New Housing, New Ways?

We did a prayer walk around one of the new developments yesterday, a group of about twenty five of us from four churches. Including a visit to the 'Extra Care Village' and the new school. The walk was enhanced by having a couple resident on the estate with us, sharing what they knew of the issues and the further development that were likely.

Trying to get local churches to focus beyond themselves and their own congregations in a sustained way has been difficult. How do churches, struggling to maintain their own work and building, gain the vision and the energy to see the opportunities possibilities and needs in new communities of thousands of people? How do I encourage and support them and not feel swamped especially when this is only one area of new development due to come on stream in the next few years. The future is so insecure in the areas of new development; numbers moving in vary with the vagaries of the housing market. The style and type of housing provision depends upon supply and demand, the current fears of a credit crunch that means housing growth might slow to a trickle or even to a stand still. You gear churches up to a big push and the housing market stutters to a stand still, they loose heart and focus on something else then suddenly people are moving in in droves.

Its the same with community provision; will there be any? Yes, no, maybe? Who has the funds; where and when and if? The developers don't want to spend money until a good chunk of housing is built and sold, yet residents need a focus for community development fairly early or they go and find it way out of the local area and the opportunity to develop a sense of local community is lost. Even though there are examples of good planning, that can enhance the chance of good community development, without serious commitment to this aim by planning authorities and developers alike as well as voices of experience from those who have been resident in and around the area (including community groups, parish councils and churches) still too often it takes last place to the priorities of profit and building convenience.

We, the churches, still think in terms of providing buildings (and there is little money for that) rather than thinking things like; 'can we move catalysts and missionaries into this area who can become the core of a new new congregation, living and growing with the community, sharing their story and becoming one with them?' Incarnational ministry is not about bricks and mortar but about sharing lives and experience. When will we come to realise we need to spend more time and money on nurturing and training our people (our real resource) than on maintaining our buildings! We can then focus on the our calling to create caring communities of the kingdom of God and perhap our members will see themselves as missionaries in their daily lives.

How do we manage it, we have got to find a way .....