New House, New Faith?

... new towns may be the most strategic mission opportunity in the UK, says Lings

In this month’s Encounters on the Edge (issue 23 New Housing, New Partnerships?), George Lings sees opportunity for a positive response from the church to the massive new house building programme initiated by the Government. Through his research visits, Lings has observed the impact relocation and re-settlement have on the lives of many people. He believes that these people are “more open to new ideas and reassessing values” but is aware that “too often churches struggle to respond to people who turn out to be highly mobile, living disconnected privatised lives.”

The Government highlights the role of churches as skilled partners in the creation of sustainable community, but so often the church fails to respond to this challenge. In Lings’ view, “these new villages and towns are arguably the most physically obvious new mission field in England, in terms of numbers … and spiritually they may be the most open … there could be a strong case for putting some of our best pioneers into this kind of development.”

Lings' investigations took him to new housing developments in Elvetham Heath in Hampshire and Cambourne in Cambridgeshire where he found multi-denomination church plants responding very well to this new mission field. Both churches are headed up by leaders with overseas cross-cultural experience who work instinctively with the grain of a context and are prepared to see things evolve. Lings highlights these as classic examples of best emerging practice that attracts those at the fringes of church life and the ‘de-churched’.

Because both examples are multi-denominational, this Encounters on the Edge also asks how these churches have avoided the sort of ecumenical bureaucracy that can often stifle the growth of a church plant. Furthermore, Lings’ observes that many younger people are tending to think more “post-denominationally” and are actively seeking a church “exhibiting spiritual reality, family provision and authentic community. Life, not labels, attracts.” Could this multi-denominational approach be another reason for the effectiveness of these churches on these new estates?

In their long term vision for new church buildings that includes week-long community use, café church ideas and space for the visual and contemplative, these Christian communities can make the most of the prime sites they have been promised in the new development and are equipped to meet the challenges of counter cultural communities. Lings concludes “In today’s wider church climate which more freely admits the present crisis of decline and so welcomes responsible pioneers more readily, these stories show permission for mission is being given and allows for a positive message to the surrounding community of churches working instinctively together.”

To order Encounters on the Edge no 23 - New Housing, New Partnerships?, contact Claire Dalpra on 0114 272 7451 or log onto www.encountersontheedge.org.uk or email c.dalpra@sheffieldcentre.org.uk