New publication : The Church in the Centre of the City

A parcel greeted me on the doorstep when I returned from delivering Clare to the nearest point to the East gate of the Eisteddfod Maes for an evening concert. It contained a copy of the book of essays edited by Prof Paul Ballard entitled 'The Church in the Centre of the City', assembled as one of the follow-ups to the ground breaking national City Centre Mission conference held at Aberdare Hall in September 2005. It's a sterling piece of work, which should serve as a handbook for anyone wanting to work in any city centre church in the next few decades.

This is a book which needed to be written in the seventies, but at that time attention was being given for the first time to the nature of Christian witness and mission in the inner-city residential areas, leading to the publication of the 'Faith in the City' report in 1981. That was during my time in the St Paul's area in Bristol, and I was fully involved in the creative process going on in inner-city parishes all over Britain that preceded and accompanied the publication that historic document. The focus of urban poverty and racial injustice was utterly vital and very timely.

However this urgent concern meant that scant attention was given to the equally pressing issue of how churches should be doing mission in the central business districts of cities, where all the economic and political decision making takes place. Even then it was taking place with less and less interest in any useful contribution churches might make. Less and less concern was shown by denominations in taking part in the debates of the time through their missionary presence in city churches. If they were able to stay open, they tended, with exceptions, to maintain a largely pastoral, self maintaining agenda, and so became marginal to the policy shaping processes which determine the economic and social life of our city centres.

My time here at St John's, trying to re-engage on behalf of the church, and motivate others to engage in this process has been challenging, to say the least, with little success, because religion has been allowed to slip off the social agenda of civil society, except in the most token ways - civic services and ceremonies etc - where it can shape very little at all. The absence of any kind of religious building or imagery from the city's official publications is prima facie evidence of the way that local government processes have disregarded the city's own religious history and present culture, and this at a period when it has become much more interesting and diverse with the variety of faith communities it contains. I'm pleased I was able to bring the Spiritual Capital reseach project to a successful completion. What happens next is altogether a different concern. However valuable it may be to some readers, it falls on deaf if not hostile ears for many in government, officers and members, reluctant to have their comfort zones challenged or interfered with by voices they've got used to disregarding.

I'd like anyone interested in the city and its politics, or in city mission to read 'The Church in the entre of the city'. I'll restrict myself to one good quote from an essay by Huw Thomas of Cardiff University's School of City and Regional Planning called 'Power in the City : How to get things done', as it rings true to my experience. He refers to a national policy document on planning for town centres in which

"... the government emphasises the creating of town and city centres that have the appropriate kinds of facilities and activities in them .... Naturally, the advice states the kinds of activities that centres might be expected to contain. Shops and offices are mentioned often. So is housing, increasingly promoted as part of so-called mixed use developments. Leisure is also regarded as an important activity in town and city centres, especially as part of the 'evening and night time economy'. But churches, and places of worship of any kind, are not mentioned at all ..... it doesn't oppose churches and church activity. But it ignores, and hence devalues the idea of there being a spiritual dimension to the city centre."

I'd say that was my experience too. Rather late in the day, there is some attempt to re-dress this oversight on the part of central government policy - otherwise there wouldn't have been any money for the Spiritual Capital Research project. But it's a bit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Quite apart from any attempts believers might want to make to promote adherence to their faith, they are now faced with the challenge to making or maintaining sacred space itself as an essential dimension of the living heart of the city. As long as they keep the rules, any preacher can claim a pitch in the public realm and have his or her say. Keeping a place of worship functional, as part of a safe zone dedicated to peace and quiet is a constant challenge. If it isn't being invaded by parasites and predators who want to take advantage of others when their guard is down, it's being invaded by noise, or choked by litter. The devaluing of 'God's acre' starts with ill thought out policy handed down, and is very difficult to put into reverse. no matter how zealous the efforts of the faithful. Will the tide turn? Or will the long slide into anarchy and violence as the hall-mark of spiritually devalued cities continue relentlessly?

Read the book and make up your own mind. You can get it from Epworth press, and no doubt, from the newly re-opened 'Churches Together Bookshop' in City URC Windsor Place.

Reports and consultations

I had to dash from a Retail Partnership meeting down to the Millennium Centre for a the launch lunch of Gweini's report on the economic contribution made by faith communities to the life of Wales. It was an excellent occasion, very much to the credit of all in the Evangelical Alliance who made it happen.

Two years worth of work came to fruit with a hundred people representing AMs, civil servants, and religious communities from far and wide, gathering to learn that faith communities contribute £102 million a year through voluntary efforts. £10 million of that is in Cardiff alone. Just knowing that is valuable to our Spiritual Capital research project reporting. It's a way of saying to local government: "Look here, we're investing this much time and energy in public service. What about finding a way to consult us more effectively? You might even benefit more"

I had to leave early and get back to St John's to give the last in the series of Lent mediations for the Tuesday women's group, last in the series, then go on from there to another meeting, this time, the first meeting of a work-group which I was chairing, which brings together city centre faith communities and gives them an opportunity to offer feedback on the development process to the Council, under the 'Countdown 2009' headline. It's the first initiative of this kind towards the city centre's religious communities that has occurred, and very much to be welcomed.

I was a bit fed up that only two out of eight representatives showed up, showing how churches and other religious communities don't recognise a worthwhile opportunity, even when it's spelled out to them. Is religion so busily occupied with its own internal affairs living up to its own vocation? Fortunately, the representatives from Tabernacle and Ebeneser who came were wonderfully articulate about the difficulties of maintaining church life in the city centre. Good to hear their voices saying many of the same things which I go on about. It's not quite a chorus, but it's better than simply being a lone voice.

Finally, we had our Spiritual Capital Steering Group meeting, to consider some of the fruit of the report writing that's been going on this week, around the survey report from the University. Paul Ballard, Roy Thomas and myself have been thinking drafting organising material, and starting to shape what we feel we can say in the light of our overall objectives. I'm pleased that some of the work I've put in on the Spiritual Capital blog over the past eight months is a useful reference point. It's a good start, but there's a lot more to be done to produce a sound working production model in the coming weeks. The worst time really, with Holy Week and holidays looming fast.

Anway despite a day of non-stop meetings, I feel much cheered by the day's mad dash of activities.

Report delayed

Today the first draft of the Spiritual Capital research report findings from the University arrived several days late, disappointingly, necessitating the cancellation of our project Steering Group meeting. It wasn't possible to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest sufficiently quickly to have a wortwhile meeting. The whole prject is now two months behind schedule, and judging by the initial product, there'll be quite a lot of work to do in order the render a proper account of the issues we have been considering and compiling information on, quite apart from the statistics. Not such good news at mid-Lent, with the most demanding creative time immediately ahead, in Passiontide.

Spiritual Capital project - snail's pace

After a fairly routine Sunday, it turned out to be a busier than usual Monday, with a meeting about Cardiff Business Safe at lunchtime, followed by the re-start of 'God on Mondays' in school. Then it was back home to prepare for the first steering group meeting of the Spiritual Capital research project since November. The research workers seem to have been at a standstill, or at least there's been little visible sign of progress over two months.

The rate of return hovers around 35%, and despite the chasing up I've done, the returns are disproportionately low in Anglican responses. That's part of the data too. People will complain if this is reported, see it as a criticism, knocking the church, but the facts are there to be read as people will. The biggest 'fact' is the poor state of morale. Another of our worries is the lack of responses from Muslim communities, probably a sign of suspicion. Also it's possible that the questionnaires were received by people who really didn't know what to do with them, unable to understand the objective. The same could also be said for the churches that didn't respond.

After the meeting, I had to dress for dinner hurriedly and make my way on foot to the County Club, for a supper to honour Hazel Lewis, PA to two successive Priors of St John's Wales. It was an excellent occasion, at which both former and present Prior spoke warmly and praised Hazel's excellent organisational skills. It's good that a Christian charity should make an effort to value people in support roles that to some would seem unglamorous and insignificant - but in reality, nothing could be done without them, the grandest most imaginative plan would not even end up on paper.

Half Term

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Clare and I had fair mild weather for a good long weekend away in a Suffolk village with Clare's brother and his wife. It was my last Sunday off for the year, spent catching up on sleep and news of children and grandchildren, dining out, walking at Aldeburgh, Woodbridge, and in ancient forest, not far from Sutton Hoo whose visitor centre was disappointingly closed. Last week was half-term over there for them, and the low season hibernation had just started. The same seemed true for some of the country pubs as well, in an area receiving many more visitors in summer. The variety of autumnal colours has been quite spectacular this year, with more than usual shades of fading green to add to the yellows reds and bronzes we're used to.

We avoided the M25 / M4 rat-race coming home, travelling on less frantic roads at a more leisurely pace, via Cambridge and the Cotswolds, with the home run from Gloucester down the A48 along Severn estuary to Chepstow - a refreshing change. Not long after we arrived, Ian dropped in to get a signature for his passport, and deliver a cutting from the Saturday edition of the Western Mail. Following last Thursday's meeting with Martin Shipton there a whole page length single column article in Saturday's edition, which I think did justice to what we wanted to put across. None of the photographs which were taken appeared, and of course we'd have liked it to have seen the article under a bigger headline, but that's a sub-editor's decision to make, not a journalist's.

There were no fewer than four phone messages on the answering machine from the BBC asking me to come and be interviewed about the Spiritual Capital project on Good Morning Wales, first thing on Monday morning. Well, I wasn't there to respond, and I can't say I'm sorry, because normally, after a full Sunday, I'm at my worst, if I'm conscious at seven o'clock on Mondays, which is when the Beeb would have sent a taxi to collect me. A missed opportunity unfortunately, but I guess if they're interested, they'll come back later in the week/month - the project isn't going to go away suddenly, and just might get more interesting as time goes on.

Well, at least for tonight, I feel laid back about it all.

Mailing deadline achieved

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Today the final version of the Spiritual Capital research project survey questionnaire went into the post, nearly 270 envelopes in the end, to all the religious communities for which an address could be found in the City and Borough of Cardiff. Thanks to the hard labours of Roy Thomas who has been managing the project for us over the past six months, I've had nothing to do with the hard practicalities of doing a big mail-shot that I've been party to setting up. This is the first, time I've not had to manage it myself I recall, when I look back over the number of mass mailings I've done over the year - back to my time in USPG circulating over 600 parishes across Wales, parishioner mailing lists and so forth.

There's less need for things like this today, since it's become possible to use the internet to make enquiries and distribute information. Mind you, I just hate those little pop-up surveys which appear and block my view of an article I'm trying to scan quickly. The monthly diocesan distribution of church publicity materials is now done via the diocesan website to save paper, and people can ask for hard-copies if they are not web users. This doesn't prevent tons of ecclesiastical junk mail from others arriving through the post however - people selling furniture for church halls, maintenance equipment, vestment catalogues, various missionary societies, charity appeals - especially at this time of year. All this has to be sorted through before binning or reading/passing on/using. Our survey adds to this mountain of paper.

I only hope that recipients realise that this envelope is a 'one-off', and that a reply will be beneficial to the position of all Cardiff's religious communities when the research is publicised next year.