Neighbourhood Church 1: Presence

This short series about neighbourhood church will look in more depth at the role of churches in their neighbouthoods.  This builds upon several strands, (1) conversations as the basic ecumenical activity; (2) the development of an understanding of transformational reception as a basic characteristic of local ecumenism; and (3) the fourth chapter of Linthicum's Building a People of Power.

The latter proposes a basic four plus one approach to active church in a neighbourhood.  I will not refer to Linthicum very much as my purpose is to explore the role of churches together in exercising reception from the place they find their mission to be in.

The point is that churches are often the community organisations with the longest standing commitment to their neighbourhoods.  Churches can be present for decades or even centuries.  This Presence is important where the people who use church buildings see their calling not to their faith but the people they live amongst.  This can be expressed in a variety of ways:

1. I have already touched on an important aspect of Presence a few days ago when I posted about unstructured meeting places.
2. The ability to enter into conversations with ease and without embarrassment, grows naturally out of traditional ecumenical conversations.  The goal of any conversation is not to convert but to find a new place together, which neither side has inhabited before.  A conversation with someone who does not believe may help the believer see the weaknesses in their own faith, to understand and know God more intimately.  Hopefully this will be a discovery for all those who take part.  The Methodist publication Time to Talk of God seeks to help church members enter into conversations short of evangelism.  But even good evangelism is in essence conversation rather than proselytising.  I'll explore this in more detail in a few posts time.
3. Being a place of quiet, of inspiration of sanctuary.  Many neighbourhoods lack somewhere people can go for inspiration.  Churches are often full of art that no longer speaks to modern people or look like community centres and offer nothing beyond another meeting space.  The design of our meeting spaces needs to be done sensitively, as a response to the neighbourhood and not a criticism of it.  Father Jamieson's book Finding Sanctuary shows how many people are seeking sanctuary and raises the question in my mind, why are churches so bad at providing it?

Local people are seeking signs from our churches of a commitment to them and their lives.  Churches should never be havens for the chosen few but open to and committed to the places they find themselves in.  Churches alone cannot provide all that is needed; to fully address the complexities of a neighbourhood requires commitment from many traditions.