289. Positive Urban Theology

[00:00:08] Friends, warm welcome to you. My name is Chris Rogers and I am your host. Welcome to this next episode of Making Disciples. Today's episode is, well, it's kind of a book launch episode. Let's call it that, a book launch episode. This week, partnering with CCX, which is the Gregory Centre for Church Multiplication here in the UK, I was able to publish my doctorate.

[00:00:35] And my doctorate was completed in 2023 and took the last couple of years to write it up in a way that becomes readable for everybody. And this week, Positive Urban Theology was published, Finding God in the Grit and the Glory of the City. Now, you might be listening to this going, hang on, but I live in a rural place. This episode does not apply to me.

[00:01:00] I'll listen to it anyway. There might be more in it that surprises you that does apply. You might go, oh, but I live in the suburbs. Well, have a listen. You might be surprised what you might learn that might apply or be helpful for your kind of setting. So the book Positive Urban Theology is really a kind of coming together of what is really 21 years of ministering here, particularly in London.

[00:01:29] 16 years here in Bow, five years in West Harrow. Before that, we were in Birmingham. Becky worked in Erdington. And actually, we'll be heading back there this summer to start all over again, launching and aiming to revitalise a church there in Erdington. But we'll tell you more about that later on. What we want to talk about today is this book. So what I want to do is share with you some of the theology.

[00:01:58] The book is filled full of stories. I've tried to make sure that this book is it's a theology book. Most of the chapters cover the theology of space and place, the theology of class, the theology of work and church planting and revitalising churches on housing estates. It's kind of got all of those elements in there. It's a bit more of an academic kind of book. You can tell that by the font.

[00:02:29] Theology books do tend to have a particular font, which is in this. But what I want to do is read out some of the stories to you as well. Each chapter starts with an illustration of where we have seen God at work through that particular chapter. Really land it practically. So why don't we jump in and we'll talk about positive urban theology.

[00:02:57] So here we go. Positive urban theology, finding God in the grit and the glory of the city. You'll find the book in the show notes if you want to pick up a copy. So here we are. Positive urban theology. Why does this matter for everyone? Well, when people hear the phrase urban theology, they often just assume that this is only for people who live in London, Birmingham or Manchester, some of these big urban cities. But that is not what urban theology completely is.

[00:03:24] It's really about, I would say, understanding how God works in particular places with particular people, where they live. Whatever happens, God is always at work in these places. And although the book hyper focuses on the housing estate, it's applicable to all the areas that you might actually find yourself. And let's just be clear.

[00:03:49] 57% of the world's population right now live in an urban area, an urban city. What do I mean by that? A built up area where people are living side by side, sometimes above each other. But there is high density, lots of people living in that space and they're packed in. You know, they don't have much space. It's not a spacious place. So 57% of the world. And that is creeping up.

[00:04:18] And I read some statistics that within the next 50 years, that will raise to almost 75% of the population living in an urban upbuilt city. So even people in rural areas are shaped by urban culture through media, through the economics, through politics, local government. So you might say, yeah, but I live in a rural area. Well, we are always being influenced by these places.

[00:04:47] Because you just think about the news. Where does your news, TV news come from? It's coming from a city. You don't find rural news channels. Let me start by reading you a bit from the book. So this is just chapter one. The reality of urban ministry. We arrived at our new home in inner city, East London, in Tower Hamlets. With the removal lorry still half a day behind us. Standing by the bins was Father Duncan.

[00:05:16] He had served faithfully at the church next door for years. Born in Calcutta. Had a mother who worked alongside Mother Teresa. 15 years later, he had been stabbed by a young man while walking home at night. He survived. But it had marked him for life. It was the first person we met. Somebody whose presence set the tone for our years serving the church. Deeply committed. Shaped by suffering.

[00:05:45] And ready to pray for us as we began in Bow. Father Duncan was absolutely amazing. He was somebody I spent a lot of time with when I first moved to Tower Hamlets. And he just had this incredible sense of finding God's presence in the inner city. And he really challenged me to look for where God is already at work. And this stupid idea that we bring God into a place. It's completely bonkers. God is always at work. He's been at work. He'll continue to be at work.

[00:06:14] And he'll go way beyond us. And Father Duncan would say to me, find where God is at work and join him. So, God is interested in places. The Bible is not the story of individuals. The Bible is a story of people in places. God cares about people. And God is interested in a place. A few examples. Abraham was called to a particular land.

[00:06:43] Israel was given homes, towns and cities. Jerusalem was chosen as God's dwelling place. Jesus ministered throughout towns and villages in Galilee. Paul plants churches in specific cities. Thessaloniki, Corinth, Ephesus. Locations are important.

[00:07:09] Because they are sacred spaces that God is showing us where he is at work. And one of the verses that really speaks into this sense of finding God in spaces and places. And living our lives as a holy thing. Is Jeremiah 29 7. Where it says, Ask, seek. Sorry.

[00:07:32] Also seek the peace and the prosperity of the city to which I have called you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it. Because if the city prospers, you too will prosper. So, your faith and the place that you live are not two disconnected things. They're highly connected. And in Jeremiah, God is saying that the place that I've put you is important.

[00:08:02] And I've put you there. Therefore, pray to God. Because if the place that God has put you prospers, you too will prosper. If the location that God has put you in is thriving, then you will thrive. Therefore, your job as somebody who loves the Lord is somebody to pray for the prosperity of that place. Because places are important to God. They're not just important to us.

[00:08:28] So, we can't love people without also loving the place that they call home. You can't love people without loving the place that God has called home. And you think a little bit more about this idea of places. The Bible begins with a very specific place. And it's a garden.

[00:08:51] And the story of scripture starts with a garden that God has put humanity into. A very clear space. And it says, I want you to tend to dress and care for creation. And the location of Eden was a very specific place that God had part Adam and Eve to be in. And this garden, I think, was never actually intended to stay a garden. Adam and Eve were going to have children.

[00:09:20] They were going to work out that one bit of Adam went into this bit of Eve. And they were going to have babies. And babies meant they needed bigger homes. And bigger homes would become towns, villages, cities. So, it was always going to move that way. So, the Bible story is Eden. Then its human culture starts to develop. Cities start to emerge. Think about Babel. But we eventually get to the city of Jerusalem. God's city.

[00:09:46] And then the end of scripture ends with a new Jerusalem. So, Revelation 21-22 is all about how God is moving humanity towards a city. A holy city. So, God doesn't abandon civilization. God is in the business of redeeming civilization. And humanity's creativity is restored. And it's restored in a city.

[00:10:14] So, God cares about places and spaces. God cares about where you are. And he wants it to be a place where they will prosper so that you will prosper. But so that this place might be a place where you get to tend to dress and care for creation. And it's moving towards this new Jerusalem. So, what does that tell you about God's view of culture? And the place that you live?

[00:10:44] I think it means that we should be highly involved with the development of culture. We don't leave it to somebody who doesn't know God to develop it. Let's get developing culture. Let's not copy culture. Let's not just critique culture. But let's be people who create culture. So, creating culture and loving the place that God has put you. I'm just going to skip forward in the book. And I'll read you another story here.

[00:11:16] This is from chapter 2. So, over the years, it's been noticeable when somebody has been preaching at our church. If they are from the estate or not. If they've grown up there or not. If they've grown up around an estate. Or if they are from somewhere else. Often people have spoken of the estate as them or those people. The area is described often as deprivation kind of language.

[00:11:43] A few years ago, a semi-friend of mine came to preach for us on the story of the Good Samaritan. They talked about the prostitute and the thieves out there. Well, not realising that the very congregation in front of him were the out there people. Their language, sadly, was very much othering. And spoke of our home as if we lived in hell. I had a member of our congregation come to me on occasion and say,

[00:12:11] Chris, don't talk about our neighbourhood as if it's hell when God says it's heaven. And I thought it was just really interesting. He was trying to say, don't keep speaking down or speaking ill of the neighbourhood that God has given us. This is the place that God has given us to tend and to dress, to care for. This is the place of Eden that God has put us. So don't call it hell when we're supposed to be seeing it as heaven.

[00:12:40] I just thought it was a really interesting perspective. So what is positive urban theology? What is positive urban theology? I would explain it as it is in the book, that often when people talk about housing estates, low-income communities, traditionally known as council estates, in America they talk about them in terms of projects.

[00:13:02] Whenever we do that, we use what I would describe as negative language, deprivation language. So people often talk about poverty, they talk about crime, they talk about loss, they talk about inequality. And all of those things are real, they're there. But what people end up doing is they use those things to define how they see the inner city, which means you end up seeing it in a deprivation kind of language. Just hit pause there for a second.

[00:13:32] So I grew up in West Yorkshire and my granddad was a miner, which meant in his retirement he would get coal delivered to his council home on a council estate. And they'd bring the coal, they'd bring it down the path to the side where the coal shed was and they'd put it in. The coal would fall on the floor and I would pick it up with my granddad and throw the bits in that would fall on the floor. And, you know, you'd end up with coal dust on your hands. Your hands would end up black bright.

[00:14:02] I remember my grandma on one occasion telling my granddad, why did you let him pick up the coal? His hands are black bright. I've got this memory of him doing that. And often people look at coal, they see it as dirty. They see that when you burn it, it produces a lot of smoke, creates a lot of dust. So people moved away from wanting to use coal and they ended up using electricity. They ended up using gas because it's clean.

[00:14:26] So people see coal as a dirty thing and they see electric as a clean thing. And I think it is really interesting. I heard a phrase when I was younger. Don't we see coal, God sees diamonds. Now, diamonds don't come from coal, but they're made of the same carbon. They're produced slightly differently, but they're made of the same substance, diamonds and coal.

[00:14:55] And I find it really interesting that some people will look at a place and they'll see it's coal. It's dirty. It's horrible. There's nothing great here. But what heaven has is a different perspective. When heaven looks at a housing estate or social housing or low income community, heaven doesn't see coal. Heaven sees diamonds. Heaven sees people that are rich in resources.

[00:15:22] They've got gifts, skills, talents, interests, passion, but often get looked past by others because it doesn't look like what they expect it to look like. And often the middle class church will look at a housing estate and go, there's nothing good here. We need to send in a middle class leader to go save this housing estate. And I'm like, no, that's not what we do. We see coal. God sees diamonds. So what is positive urban theology?

[00:15:51] Positive urban theology is choosing to see the diamonds rather than the coal. Positive urban theology asks this question. What is God already doing here? And what resources has God already buried in the ground that just need to be found? Can we go digging for diamonds? So I think a positive urban theology is recognizing a few things. Number one, God delights in cities.

[00:16:18] God loves the city and says, pray for it because if it thrives, then you will thrive. In fact, heaven is like a city. That's how it's described in Revelation. So God loves cities. Cities are places of creativity and imagination, laughter and life. They're places of beauty. So cities are places of great creativity. They're places of diversity that represents the kingdom of God.

[00:16:45] If you want to know what the kingdom of God looks like, you look at a city with every nation, every tribe, every tongue working out how to live together. Not always getting on, but wanting to somehow live in a way. Our housing estate is so multicultural. We don't have many problems on the housing estates. People are living together, working out how to live together. Cities become places that produce culture.

[00:17:14] We're really proud of the fact that Dizzy Rascal was born on our housing estate. We love that. You know, somebody who's become famous for his music. We love that. He came from our housing estate. So cities are places of culture, produce culture. And God uses the church to bless cities rather than say, let's escape from it. The church becomes a place of blessing to the inner city.

[00:17:40] So positive urban theology said, let's look at the urban environment through the eyes of heaven rather than through the eyes of hell. So what I do in the book, I end up exploring theologically at depth what does a positive urban theology look like. So we end up looking at kingdom theology. We end up looking at Eden theology. We end up looking at the idea that Christ is a king and the estate is his kingdom. It's a place where he rules and reigns.

[00:18:09] We end up looking at the inner city as a place of incarnation where we are there to put a God, God flesh on, you know, putting flesh and blood onto the gospel. So we talk about theology of place and theology of work. There's a whole string of things that look at theology of the home, the idea that the city could be a holy city, that there's beauty there rather than just seeing it as ashes.

[00:18:37] So that's kind of what we look at in positive urban theology, looking for the beauty of a place rather than seen as a place that is deprived. I want to read just another bit from the book for you. So I'm going to read, yeah, I'm going to read this. This is chapter four, understanding the working class, common characteristics of the working class and those in social housing.

[00:19:02] I'm just telling a story and I hope you'll laugh at me as I read this. I should have known better. I come from a housing estate. I come from a working class background. So it's so easy to get frustrated when people don't behave the way we want them to. It's also so easy to misread the signs of someone's behaviour because we don't understand their culture.

[00:19:28] I started to become quite frustrated with a particular person who seemed to have a diary that was just all over the place. We had agreed to meet in the week at a specific time, but they constantly would not show. And I was left either sat at home or in a cafe waiting for them. This had gone on enough and I decided to not wait any longer for them. So I gave them a call. No answer. I walked around to their flat to see if I could find them.

[00:19:58] And as I walked, I was brewing what I thought I would say to them. Something like, do you not respect my time? I'm busy. As I arrived, I found them helping their neighbour get a broken mobility scooter out of a flat with the rider still on it. It wasn't that they didn't care about my time. It's that they actually prioritised their neighbour's needs over our meeting.

[00:20:23] When somebody on a housing estate needed help, whether it was a broken scooter, a family crisis or a neighbour locked out, that trumped everything else, including our meeting. It wasn't disrespect. It was a different kind of respect entirely. They responded, sorry, yeah, they respected the unspoken rule that you don't walk past someone in trouble just because you have somewhere else to be.

[00:20:53] Real life problems on housing estates. People are not showing up. To the biblical story is a garden where humanity grow. We build cities. Babel showed us what human pride looks like. Jerusalem becomes God's dwelling place. Jesus ministered largely in towns and cities. Paul planted urban churches around city areas. Revelation ends not with a garden but with a garden city.

[00:21:20] So the Bible begins in the garden but ends in the city. God's plan is not abandoning human civilisation but redeeming it. And that is what it looks like to see the biblical story from a garden to a sacred city. So what can every church learn from some of what I'm talking about now and what I actually go on to talk about in depth in the book? I think we can learn a few things. We can always learn this.

[00:21:50] We need to learn to love the place that we are. Wherever God has called you to be, places are important to God. Love that place. Don't see it as hell. See it as heaven. Look for the beauty that you can find in that place. The creativity, the imagination, the gifts, the skills. All of what God has planted in that place. Don't look beyond the skills that are there and think that there are better skills elsewhere. God has put you in a place to find the beauty, the diamonds that are in the soil.

[00:22:17] Look for God's fingerprints all over that neighbourhood. God has already been at work. He is at work and will continue to be at work. So look for God's fingerprints. I would say one of the things that I've learned is investing for the long term. Being in a place for the long term is where you actually start to see fruit. When you're in a place short term, you don't actually get to the place enough where you actually can start to see the fruit. I think we need to be celebrating diversity.

[00:22:44] The church should learn that actually diversity is what the kingdom looks like. The homogenous churches where everybody looks the same is not the kingdom of God. We don't see the fullness of the kingdom of God in that place. Diversity, where there's people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue. Now that is not always possible if you're living in a rural area. Although I do have friends who live in Lincoln and there is a lot of Romanian or Polish people that live around their area. But none of them are coming to their church.

[00:23:14] They're all going to their own Romanian church in the town. They've created their own church. So you've just ended up with one homogenous church and another homogenous church. Rather than the fullness of God, the people of God all in one place. So celebrate diversity. I think the other things we can learn is to build community. When we build community, we see heaven manifest in a place. Community reveals to us what heaven ends up looking like.

[00:23:42] I think as Jeremiah says, we pray for the flourishing of our neighborhood. Wherever you are, if your neighborhood flourishes, then you too will flourish. The local schools flourish. All the children flourish. The medical centers flourish. Everybody flourishes. If the shops flourish, then everybody flourishes. So pray for the flourishing of your neighborhood. And the other thing I think churches can learn from all of this is to become known as a blessing.

[00:24:10] And I think becoming known as somebody who sees the beauty, the diamonds in a place. Somebody who is known as a blessing to a place. Sees blessing and is a blessing. You get to change the environment by the way that you get to behave in it and love it. And treasure it and be a blessing to it. So I think we all can learn from this sense of positive urban theology.

[00:24:39] And I think questions we could be asking ourselves are things like, what do you love about where God has placed you? Whatever God has put you, what do you love about it? Where can you already see God at work? Is God already doing something in your housing estate that you are missing at the moment? Because you're just not noticing it. And how can your church become a greater blessing to the community that you are in?

[00:25:03] How do you actively become the gospel rather than simply proclaiming the gospel? How do you actively become the gospel? Living it out in a way that people get to see what you are living out of, what you believe. Do you want to read another bit from the book? So this is a section here about keys to thriving in urban mission. We were one year into our move to Bow.

[00:25:34] A good but exhausting year of getting things up and running. Meeting new people and navigating some conflict with the church members who are passionate about their neighbourhood. The summer of 2001, I've seen frustrations bubbling up across London. And as we prepared for a planned holiday to the US, the London riots were in their early days, but rapidly escalating.

[00:26:01] Standing at the airport on the evening of our flight, we wrestled with weather to cancel our trip and head home instead. A family member's wisdom proved invaluable. Go and have rest. Everybody will flock to the area as it's in the news, but they will all disappear just as fast. You need to rest so you can be there for the long term.

[00:26:28] When the spotlight's gone, that's when the hard work starts. Sometimes we have to discern when we might need to pull back so we can be there for longer. The lesson has stayed with us. Sustainable ministry requires the wisdom to know when stepping away temporarily enables us to serve more efficiently or effectively in the years ahead.

[00:26:54] One of the things that we've learned is long term mission and ministry means that we have to go at a different pace. We're not running a marathon. We're not running a sprint. We're running a marathon, which means we need to run at a different pace. We need to engage with our bodies differently. And we need to think about what does it mean to be here for the long term. And choosing to say, OK, we're going to rest now because the hard work is going to be later down the line. We're going to go and do that. That was real wisdom.

[00:27:22] It actually came from Becky's dad, who isn't a Christian. And Becky was talking to him while we were at the airport going, Dad, what do we do? Do we go home? And Becky's dad said, no, everybody's going to be rushing to sweep the streets and be seen in the news, have their pictures taken for the newspaper showing that they're helping tidying up after the riots had happened. And he was right. A lot of that happened.

[00:27:48] A lot of parish priests or people were rushing from around the city to come and help tidy up. But actually, soon as the cameras are gone, so did they go. And it was then that we actually had the hard work of long term ministry in the neighbourhood, wrestling with why did this all happen? Why did these things kick off? So friends, Positive Verbi of Theology is out.

[00:28:13] We end up looking at a whole different string of things around mission, where we live, how we might share Jesus, working with people we don't always understand. So I think it's one of the most fun books I've written in terms of mission and theology. It's not the easiest read because it is a theological book, but it's actually one that really speaks into what does mission actually look like on the ground working on housing estates.

[00:28:42] So if you know anybody in that environment, you might find it helpful. But there's also a lot in there that is just helpful for anyone working out, how do I serve God where I live? How do I find where God is at work in this place? So friends, the Bible begins in a garden and it ends in a city. That tells us God is committed not to abandoning human culture, but to redeeming it. God cares about the garden.

[00:29:10] God cares about the city. So whether your mission field is a housing estate, a market town, a farming village, God's invitation is the same. Love the place God has put you. Bless the place that God has put you and join God in what he is already doing there. Friends, until next time, grace and peace. And I will catch up with you soon.