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Comment
Dorothy and David McMillan
From
the Director
David Porter
Good
Living in Bad Circumstances
Glenn Jordan
Readers
Survey Report
Ruth Hutchinson
The
Local Church and The Local Community
Norman Hamilton
Hospitality
for Ministers
Graham Cheesman
Too
Many Partnerships...not enough partners?
Maurice Kinkead
Community
and Conflict...a Restorative Approach
Debbie Watters
THE LOCAL CHURCH AND THE LOCAL COMMUNITY
Amongst the many attempts in recent years to stabilise community life in Northern Ireland, one of the most important has been the attempt by government to fill part of the political vacuum by a huge investment in 'participative democracy' as a grass roots counterbalance, (perhaps even as a creative alternative), to the more conventional politics of 'representative democracy'.
Many millions of pounds, dollars and euros have come to the province. Every District Council area has a Partnership Board in which elected representatives, community activists and senior staff from governmental agencies work through applications for funding for many different types of projects. In addition, the urban area of Belfast has seen further initiatives aimed at community regeneration such as those by 'Making Belfast Work' and by the setting up of additional local partnership boards throughout the city. Targeting social need, empowerment of local people, funding opportunities, partnership, community infrastructure and community development are terms that are now well known in many local communities, even if the theory behind them is at times rather difficult to pin down.
The phrase 'community development' is perhaps the most all-encompassing. One study in 1996 described it as:
...a key concept within both the statutory and voluntary sectors in Northern Ireland as a vital component of any strategy to respond to social needs. ... At its simplest, it is about working with people to address their needs, rather than doing things for people. ... A key concept alongside community development in current strategy for addressing social needs is that of partnership.1As community development activity has increased over the past decade to the stage where, for example, there are over 300 separately recognised groups in the urban areas of North Belfast alone, so there has been a parallel decline in the local churches in these areas. As recently as August 1999 two local evangelical churches shut their doors for the last time on the same Sunday evening. This article draws on a study carried out in 1998/99 by the author under the Visiting Fellowship Programme of the Centre for Voluntary Action Studies at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. The study is amongst the first (and perhaps actually is the first) in recent years which tried to measure the relationship between the three largest denominational churches (Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist), and the local community in a discrete area, rather than simply describe that relationship.
The area chosen for the study was the Oldpark Electoral Area of North Belfast which had a population of just under 35,000 according to the 1991 census, and of which 59% claimed to be Roman Catholic. Whilst the comments and analysis in this paper are drawn directly from statistical and other data collected for the research, they are offered to a wider readership in the belief that they may well be mirrored in other urban areas. In addition, the issues raised seem to have wide implications for the ability of many local churches to minister effectively in their areas. The article is written in the hope that it will help develop an informed debate on how to maximise the effectiveness of the local church in its local community. The words of the prophet Jeremiah still have a profound challenge built into them:
Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. (Jeremiah 29.7)There is hard evidence that one of the main effects of the community development movement on the churches has been the provision, within and by the community, of alternative avenues of help and support to those traditionally provided by the churches. Alongside this, but equally important, is the focus by the community on issues not normally perceived as being within the churches' remit.
When people are in need, not only do they have access to statutory agencies, but they also have access to locally provided and often publicly funded advice and support systems. Thus, as the charted steady decline in church membership and attendance indicates, the local community no longer sees itself as needing the local church the way it once did. For example, a previous and not too distant generation would naturally have turned to local clergy as a first port of call in time of need. In contrast today the advent of specialist advice centres has supplanted the experience and wisdom within the church on many matters. Serious pastoral issues can be, and often are handled by specialist counselling agencies; social activity is often provided for local people in community buildings, where once it was provided in the church hall.
The only clear exception to this pattern appears to be the need for the local church to underpin local community youth work. One of the most significant statistics gathered in the research was that 75% of youth work carried out by the churches in Protestant areas was amongst 'unchurched' young people - i.e. those who had no meaningful connection with the church other than their attendance at or involvement in the youth organisation of their choice. This means that Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist churches are major contributors to many local communities in the quality and quantity of their youth work, and are major sources of volunteer help and expertise. One community leader commented, "Even those with no faith still want their kids to go to the Boys' Brigade."
Yet from the churches' viewpoint there is a major issue associated with this youth provision. Whilst it is very large and often very well executed, it is clear that it leads to very few young people becoming full and committed church members. This suggests that youth work is often not motivated by evangelistic or proselytising desire, but by a simpler and more transparent desire on the part of churches simply to do the best they can for the young people in their area.
The issue of why churches do work which is of substantial benefit to the community is of considerable importance when placed alongside comments such as...
A lot of community workers on the Protestant side resent the churches, and feel that the churches' only agenda is to fish for souls. The churches are equally suspicious of community leaders because they believe that their agenda is to undermine the projects the churches support.2These comments were echoing similar ones made in a number of papers going as far back as the early 1990's, and which kept on being repeated even up to 1998. It seems clear that there is a substantial task still remaining for churches to be seen to be acting with integrity in their relationships with local communities, even when they themselves are satisfied with their involvement, commitment and motivation.
The difficulty of building a church/community relationship with integrity is compounded by the fact that there is often only a very limited amount of activity on church premises that actually engages on a regular basis with local people. The church controls most activity and therefore the agenda is set by the church members, or the church leadership. Whilst this is entirely understandable (and maybe even inevitable), it does raise the question of exactly where and how evangelistic bridges are being built to those who have little or no worthwhile contact with the local church.
The figures that emerged during the research on the links that local people had with their local churches were startling. In the 1991 census, 8653 people in the area under study claimed to be Presbyterian, Anglican or Methodist. Yet less than 5000 were 'on the books' of a local congregation. Of these, only 1350 attended Sunday morning worship, and only 340 attended in the evening. Putting these figures another way, less than 16% of people claiming to belong to the three mainstream denominations attended morning worship, and only 4% attended in the evening.
It seems clear that the vast majority of Protestant people in the urban community simply have not come to church on a regular basis for years. Such figures once again raise hard questions for even the most publicly committed evangelical churches as to where, how and with whom effective contact, never mind evangelism, is taking place.
The research highlighted one particular group of churches where the strains with the community seem particularly acute. Congregations, which were heavily dependent on members who drive in from outside the locality, came in for particularly trenchant criticism from the local community, even though these members were carrying out the very youth work they so much appreciated. As one community leader put it, "People drive in, park the car, patrol the car park to protect the cars against the locals - not good."
There was a widespread perception that such congregations were not involved in their local communities, and so were not making an effective contribution to the area. The sense of remoteness by members led them to pay staff to do the work in the community for them, and that such a congregation was, almost by definition, a weak one.
The implications of these criticisms are considerable, and raise difficult, but by their nature very urgent questions. Are such congregations actually needed in their current form in an area where local people appear to be so heavily critical of them? Have such congregations the potential to be viable and vibrant over the longer term? In what ways might the work of a 'drive-in' church differ from that of a locally based congregation? What steps could and should be taken to help local people understand the value of the churches' work?
Amongst the pages of statistical data and comment produced in the research, perhaps the most worrying element was the almost total lack of any coherent theological framework for relating to communities, which want to be treated as equals in their relationships with their local churches. The Biblical basis of social action has been widely accepted, but there is as yet little evidence of similar Biblical rigour being brought to bear on the ethos of and practices surrounding community development.
Community development is here to stay, so are partnerships and participative democracy. In the search for identity, local communities are becoming ever smaller and fragmented groupings. In urban areas, local churches are often only one of a number of contributors to the local community, with the result that their clear leading position of former days has almost disappeared. We would do well not only to ask but also to seek clear guidance from our living and sovereign God to the question, "What is the proper relationship between our congregation and the local community in which the Lord has placed us?"
Norman Hamilton - minister of Ballysillan Presbyterian Church and member of ECONI Steering Group
The full text of the research paper referred to above can be obtained either as hard copy (84 pages. £5.00 including post and packing), or on floppy disc in Lotus Word Pro format (for £1.00 including post and packing) from Rev Norman Hamilton, 564 Crumlin Road, Belfast BT14 7GL Tel: 028 - 90714091 Email: norman.hamilton@btinternet.com
1 Kinkead, M. (1996) Resources for responding to social need (pages 6-8) Belfast Churches' Urban Development Committee
2 Speight, P (1997) The role of the churches in community development Unpublished report on North Belfast commissioned by Making Belfast Work
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