History

The issue of urban training appears to be a relatively modern one.  It has arisen because a complex of related problems were experienced within a particular geographic area - the inner city.  Below I will go on to describe these problems. But when did this awareness first arise?  I am not sure, but a modern movement for urban training can be discerned arising in the 1970's.  The Urban Theology Unit is an early witness to this as is the Urban Mission Project and before them the work of Iona and the Worker Priests.  In 1974 the Evangelical Urban Training Project was formed and to this day typifies many of the themes of the movement.  Scripture Union has become progressively more open, particularly because of the experience of Frontier Youth Trust.  The Adult Education departments of many urban diocese have also introduced the themes common in urban training.  By the end of the 70's when ECUM was being formed people were talking about the need for an Urban Institute or Resource Centre.  All these strands were brought together in 1984 in Faith in the City which put urban training firmly on the agenda for the rest of the decade.  The Citywise consultation in 1990 summarizes many of the movements successes, as well as its failures¹.

The Socio-Political Context

Details should be added here of impact of "the Thatcher years" eg

Materialism, Individualism, Yuppism and Local Government cuts and move to competitive and contract culture. Also with the new Labour government the impact of the revival in Christian socialism and programmes such as Welfare to Work.

The Problem and the problems

The Suburban Captivity of the Church

This famous book title well summarizes the basic issue which urban training seeks to address.  The church is dominated by the values, methods and attitudes of the suburbs.  Thus, when it operates in the inner city it finds itself like the proverbial fish out of water; floundering and gasping to get back into its element. Urban training seeks to evolve the ecclesiastical fish into a reptile that can crawl on its belly if not, yet, a finely balanced biped that can hold its head aloft.

Theological Colleges

The vast majority of training done by the churches is controlled by the theological colleges.  The professional clergy are trained by them and expected to pass on their training to their congregations.  The colleges however are thoroughly dominated by the values of suburbia.  Small wonder that the vitriol of urban trainers is poured out upon these remote and other worldly enclaves!  The colleges have begun to try and change and significant steps have been taken, but they are still viewed with considerable scepticism.  The consensus is that not only do they not prepare people adequately for inner city ministry but that they actively disable.  They are symbols of an oppressive professionalism.

The Christian Market

Training is governed by economics.  Urban trainers have discovered that there is precious little profit to be made from producing training literature relevant to the city. The inner city church does not have sufficient purchasing power to create a market for culturally relevant products.  It has to make do with adaptations, homegrown products or feelings of frustration at having to use unsuitable literature, videos or music.  Some have managed to make a virtue out of homegrown products and a few of these have been marketed commercially.

The Troublesome Inner City

The city also produces its own problems.  It is unwieldy, violent, confusing.  We do not even understand it let alone know how to evangelise it.  Yet for many this provides excitement and challenge - a chance to live out new values and new ideas.

'Weakness' of Inner City Churches

The church does not have a strong base in the city.  Most churches live in a state not far removed from crisis and under a cloud of past and present failures.  This tends towards a survival mentality which does not have the resources to bring the

gospel into the heart of city life.  Of course there are success stories but even they are often won at the expense of great weariness and a certain tunnel vision.

Complexity of the City

Not only is the city complex, it is a complex of complexities.  High rise estates are very different from streets of gentrifying terraces.  Peripheral estates are now recognised as equally deprived as the inner cities.  Small patches of inner city style deprivation exist even in wealthy suburbs and small towns.

Christian Amateurism

In the face of these comprehensive problems the skills of the church often seem hopelessly inadequate.  Even with the additional help of the Holy Spirit.  Efforts at social care are plagued by incompetence and paternalism - not to mention exploitation of young keen workers who quickly burn out.  Our communication of the gospel is archaic and unable to compete with the glamour of television or the warmth of the pub.  Money is short and things are done on the cheap.  Flair is lacking and outdated methods are perpetuated.

Issues

Class

Underlying all these problems is the vexed issue of class.  Although mention of the word is offensive to many, most urban trainers find themselves returning to the concept in order to explain the reality that they are living with.  The key issue is literacy.  Churches are generally book-based communities.  Working class communities can frequently be sharp witted and verbally skilful but books are often completely alien.  Thinking is concrete not abstract.  The issue is what the church does not what it says.  This problem is often compounded by the domination of churches in working class communities by middle class incomers - at least the clergy and probably others.  The gentrification of London makes this a particularly crucial issue².

But the issue is not only one of culture.  It is about power.  The working class are traditionally the ruled and the middle class the rulers.  This has created a deeply embedded scepticism of the middle class church.

Women

Inner city churches are perhaps two thirds female.  Yet they are largely invisible when it comes to talking about the city or making decisions.  Christian feminism has lacked any distinctively urban voice - but it is  needed.

Race

This is an issue of immense importance.  Urban training, as are the mainstream churches, is dominated by a white perspective.  The black perspective is very different.  They are not afflicted by suburban captivity, escape to the suburbs is often a very real route of freedom.  When black people articulate their training needs they are therefore often different.  They are often concerned with breaking into the system of prosperity and achieving respect³.  There needs to be increasing dialogue between urban training and black christian's training priorities.  Only by doing this can the problem of racism be addressed.

Sub-Cultures

Urban training has often been concerned for the issue of making the gospel relevant to the many sub cultures which inhabit the city.  This is often in the context of youth work - but can be applied to other areas, for example homosexuals.

Youth

The issue of youth work has been very central in the field of urban training.  This is probably because there are comparatively large resources available to do youth work - particularly from local government sources.  Young people have also proved to be more critical of the status quo and hungry for new experiences and new methods. Many urban trainers come from a youth work background.

Children

The issue of children has been growing on the agenda in recent years.  More respect is now given to children as people in their own right who learn and teach.  High rates of one parent families and other pressures on traditional family life have raised the issue of parenting skills.

The Resistance to Training

Interest in urban training has been growing but it is against the background of resistance to training within our culture, and particularly to new forms of training.

A recent survey of world cities identified the lack of training as one of London's key problems.  This is reflected in the church.  There is a suspicion that training is a waste of time and that any moderately intelligent person can achieve any moderately usual task after a moderately long period of experience.  This suspicion is heightened in the inner city where education has been a highly negative experience for many people.

There are also practical problems.  Life is busy and dominated by crises.  Money is short and only spent on necessities.  Training has often been poor and 'over my head'.

This means that training must be hard-headedly practical and directly responsive to people's day to day needs.  Only from this basis can a form of urban training be developed that is able to genuinely transform the work of the church in the inner city.

The Answers

Wholistic Models

The response to this complex of problems has been various but the key note has been a search for a wholistic theology which can understand the diversity of the city in the light of the gospel and so make an impact on it.  There has been a move from other-worldliness to this this-worldliness without loosing a sense of transcendence.

The City

The city has typically been seen within christian history as a place of evil.  Urban training has sort to undermine this theology and affirm that "the bible begins in a garden but ends in a city".⁴

Together with this more positive view of the city has gone a desire to understand it.  This has created an interest in the social sciences and an attempt to balance positive images of the city with a realistic appreciation of the presence of evil⁵.

Ministry by the Whole Church

Urban training has been keen to rescue christian training from exclusive domination by the professional clergy.  Many urban trainers are not ordained and most of their training is done with lay people.  They have happily embraced the concept of the priesthood of all believers and 'body-ministry'.

Transforming power relationships: Empowerment

Urban training has normally sort not merely to provide new methods but to enable a real transformation.  It has sought to empower ordinary people, especially the deprived.  Occasionally this has led to an over politicisation which has become frustrated at the reluctance of people to take on board the deeper issues that underlie their day to day struggles.

Pilgrimage

The essentially wholistic concern of urban mission has led it to be concerned for personal development, especially so for incomers to the inner city.  Incomers should not 'parachute' in to help the masses but are engaged on a spiritual pilgrimage, gaining more than they give.  This is particularly important given the burn out of many christian workers under stressful conditions.⁶

New Methods

Many new methods have been introduced by urban training into the inner city church. Many of these have been adapted from secular disciplines such as education and the social sciences.  This is probably the reason for the scepticism shown by many more traditional Christians of the new methods.

Localism

A major concern has been to bring training to where people live, work and worship. The primary reason has been to create indigenous leadership⁷ - to weaken the dependence on suburban trained professions.  There has also been a move away from mass produced programmes towards a tailoring and adapting to specific local circumstances.

Another aspect of this localism has been the growth of the mission audit or community survey which has encouraged people to understand their local area before engaging in mission⁸.

Participatory Learning

The key contribution of participatory learning has been to focus on people's experience and not merely the doctrine of the church.  Christian faith is worked out in people's day to day lives, not merely in their souls.  People are to be respected for their real life experience and not condemned if they are slow to grasp abstract truths.  The gospel needs to be expressed in differing contexts and is not a timeless abstraction.  More traditional christians tend to view this attitude as dangerously liberal, while others see it as a truth that cannot be avoided. Participatory learning also emphasises the importance of learning in groups and through stories.  It also teaches that teachers learn while learners teach - there are no experts but a pooling of skills.

Skill Learning

Urban training has also emphasised the learning of directly practical skills, often using an apprenticeship model.  These cover a wide variety of subjects from community work skills to personal skills such as counselling.

Distance Learning

The more traditional centres of training isolated from the inner city have been made use of by using distance learning methods - correspondence courses or infrequent visits which enable people to do work in their own area.

New Springs

Learning from outside the church and amoung churches

The ecumenical movement has greatly helped the diffusion of urban training throughout the different churches.  Urban trainers have also, more easily than most, crossed the divide between evangelicals and ecumenicals.  Perhaps of even more importance is the use of insight from outside the churches as I have previously mentioned.

Pentecostalism

Pentecostalism or the charismatic movement have probably been as sceptical of urban training as anyone.  Nonetheless the ability of churches emphasising the Holy Spirit to relate to non-book culture and enable everyone to participate brings the two movements close together.

Cross Cultural Experience

Urban training as I have defined it is essentially a white movement.  Nonetheless it has gained much from the richness of the diverse cultures in the city and has been keen to exploit this.  It also has the potential to offer much to black and asian christians in terms of new methods and an understanding of the city.

Third World Insights

These have been very important for urban training which has had an internationalist mentality.  "Think Globally, Act Locally".  The influence of Paulo Freire has been particularly noticeable⁹.

New World Models

Although America is decidedly more suspect than Brazil as a source for new ideas, its context is actually much closer to our own.  The influence has been considerable, particularly through Ray Bakke, and the SCUPE conference.  Community organising has had some supporters but is generally viewed with scepticism.

New Developments

Ethnic Christianity

I have already mentioned the different perspective of black christians on training. These well established churches with Caribbean origins have created their own training institutions for their own purposes.  London is now experiencing a second wave of ethnic christianity mainly in the form of West African churches, but it also encompasses refugee churches and Asian churches.  Many of these churches have sprung up by the action of bible colleges situated in London.¹⁰

Church Planting

These West African churches are only one example of the church planting that has taken place in the 80's and 90's.  This church planting is normally supported by a vigorous programme of training.  While this training does not have the sympathy for all the secular models that urban training has borrowed from there are many similarities.  Particularly in the areas of understanding the city and relating to non-book culture.

Dealing with the principalities and powers

The issue of spiritual warfare is a hot and controversial one.  It has two distinct sources.  One from within pentecostalism and one more directly related to the urban. The failure and struggle of much urban mission caused many people to pick up on the language of St.Paul as he talked about the struggle with powers that were more than flesh and blood.  This helped make sense of issues such as the building of vast inhuman council estates and the resistance of many inner cities to the gospel.  It is the pentecostal version however with its elaborate processes of repentance, discernment and praying against territorial spirits that has taken the limelight.

Its elaborate nature has encouraged the growth of training for spiritual warfare.

Doing theology

A natural consequence of the mistrust of theological colleges and academic theology has been the desire to create a new theology.  This takes its starting point from the experience of the inner city and so echoes the third world concern for contextual theology.  There is now a proliferation of groups in London and elsewhere that are attempting to 'do theology' together.

Multi-Faith Society

Finally we must not avoid what is perhaps the biggest issue of all: the relation with people of other faiths.  This is where the fault lines in contemporary theological opinion can be most clearly seen.  It also provides the most intractable challenges to the modern church - should we strive for a new religious perspective that encompasses all faiths or seek for the clues to winning Islam (or Hinduism, or Buddhism etc.) to Christ?  Whatever we decide training must be part of the answer which will be worked out in our urban areas.

A Future?

Networking

Networking has developed as a tool to enable us to relate to each other without unwieldy structures.  It enables the free exchange of information with the minimum of time and effort.  It would appear that a process of networking to gather together the various strands in urban training is now necessary.  In fact it is already happening, maybe the question is "Can it help create real co-ordination or even an effective strategy?".

Remaking Theological Colleges?

The practical question on many peoples minds is "What are we going to do with the theological colleges and bible schools?".  Can they be made relevant to the problems urban training tries to address?  Or must they be replaced by a separate urban college, specifically and solely committed to the needs of the inner city?

An Urban Institute

The nature of such an institute is still highly debatable.  It would have to be located in the city.  But what connection would it have to the established colleges? Would it be on a single site or diffused throughout the city?  Are models such as UTU, or SCUPE relevant?  Are the resources there anyway and do enough people really want it?

SUPPLEMENT: Training needs of urban people

Many different kinds of people live in the city.  An urban person is simply someone who lives in the city, but not in the suburbs.  There is a tendency to see urban people as the urban poor.  This is an unnecessary confusion of language.  The urban poor are central to God's concern for the city but inner city ministry cannot help but deal with all urban people, rich, poor and indeterminate.  Inner city ministry is different from suburban ministry but the poverty it has to deal with is only one component of this difference.  It is this group of bewildering complexity that urban training must engage with.

Equipping

The process of equipping is providing urban people with the skills to better live their lives and love God in the city.  It is a direct process with definite goals even if not necessarily easily measured.

Evangelism

Enabling people to make sense of their faith to their friends and neighbours has been a corner stone of urban training.  The emphasis has generally been on person to person sharing, with a distrust of large campaigns which are felt to be irrelevant. This is especially the case for those on the radical wing.  The radicals have also distrusted an attitude which emphasised what Christians have to give and was not interested in listening.

Making friends with the bible

This is the other corner stone in urban training.  There has been a feeling that people have lost touch with the bible.  Many have tried to make the bible more user friendly and find connections with people's day to day lives.

Leadership Training

Takes many forms eg Leading housegroups, Sunday School, Youth Work or for a Church office. Often connected to training for empowerment.

Understanding your patch

A less prominent theme has been social analysis.  Urban society is so complex that we have lost touch with what is going on.  Faith in the city popularised audits for the inner city church.  There has been a steady growth in people delving into the more obscure areas of the small area statistics and scouring the pavements with community surveys.

Dealing with the principalities and powers

The more one deals with the city, the more overwhelming it feels.  The local has been the dominant theme in much urban training but people have often felt that this is not enough.  The city's evil seems cosmic.  Some have started to engage in spiritual warfare against the spirits of the city.  Others have tried to fight the spirits as they are manifested in the city's institutions.  A few have tried to do both.

Creative Skills

There are particular needs for training in musical skills for worship, although there are signs of reaction against congregational singing.

Empowering

Empowering is not so focused on particular skills as equipping.  It looks at the whole person and groups trying to develop the way they live so that they can more confidently engage with the city.  It is particularly appropriate for those who are in some way poor.

Classism

The working class are one key group who need empowering.  Although it is increasingly difficult to exactly define whether one person is workin#g class or middle class the concept of class still exercises a hold on our mind.  It enables us to say something meaningful about a city where rich and poor exist side by side but rarely live side by side.

Racism

Ethnic minorities have been those most likely to take up the weapon of empowerment. Their disadvantaged status is well recognised.

Sexism

Although feminism is an established fact of life there has been less tendency for the church, at least, to use the language of empowerment in the case of women.  The major cause of this is probably the extensive use of theology to justify male superiority.

Young people

The church has a long history of work with young people.  Much of the most pioneering urban mission has been done amongst young people.  Organisations like Frontier Youth Trust have been key.   There has been a strident voice from young people and youth workers that has challenged the established church and sort the empowerment of young people within it and without.

Professional training

While a lot of effort has gone into developing training at the grass roots the vast majority of resources goes into professional training.  While many would prefer training for ordination not to be seen as a professional training, the fact is that those who make the decisions definitely think it should be.

Training for ordination

Bible colleges and theological seminaries consume the largest amount of the resources put into training.  Most urban people tend to think they do a bad job of preparing people for the city.  Various attempts have and are being made to expose students to the city.  Many, however, think that it is the colleges and not the city which is the real problem.

'Bible College'/Lay Training

As above but usually with less of an academic emphasis.

Professionalising Christian caring

Considerable effort is also being put into non-ministerial training for those engaged in social action.  This is often initiated by those who move from the secular world into the church and are appalled at the slapdash approach.  It varies from that done at the grassroots to full-time removal to an academic institution.

Vocational Training

Running jobclubs etc has been some churches resp[onse to persistant unemployment.

With the growth in contracting services out this may increase. These skills might often be very basic life skills such as budgeting and debt-management.

Doing theology

There has also been another theme in urban training.  This has not had such an obvious goal.  It is rooted in the conviction that we learn from the urban poor and from being the urban poor. Traditional theology seems often to have value but to be removed from the realities of urban living.  A desire to develop theologies from within the urban context is provoked.  Many believe that there is renewal for the whole church in such an urban theology.

Contexts for urban training

The complexity of the city gives it many contexts.  Desperate poverty and obscene wealth.  The confusion of the immigrant.  The frustration of the trapped.  Urban mtraining must be sensitive to these various contexts.

Non-book culture

This is a key contexts for urban training.  Many urban people can read but don't. Some are totally illiterate, many functionally.  For them this essay would be a cause for a joke if not a sneer.  They think with concrete images, prefer pictures with their words and, above all, distrust words without actions.  Maybe this culture has something to teach us all.

The global city

Over two hundred mother tongues are spoken by the children of London schools.  New groups of refugees appear each year in the city, despite xenophobic immigration laws.  Established groups of settlers refuse to be forced into assimilation.  The youth of the city create their own cultures out of this global metropolis.

Ethnic cultures are multitudinous.

Incomers

The city is a city of incomers.  Whether they be refugees from a Somalian hell or graduates from the home counties they still face the shock of adapting to the big city.  The emphasis will vary from empowerment of the poor to sensitising the brash, but they do have special needs.

Urban living

Living in the city does impose peculiar pressures.  No-one fully understands these but various issues have been identified:

·      Sensory overload.  The city provides people with so many casual contacts that they withdraw into privacy.

·      The fear of violence.  London is a violent place but not as much as it is often thought to be.  Churches especially suffer from random break-ins and vandalism.

·      The hassle of transport.  London is a terrible place to travel.  The underground is dilapidated but crowdedly popular.  The roads a network of traffic jams.

All these, especially when sharpened by poverty, put intense pressures on people’s lives

Notes

1 For a better review see

Bunting, Ian. "From Saving Souls to Building Saving Communities" Crucible (1992):192-204.

2

Black, Neville & Jim Hart. Creating Leaders in Working Class Communities. Liverpool: EUTP Undated

3 This is also the concern of many working class white christians.

4 Bakke, Ray. The Urban Christian. London:ECUM 1985

5 Linthicum, Bob. City of God, City of Satan. Chicago: Eerdmanns 1991.

6 Marchant, Colin.  Shalom. London: Hodder & Stoughton 1988.

7 An emphasis of Archbishops Commission on Urban Priority Areas.  Faith in the City.  London: Church House Publishing 1984.

8 Evangelical Urban Training Project.  Know Your Church, Know Your Area, Know Your Gospel.  Liverpool: EUTP 1974

9 Training for Transformation.  London: CIIR 198

10 Ashdown James. A Guide to Ethnic Christianity in London.  London: Zebra Project 1993. (forthcoming)