You
and I agree that it would be a good idea to meet up for a meal to
talk through the latest Tim Keller book that we've both been reading.
So we decide to meet for a meal. Two weeks on Tuesday,
eight-thirty, my place.
And
so, two weeks on Tuesday, eight-thirty, my place you'll be standing
on the door step with a bottle of Shloer in one hand and the latest
Tim Keller in the other. We'll sit down and eat food, drink Shloer
and talk Tim.
It's
how people like me do church. Although it's a good example of how to
share life and disciple one another. It is also a reflection of what
an ordered, diary-driven life I lead.
Unreached– Growing Churches in Working Class and Deprived Areas is
a book that challenged me and perhaps may also, challenge many of us
at Emmanuel. The hard reality of chaotic lives, where the
certainties of work, steady income, stable home and relationship and
physical security simply do not exist would make the diarised,
supper-date discipling described above impossible in the urban
estates of north Bristol.
Rather
than being single narrative, this book is a summarised collection of
the experiences and ideas of evangelical Christian leaders who have
seen both success and failure in planting churches in deprived areas
of the UK. Using stark, often jarring language ('middle class
churches', 'the urban poor', 'many residents on council estates feel
their life has no purpose') , this book examines the history, culture
and values of the working classes in the UK and uses this as a basis
for developing a vision for how church can be established in housing
estates and inner city areas.
Simon
Smallwood, who spoke at the Emmanuel weekend away and is a
contributor to the book, explained it something like this; It's no
good hoping that churches like ours can parachute new church plants
in to housing estates. It will be a long slog. We need to be
prepared to send people who will spend years building-up and growing
leaders from within existing communities in order to develop new
churches in those areas.
Unreached
– Growing Churches in Working Class and Deprived Areas (Tim
Chester, IVP, 2012) is available from the Emmanuel Bookstore priced £7.99.
