraordinary encounter between Jesus and Peter on the shore line. This is after the resurrection, if you’ll remember. Now Peter, I am not going to lots of stories about Peter, but Peter was a bit of a hot-headed guy, wasn’t he. We see that several times in the scriptures. Peter would have been the one who gave a bit of an outburst, you know. He would have been shouting at a meeting like this one, jumping up and down and telling us we are all doing it wrongly. Peter we know was a deeply hot-headed person, he would have been in prison if he had been living in our current age. Why is that? Well of course as you will remember the story of Jesus being arrested. Peter does not go down quietly. Peter gets out a knife and stabs someone. Peter would have been a statistic that we hear about from whatever part of London there may have been a knife attack. This takes place as Jesus is arrested. It’s not some youth who has all kinds of issues that they are trying to work through and feels that they need protection by walking round with a knife. No, this is Peter we are talking about. This extraordinary chosen disciple who is the one who stabs someone who is trying to arrest Jesus. It’s a bit like a pub brawl taking place. And yet, it is Peter who then goes on to deny Jesus. Now if he had been part of one of our churches, he would have been out the door. Can you imagine him being on the PCC. And yet, after the resurrection, Jesus takes this extraordinary person, who has behaved so badly, on a bit of a walk and asks him three times; ‘do you love me’? And when he says yes, the first answer that Jesus gives is ‘feed my lambs.’
Feed my lambs:
Now let’s not forget that Peter is the church. Peter is you and me. Crazy, mixed up, getting things right some times but often getting things wrong, hot-headed, sometimes shooting from the hip, I am certainly talking about me when I say that, and yet, Peter is asked the question; ‘do you love me’? Then Jesus responds with: OK, church, Peter, seat of St Peter, the Pope, the Catholic Church, the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that we talk about in our creeds; he is talking to us. And the challenge that is given is ‘feed my lambs’. And the question then, of course, is, well who are the lambs? Well, the lambs are those with whom there is very little economic value. Actually, if you’re a farmer, as far as I can tell in talking to farmers, the lambs are the ones who are most vulnerable because the wolves are more likely to go for the lambs because they are less likely to run away. The lambs are the ones who don’t necessarily bring so much money in, from an economic perspective, as the older sheep might do. So, the lambs need looking after. The lambs, actually, don’t generate very much, but they are gold dust in terms of the future. Like gold dust in terms of what they are going to become. And this is our calling, to feed the lambs, the most vulnerable, the most ostracised, and we will see something of God when we have a posture that makes this gospel come alive.
It’s all about mission:
These things need to take place, and this is what the Anglican Communion suggests, in a framework for our mission. This is all about mission. It’s all about growing the church, it’s all about enabling communities to be transformed by the good news of Jesus Christ. And I put the 5 marks of mission up there just to remind you that it is about telling the story, it is about growing the church, it is about planting and all these other really important aspects of our church’s life, but it is also about responding to human need by loving service, and it’s also, dare I say, about transforming and challenging the unjust structures of society.
The 5 marks of mission are:
- To proclaim the good news of the Kingdom.
- To teach, baptise and nurture new believers.
- To respond to human need by loving service.
- To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind, and pursue peace and reconciliation.
- To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
We can only do that as a church is we are clear that we have boots on the ground. So, we are doing it by rolling our sleeves up and getting out hands dirty. Anyone can spout off anything about wanting to create a better community. It comes, of course, with great attraction, when there is something of lived experience and it comes when we have demonstrated by our actions that actually we genuinely do care. There is a lot of truth in that old adage that actions speak louder than words. And what the framework of the 5 marks of mission does for us is it enables us to do all of that, to know why we are building community, because actually, as we have demonstrated from those gospel stories, this is pretty imperative in the scriptures, it’s pretty imperative in the gospel. Jesus makes it really clear that this is what we are called to be and called to do. If we are doing that it gives absolute right. The scriptures make that quite clear, that challenging unjust structures of society is important, because, as we were thinking about poverty and levels of poverty, you know the levels of poverty in this country have not decreased for the last 35 years. When they move from 14% of the country living in poverty to 24% of the population that are living in poverty.
Levels of poverty:
What has happened now, of course, is that the numbers of people in deep, deep poverty and destitution, that is the number which is rising at the highest rate currently. Levels of destitution. And quite often actually, in families where someone in the family is going out to work. So, we have absolute right, because of the work that we are doing together, to be able to challenge very unjust structures of society, because they need to be challenged. And the marks of mission give us the opportunity to do that.
Deacons:
I would argue also, again this is from the Ordinal, this is a particularly Church of England and Catholic thing, the Order of the Deacon, but you know from the scriptures all sorts of people are called to be Deacons, some of them are ordained, some of them are not, it seems to me, from reading the scriptures, but what the Deacon is called to do is to bring to the church the needs and hopes of all people, searching out the poor and the weak, the sick and the lonely, those who are oppressed and powerless, reaching into the forgotten corners of the world that the love of God may be made visible.
So, theologically and ecumenically what makes up the church, as it were, this is fundamental, that the needs of the wider community are brought into the heart of the church. Needing to be prayed for, needing to be offered to God, needing to be thought through in the presence of other Christians, and so on and so forth. Why? It takes us right back to the first section, it’s all about this being a biblical narrative. And our prayer, particularly in relation to tackling poverty, is that these different scriptures come alive in our midst.
St Lawrence the Deacon:
Has anyone heard of the story of St Lawrence the Deacon in the third century? I dread to think what it must have been like for Lawrence the Deacon. He was relatively new to orders and he was living at a time where there was deep, deep persecution of the church. Emperor Valerian was ruling the roust. Lawrence had a mentor. That mentor was Pope Sixtus who took Lawrence under his wing and taught him the faith. Pope Sixtus proved to be a threat to Emperor Valerian and Valerian had Sixtus and various others of the church arrested and then four days later beheaded. So threatened about this was Lawrence, because he knew that he was going to be next. And he knew that the only way possible for him to be given clemency was for him to hand over all the wealth of the church. Gold, silver, whatever it might be. And what Lawrence the Deacon did was, before his arrest, he gave it all away.
Here are the treasures of the church:
So, the church had no wealth. And when he was summoned by Emperor Valerian to give an account, in other words to bring all the treasures of the church to hand them over to the state he brought the poor, he brought the widow, he brought the orphan, and when challenged he said; ‘Here are the treasures of the church.’ Not the burdens, not the difficulties, not the problems that need to be solved, not a group of people who need to be controlled, but here are the treasures of the church.
Transactional or relational?
I wonder how much of your asset-based community development is deeply relational in its approach, not transactional, and how much of our community life is transactional in its approach, that seems to be the growing trend it seems to me. I’ll do this for you and you do this for me, it’s a transactional approach, its not relational, not rooted in friendship or rooted in love. And I wonder in our churches that we represent, when we think about our social action, are we relational or transactional. Where, when we reflect on the life of our churches and the mission of our church, where are the treasures? What for you are the treasures? What do you hold, when you go to the alter, or when you are on your knees, you light your candles or you go to your scriptures, what is held dear in your gut? Here are the treasures of the church.
Being a life-long learner:
Now it strikes me that we are all called to be disciples and my favourite definition of being a disciple isn’t actually being a follower, it’s about being a life long learner. Always wanting to learn something new. I don’t know about you but the more I go on in my Christian life, I was baptised quite a long time ago, I’ve done quite a few Confirmations in the last 10 years being a bishop, and what with helping with discipleship and teaching and all that sort of stuff. But for me there is something here about being a life long learner because, I don’t know about you, but the more I go on in my Christian understanding the more I realise I don’t know. And the more I realise that actually I want to learn. I’m not an expert in discipling; I’m just a beginner. And that’s a posture. So how do we develop a sense of posture which is enabling us to be disciples, to be life long learners?
What perspective should we use?
Well, let me take you to Sinai, a place of God’s interaction, Moses, the high point in the scriptures; the mount of the transfiguration. In the high point in the scriptures, quite often, there is a dramatic event that takes place and that is certainly true for Sinai. I had the privilege of visiting Sinai a few years ago, it’s an extraordinary place. But you know what, Mount Sinai looks so different from the top than it does from the bottom. And the argument here or the challenge here is a sense of actually where do we get our information from? If we are lifelong learners then actually, we need to go beyond ourselves to learn something. We need to search it out. And as people who search it out, we have thousands of choices. Now we could leave these choices up to Elon Musk in terms of the algorithms that he hauls together on social media for us to learn or actually we could take responsibility for this ourselves. And getting a sense of perspective, because a problem or an issue or whatever it might be, all look different depending on where you choose to stand. What is important when we are trying to respond to poverty is that we have to get a multitude of different perspectives from the position of being a lifelong learner. No-one has got the magic bullet with this. If we did, some of these issues would be sorted. Therefore, there is something about the wisdom that is in the room of being a disciple and wanting to listen and wanting to respond to the wisdom that’s there in the room.
Where do we get our perspective from? If we read the Mail that will be one perspective, if we read the Guardian that will be another perspective. If we like Facebook, that’s one perspective, if we rely on the gossip at the laundrette that is another perspective. It’s all learning, but it is important that we choose well and wisely what our perspective is. And if we are saying yes to one group in terms of listening, who are we saying no to. What are the consequences of our saying no. We do it all the time, don’t we, on our screens. I’m going to read that; I’m not reading that or that. Those decisions we make because we think it will agree with that which we think already. But as a learner getting a sense of perspective often means intentionally learning something different, even when the person sharing that information is someone that we may not agree with.
Dialogue vs debate:
So much politically and in the church is rooted in debate. I’m right, your wrong and I am going to convince you that you are wrong. And yet when we see Jesus in operation the asset-based community approach is all about dialogue and not debate. The building of community doesn’t come from debate. The building of community comes from dialogue, it comes from listening, it comes from trying to put yourself in the other’s shoes.
The theologian Henri Nouwen:
Has anyone come across the theologian Henri Nouwen? He had this extraordinary theology that actually it was through out weaknesses that we became strong. We find our true identity through brokenness. How radical is that? This is what he says about poverty: ‘Always go to the places of poverty, that’s a discipline. Go where the poor are. The word poor does not always mean economically poor, it doesn’t necessarily mean people who sit on the street. But somewhere, go to the places where people are poor and where you are poor because that is where you will be blessed. And that is where others are blessed. The scriptures say blessed are the poor, so if you want a blessing, go there.’ Jesus did not say blessed are those who care for the poor he said blessed are the poor. So, you might be the poor. And your wife or husband might be the poor for that matter. What I am saying is, don’t be afraid to go where people are hurting. Spiritually, every time you go close to a place of woundedness or poverty you will find light, you will find hope, you will find joy, you will find peace. You will find all the things you ever want. Don’t veer away from places of hurt but go right there. So, where do we choose to be and to put our resources. I would image that all of us in this room have got some degree of agency. We are making choices of one sort or another.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
Another theologian that I go to quite regularly is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I find him extraordinary, not only in terms of his own story but in terms of his writings. You will remember that he was incarcerated, just before he died, in a concentration camp and a lot of his work, his poems particularly, come from his time of incarceration. He writes this brilliant book, I can thoroughly recommend it, called ‘Life Together’. It’s a bit like community but it is trying to say what are the key things that enable human flourishing. This is particularly aimed at church leadership. There is a whole chapter called ministry and how his ministry forms. You start by holding your tongue. How often have I seen ministry which starts with a proud proclamation? He talks about your posture of meekness and about listening. And only with listening can you begin to think, well actually, what could we do? But it is not for your own sake, it is about bearing the burdens of others around you. This is where you find your own burdens being released, he argues, because it is relational and not transactional. Only then, he says, can you start proclaiming with any sense of authority to help tackle and change those unjust structures. And the chapter itself lays out perfectly asset-based community development. It starts off with that sense of wanting to go and be a life-long learner and listen perhaps to the most unlikely people around you who may give you an extraordinary insight into what it is that is going on.
Learning from a street drinker:
An example of that was when I was Rector in Hackney in the East End of London. I once spent about an hour or so with one of our street drinkers. She had an ASBO on her, which meant that she was not allowed to go inside the church grounds, but I brought her into the church yard. In this churchyard, I was the rector, I thought I knew what was going on. But she spent the next hour pointing out round the church yard what was really going on. ‘You see that bloke over there, he’s going to walk over to that other person, they’ll have a bit of a conversation and an envelope will be passed between them then they will go their separate ways. That’s a drug deal. Right under your nose. She knew far more about what was going on in the church yard than I did. So, who is the learner and who is the one that’s wise?
Building community from the grass roots relationships:
And when you need those connections, those connections are there. In 2011 it was the night after the Tottenham riots, after the death of Mark Dugan. We had just done a whole load of work and listening to find out why some places rioted and other places didn’t. In Hackney, the following day after the riots, because of the community connections, because of the legwork we had done, relational capital existed within the church communities, not with the Council. So, the next day we were able to have a circle of silence round the area of the disturbances. The next day we had a community event about peace and a week later we had a street tea party which was involving all the local businesses, all the local churches, all the local community groups, because actually, we needed to do something. And this event was extraordinary because there were no speeches, it was just building community. There was lots of press there, I hasten to add. I was asked by someone from Australia, why are you doing this? And I said quite simply, there’s been a bit of unrest, and we’re British, and when British things get difficult, we put the kettle on.
Asset-based community development:
And one of the things that I loved about it was that we had children sitting on the ground on the roads where they lived with pavement chalks drawing the most elaborate pictures. Here was a moment when the local community was reclaiming the streets which had been taken away from them by all kinds of organised disruption. This is what we are able to do when there is deep rooted asset-based community development. If everything is transactional and we keep ourselves to ourselves as a church there is no way that we can react to these sorts of events. You need it when you need it in terms of those connections. Thankfully you don’t need something like this every week.
Tools to help us do this:
What are the tools that we’ve got? Well, this Growing Good resource which is available on-line to download. This is a 3-year research project that the Church Urban Fund undertook with Theos, which is a theological think tank. It was all about the connection between discipleship and social action. So, all sorts of research took place with Theos. We asked the question that actually we want the church to grow and there is some empirical evidence that those churches who do this stuff, that do the 5 marks of mission and think about social action and responding, do grow. But doing a small number of things really boldly not trying to change the world because we won’t just change the world, Jesus has done that. So, we are just joining in with his ministry and his mission all ready, but the research tells us that if there is determination and there’s boldness and the listening has taken place, coupled with good discipleship, why is the church involved?
Why is the church involved:
Well, it’s because biblically Jesus tells us to be involved. We’re called to be political. We’re called to be activists. And that’s not blind activism, but actually it’s informed activism. So, we are able to think through deeply, what’s the one or two things that we are able to do? And this research led on to a number of things in terms of resources.
The look-up tool:
One is called the look up tool. For every single parish in the UK the deprivation data is there for anyone to look up on the Church Urban Fund website. You just type in your postcode or type in your church name and the deprivation data for that place will come up. And it is shocking. When I was a vicar in King’s Cross there was an average death age for men, when I was a bishop in North London I lived 2 miles up the road in Hampstead. And in these 2 places, 2 miles apart, the average life expectancy differs by 18 years. Now that is an unjust structure of society. This is condoned assisted dying. Assisted dying already takes place in this country, it’s called, where you live. It’s called; where you happen to be born. Unjust structures of society which need to be challenged and we can find those things out when we look at the data.
The web of poverty:
If we are here to tackle poverty it’s a bit like blancmange, it moves around a bit. How do you understand what is going on? Let’s find out. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, every single year, has an up-to-date poverty map for the UK. It is to them that I turn to see the trends in poverty? What are the trends for different ethnicities? What are the trends in terms of people who have caring responsibilities? These all relate to the levels of poverty that exist. We can’t start tackling poverty unless we have done a bit of the research into what it is that we are talking about. It is helping us to understand about the poverty of identity, the poverty of our relationships and the material poverty that we have been referring to as well.
Growing Good:
The other resource that comes out of the research is a course called Growing Good. Here is a framework that helps us to bring together social action and discipleship and how this relates to our church growth. We have about 1000 churches using Growing Good now. It just takes one person to ask a question slightly differently because they have thought about their posture, which brings a slightly different way of discussing things at the PCC meeting, which brings about a slightly different way of doing things. When you get into the zone of the Gospels coming alive, there is a snowball effect. It’s a posture, it’s a curiosity, it’s a discipleship. It’s one little thing that we can do differently, not grand schemes that cost the earth. When we recognise people, not as problems to be solved but as treasures, then
we can find out so much about the depths of unconditional love that God has for us, these things can start to snowball.
Helen Gilbert, helen@kingslynn.foodbank.org.uk Strategic Project Manager, King’s Lynn Foodbank:
As a Foodbank we are not based in any particular church at all and we don’t have any distribution centres in any churches. As hopefully you know, we are based in the Sea Cadet building in town, and we have been looking for new premises for about 2.5 years. The Sea Cadet building is not a suitable building. Our members go through a very transactional process at the moment. We don’t have the space to sit down, give a warm welcome to people, have a cup of tea and a chat with them with the hope of finding out what is actually going on for them. And it is something that has frustrated me and I have been wanting to change it. So, I have been having a chat with Kyla and with June about potentially having satellite distribution centres in our churches. As a result of these discussions, on Wednesdays 10 ‘til 12, the community hub at St Faith’s will be opening for the first time for people to come for tea and coffee, have a chat and collect their food parcels from here. We want to make it more relational, more dignified and more human for people. This is running alongside the main distribution centre which will be staying open 5 days a week.
This is a very exciting development. I have never set up a new Foodbank hub anywhere else. If it works with this church then other churches can join in. It also means that churches can develop those community links with those people who are in need in their surrounding community and bring people in.
Peter Coates 23/01/25.
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