Great time together @ Cornershop.
On 9th October we had a great time together at the Cornershop, Shoreditch High Street. A great time to share food together, catch-up and welcome in new friends. It was a natural time to share testimony and hear a snapshot of LIFE with Jesus in it. Times like these are precious amidst the busyness of London life!
Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 05:21AM Post a Comment The Challenge of Diversity in Inner City Churches in London – Part 2
What is the biblical way to build a culturally and socially diverse community? I can see three biblical values that I think we would all agree with in principle. With the Holy Spirit’s help, hopefully we can grow in them. Accept (or welcome) one another as Christ has accepted (or welcomed) you for the glory of God (Romans 15:7). Acceptance of one another in Christ is non negotiable and possibly the theme that holds Paul’s letter to the Romans together. All have sinned, all are justified by grace, all are included in Christ, all have received the Spirit, all are one family in Christ (Jew and Gentile) – therefore we are to accept one another. Sin is not acceptable but everything outside of sin is acceptable! Failure to enforce a child’s homework regime, not...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 03:07PM Post a Comment The Challenge of Diversity in Inner City Churches in London – Part 1
The greatest challenge an inner city church faces in London is how to be a socially diverse, yet integrated, community. We are in an area with multitudes of the old working class families living in council and housing association flats, the gentry who comprise young and mobile middle class living alongside in the same flats and newer purpose-built gated communities, and the wealthy upper class in the few houses and penthouses around. Add to that the cultural mix with large proportions of Asian, African and Caribbean groups as well as the growing Eastern European and Middle Eastern communities and hey presto – you have inner city London. Nowadays you can be socially homogenous but culturally diverse. Postgraduate Nigerians will have more in common with other university types of whatever nationality than a white English bricklayer has...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 03:07PM Post a Comment Numbers
What strikes me having lived here for the last ten years (after being in the suburbs and then in a small town) is the sheer number of people (99 people per hectare where we live compared with suburban London’s 50 per hectare). Whatever we do seems small (it is). After church planting again we could just about fill the top deck of one London bus with our numbers on Sunday. A mere snip, a smidgen. It’s not that there are a lot of people in the world, it’s that there are a lot of people in my world. I hardly ever pass the same person twice and 90% are younger than me! Everyone on my estate I think feels the same because although we stop to say hello...
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 03:06PM Post a Comment