Why London?
One day, as we were driving around last fall, Rahel asked me how I knew that God wanted us to move to London. Good question! It is funny how 6-year-old questions can help clarify thinking! Quickly I broke down my variety of reasons down to three basic points for her. First, I told her that God gave us the Bible that tells us about Him and the things that He likes. I learned that God wants us to go tell others about Jesus and to show God's love to others, especially people who are hurting. This might include people without a family or folks who have to move to a new country. London has lots of immigrants especially Hindus and Muslims who don't know Jesus and who need to see the love of Christ put into action. Secondly, I told Rahel that God uses us in ways that he has gifted us. God promises never to abandoned us nor would he call us into something, which we are completely unequipped for. Each of God's people has a role to play in God's Kingdom and each role is different. I believe God has been teaching me ways of working with the local church to organize programs to help the poor and living out our faith so others would see God’s love. As a family we believe God has called us to use our home as a place where people can be encouraged and where we can share with them about Jesus. London is a place we can use some of these gifts. Thirdly, God brings people and opportunities our way for his Kingdom purposes. As we seek to follow God’s will for our lives, God is working throughout the world to bring relationships and opportunities for us at his appointed time. We first heard about World Harvest in 1989, but it was in 1999 when we finally met folks from World Harvest and heard about the work in London. As we prayed after visiting the team in London, we were amazed at the opportunities, how it fit our family and how we connected with the World Harvest team.
World Harvest Mission believes that the gatherings of people groups in large international centers like London represents one of the greatest missionary opportunities in the history of the church. People who would otherwise be very difficult to reach are accessible in London; and being uprooted from their traditional culture, they are more open to the Gospel. The goal is to plant Kingdom-minded, churches in London and to use London as a launching pad for penetrating some of the least reached parts of the world with the gospel. The gospel changes everything! That’s the revolutionary yet simple message that fueled the creation of World Harvest Mission (WHM) in 1983, and it is the principle that has guided the mission’s growth to the present day.
London is home to over 300 different ethnic groups, including people groups from Africa, Turkey, Iran, Eastern Europe, Arabs from the Middle East, China, and South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). Our belief is that the gatherings of people groups in large international centers like London represents one of the greatest missionary opportunities in the history of the church. People who would otherwise be very difficult to reach are accessible in London; and being uprooted from their traditional culture, they are more open to the Gospel. In a recent B.B.C. program, one prominent Hindu predicted that 50,000 Hindus would become Christians in the next ten years. Our goal is to plant churches in London and to use London as a launching pad for penetrating some of the least reached parts of the world with the gospel. We have singled out the large South Asian populations of London for concentration.
The vision of the WHM London Church Planting Team The vision of the WHM London CPT is to testify by word and deed to the Gospel of God's grace to South Asians in and through (e.g. North India) the UK. We aim to do this primarily by planting missionary-minded, culturally-relevant churches with a view to fostering a church planting movement among South Asians in the UK and beyond. Included within this church planting strategy is our intention to use London as a base...
Many people are surprised to find out that the UK is home to over 2.3 million South Asians, of whom about 50% live in London. "South Asian" refers to people who ethnically originate from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh. Most are from Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh religious backgrounds and many speak languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati or Tamil. Over 60% of British South Asians are "second" or "third" generation, i.e. were born and brought up in Britain, speak English as their first/primary language, and are very westernised.
South Asia is the largest semi-open unreached area of the world. Nearly half (350 million) the Muslim population of the world, and 99% of the world's Hindus (800+ million), live there. In India alone, there are 4,599 separate people groups speaking 325 distinct languages and 1400 dialects. The Church Growth Research Center of India estimates that only 250 of these people groups have an identifiable church. LONDON, THE 10/40 WINDOW, AND WORLD HARVEST MISSION
The “10/40” window contains:
Despite the fact that most unreached people groups are in this area, only 8% of all missionaries work among these people. Many from the Indian sub-continent who have no church in their stem communities are living abroad. The single largest concentration of these people are in Britain. World Harvest's ministry in London signals our intention to contribute resources to reach this strategic and needy area, using London as a base. Vision and Values Purpose: To experience, celebrate and spread the transforming love of Christ through worship, the Word, and community in the South Asian communities of west London, and beyond. Core Values: 1. Centrality of Grace: People are being taught and encouraged through example and opportunity to own their weaknesses, repent, and to look to Christ in faith; moralism/legalism is not only avoided, but exposed; self-righteousness and condemning attitudes are challenged with encouragements and admonitions to love, extend grace, forgive, and accept others. The three "cheer ups" are emphasised: Jesus is the center and source of grace. Our relationship with Him determines the quality and character of all else. Therefore we want to encourage people to engage with Jesus through faith, and to have a church in which every member is living by renewed repentance and faith and encouraging others in the same. Grace is not merely a vertical channel from God to an isolated individual. While our grace relation with God is the radical root of all else, grace received from God leads to grace given to others. And in relationships of grace with other human beings, divine grace from God is communicated. There is a horizontal, corporate, and communal element in grace which we seek to foster in the church. 2. Missionary Vision: We want God's heart for the world to be clearly understood, and a passion for His mission consciously cultivated. We want to see in every member of the congregation a strong awareness, ownership of, and participation in God's missionary purposes. We want ever member to have a passion for God's mission in the world, an understanding of the church's place in the world, and to be equipped for and involved in the spread of the gospel through personal and corporate witness. We want to have an “outward” orientation in all that we do: in our individual callings, gathered worship, teaching and preaching, prayer, parties, and life together. We want to develop a commitment among the leaders first, and to every member, to being part of a CHURCH PLANTING MOVEMENT. 3. Kingdom Community Embodying the Gospel to the World: “The church is part of the gospel” (John Stott). We believe the church, as God's new people The church is also the context and setting for Christian growth and discipleship. Created in the image of the triune community, humanity can be restored only in and through the recreation of Biblically functioning communities. 4. Contextually Appropriate in All It Does: Worship, teaching, and fellowship will seek to be RELEVANT to the British Asian community that God has called us to reach. Thus the languages used will seek to reflect the constituency. Worship will be contemporary, flexible, contextually sensitive, and appropriate for our target group. The assumptions, values, and issues (religiously, culturally, and physically) will be understood and engaged. 5. Network (Web) Evangelism: The church is part of the spread of the gospel in the way it networks and knits itself in the fabric of the non-believer's life and embraces them into its own community (web of relationships). We thus want to see a church that multiplies relevant and effective groups, Bible studies, ministries, and gatherings (such as parties and celebrations, both big and small), in which evangelism and edification can take place in community. 6. Participatory Worship (gatherings/meetings): Every believer is a prophet, priest and king. Grace is transmitted corporately through gatherings of God’s people and not merely through individual Bible study or preaching of the Word. Worship should seek to reflect that fact, allowing time for people to share their lives with one another, pray for one another, get to know one another, and where every member of the body participates in true worship of God together, prayer, mutual encouragement and edification. We want to see our Sunday gathering reflect, serve, and enhance the values of community and the universal priesthood of all believers (see below). 7. Every Member Ministry: The task of leadership is to "equip God's people for works of service" (Eph. 4:12). Each believer brings gifts necessary for building up of the Body of Christ. Hence the whole body of Christ must be mobilized – visioned, trained, encouraged and facilitated – for ministry, both evangelistic and within the body. 8. Plurality of Leadership: Leadership by Elders promoted and selected according to the criteria set out in I Tim. 3: 1- 7. The Elders have authority over the church, under Christ through His Word, and are accountable for the doctrine, worship, and care of Christ's sheep. 9. Primacy of Prayer: Prayer feeds vision; vision drives prayer. We must pray ourselves full of the gospel of the Kingdom, seeing and embracing the fullness of God’s redemptive purposes, and thereby be driven to pray and see His purposes fulfilled. This must be into the whole life of the church. Everything we do will be directed toward mobilization for church planting and evangelism. To that end we will concentrate in three areas:
This last point is extremely important part of our vision. Facilitating the sending of missionaries means not only training them, but:
OUR DRIVING PASSION These goals, we believe, are simply the logical outcome of taking our Lord's intentions for His church seriously. The church has a task. As Jack Miller put it in Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, the church exists for missions. It is a “sent church”: "What we are calling for is a rethinking of the Great Commission, to read it so as to see that it is defining the church in the most radical terms. The missionary mandate is not simply to send missionaries into the harvest field. It certainly is that. But the entire church is a ‘sent church’, a commissioned body that is itself involved in the harvesting task.” He continues: “What is expressed in Jesus' words [the Great Commission] is really the commissioning of the ~ new people of God. It is the emphatic demand of the Risen Lord placed on his people as a whole, and it has reference to the values, priorities, habits, and programs of every member of every congregation. In a word, it means that we are.all commissioned by the Lord in the Great Commission.” (p.53) The Great Commission is at the heart of God's purpose for the church in world. Many others have come to the same conclusion. To take but one other example, consider what David Watson has written in a widely used work on the doctrine of the church: “God is a missionary .His redemptive work in the world is missionary work. The Latin for ‘sending’ is missio; and in his love for us God sent, or missioned, his Son. Likewise Jesus told his disciples, ‘As the father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And he gave them the gift of the Spirit to empower them for this missionary task. Every Christian is therefore inescapably a missionary for Christ. A healthy church will always be especially concerned about its missionary work both on its own doorstep and overseas. It will try not to be insular and parochial, but develop steadily a worldwide perspective of the work of God ...” (I Believe in the Church, p. 298-299) Convinced that this is the primary purpose of the church, it is our goal to instill Christ's grand vision of reclaiming this fallen world in our disciples and churches planted. In The Magnificent Obsession David Swartz says, “For all of us who have heard His voice and claim His name, Jesus' conquest of a runaway planet should be our main business... Everyone who comes by faith to Jesus Christ enters the most revolutionary enterprise a human being can undertake – a pursuit of the kingdom of God!” If it does not occur to our disciples that the only natural thing for them to do is to devote their lives to taking the gospel to the lost where they can best do it, then we have failed, either in our teaching, or our lives, or both. And if the churches we plant don't see themselves as existing for the sake of the Great Commission, then they ought not to exist at all! WHM Harrow/Wembley Vision for Church Planting among Asians Overall WHM is focussed on sharing the gospel among South Asians in Britain. We want to do this primarily by planting culturally-relevant, mission-minded churches among the South Asian community. And WHM is now in a position where we are committing to move ahead with church planting work in the Harrow/Wembley area. Our commitment to church planting stands rests on a theological and a pragmatic foundation. Theologically we believe that the good news of the kingdom is embodied in the church, the people of God. The church does not merely "preach" the good news but "is" the good news. The good news is "on display" in the church. It is made understandable through the church. Further, according to scripture it seems that the church is central to the mission of God. Pragmatically we also are convinced that church planting is the most effective method/means of evangelism (various reasons not listed here…) Central to our concept of church planting is the "incarnational principle". Jesus became flesh—in a particular time and place. The church is called to "incarnate" in the world in the footsteps of Jesus ("As the Father sent me, so I am sending you…") in order to point the world to Jesus. This is why we say "culturally-relevant" churches. The church has to be understandable to particular groups of people—to take a "particular" kind of "flesh" in order to be understandable. We very much accept that when you try to become understandable to a particular group of people you necessarily begin to become less understandable to other groups of people. Also we believe that each church, consciously or not, will necessarily be aimed at some group of people. There is no "neutral ground" as it were. It is best to self-consciously state the type of people you are trying "to be understandable to"/ "to incarnate among"/"to target". When you are trying to "incarnate" among a "particular" people you need to take into account a range of variables that make a people "particular"—ethnicity, language, religion, class, caste, age, education level, occupational background, income/wealth background, foods, music etc. These variables are all important to differing degrees. This brings us to the specifics of Harrow/Wembley. In general, the South Asian community as a whole in this area is within the scope of WHM's vision in England. However we recognise that due to the large diversity within the South Asian community that a given church plant has to have a more specific focus than the general title "South Asian community". This sort of focus in any given area—especially in an initial church plant—should reflect the largest demographic sub-group of South Asians in that given area. Let's look at the relative breakdowns in the 20-45 person age group in Harrow/Wembley. Why this age group? We think this age group can act like a bridge between first and second/third generations. We understand the principle that if you reach "heads of households" you get whole families and we really would love to reach whole families and to see "heads of households" coming to Christ (in their 60's, 70's, and 80's). However in this British Asian context it seems best to reach the heads of families via initial contact with people in the 20-45 age group. If you shoot for this group you could get their parents, grandparents and kids. If you shoot for the parents or grandparents you might completely miss the 20-40's or their kids because of the big east vs. west cultural breakdowns and splits unique to the "2nd/3rd generation British Asian" group vs. their immigrant parents/grandparents in this context. In Harrow/Wembley with regard to "ethnic background" the biggest sub-group is "Gujarati ethnicity". Thus it makes sense to have the initial church plant have some sort of "Gujarati ethnic focus". Within the 20-45 age demographic the Gujarati background remains the biggest ethnicity. However, with regard to "language background" we need to be careful. Though the Gujarati ethnic group is the biggest ethnic group, the Gujarati language is not really the biggest "heart language". This is because 50-60% of the Gujarati ethnic group is born in Britain. For the folks born in England, the "heart language" is English. Within the 20-40 age range the "English heart language" percentage is probably higher than 60% because in this age group there is an even greater percentage of 2nd generation folks than the 60% in the overall Gujarati demographic. Also within this 20-40 "2nd/3rd generation British Asian" group of people it is unclear as to what degree a 2nd generation British Asian with a Gujerati ethnic background and a Hindu religious background feels further or closer to another 2nd generation British Asian with a Pakistani ethnic background and Muslim religious background as opposed to their Hindu grandmother who speaks only Gujarati and was born in a village in the Gujarat. Who is closer culturally? This is a difficult question to answer. Certainly these British Asians have a cultural identity that differs from their white middle-class English peers—but to what degree do they feel "different" from their British Asian peers as opposed to their "Indian/African-born " parents or grandparents? So what should be the "target audience" of an initial Harrow/Wembley church plant?
Some important values:
Because the majority of Asians in Harrow/Wembley are Gujaratis, we want the first church plant to be MOST understandable to 20-45 year old Second generation Gujaratis who are mostly Hindu (and their 1st Generation parents and grandparents)—but we envision that it is possible that 2nd/3rd generation British Asians who aren't Gujarati might fit very naturally (McGavran—"feel at home") into the church as well. Further we accept that if other 1st generation non-Gujarati Asians want to come even if we never use their "heart language"(i.e. Urdu ) that they would be welcome. In other words though the "target" of the church would be 20-45 year old Second generation Gujaratis who are mostly Hindu, 2nd generation Muslim Gujaratis, Pakistani Muslims, Punjabi Sikhs, Gujarati Jains etc. would all be welcome and not seen to be "outside the scope of the church" because they may naturally interact with "peer" British Asians. It would not be called a "Gujarati church" but a church trying to be most understandable to the biggest Asian group in Harrow/Wembley which happens to be Gujarati. It might seem like we are splitting hairs but I think there is a difference between these descriptions of the church. We also envision that each church-plant among the Asian community in Harrow/Wembley will not be exactly the same and that each church may end up being more understandable to various ethnic or socio-economic, or religious aspects of the Asian community. As things develop there may need to be "sub house groups" that are more defined—one could be for 20-35 year olds, one a pure Gujarati "Satsang", one that is a bit more Muslim oriented, one that has more "professionals" in it, another that has more recent immigrants in it, another that has Gujaratis that are more strict Jains or devotees of a certain living Hindu guru, another that has more westernised folks etc.
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Copyright 2004 by Chris Hatch |
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