Laurie Green: Hearing the voice of the people

Yesterday, the Diocese of Chelmsford said goodbye to Bishop Laurie Green who has been the Area Bishop of Bradwell since 1993, serving an extremely varied region of South Essex. We were reminded during the presentations at the end of the farewell service of Laurie's very significant contributions in affirming ministries, encouraging community engagement, and bringing us into the heart of the mystery that is God. He has also had a much wider ministry throughout his ordained ministry and his time as Bishop of Bradwell including chairing the Church of England’s Urban Strategy Consultative Group and of the ecumenical National Estate Churches Network. Laurie has also had a significant ministry in encouraging the application of theology to life. We were reminded that his seminal book is called 'Let's do theology' and not let's talk theology or let's read theology.

I first encountered Laurie through his support of the Voice of the People Trust, a charity formed by my father Phil Evens as a seed bed for inner city community engagement. Laurie wrote the following in support of Voice of the People which I think sums up some of the main thrusts of his ministry:

"When the Church report, 'Faith in the City', was published, the Government ran wild with fear and even managed to accuse the Church of England - yes, the Church of England - of producing a Marxist report. It seemed to me that what made them so anxious and made them want to scupper the report was that it asked a very basic question - Why can't ordinary people make decisions about their own lives? Why should inner city people not be allowed to voice their own concerns and be given the wherewithall to do something about them? It was this simple question which seemed to scare the powers that be. Those in power in our society are very willing to raise a bit of money for projects which ease the plight of inner city people but they are still not prepared to learn from the voice of those who have an altogether different experience of society from theirs - the voice which comes from experiences of the joys and the oppressions of the inner city. The 'Voice of the People' is a realistic response to those questions in the Report and comes from a deeply felt Christian concern that since all of us are made in God's image, then we should all be listened to - all God's children should have an equal voice. 'The Voice' [the Trust's newsletter] tries to act as a vehicle for working-class values and working-class culture to be expressed and for working-class Christians to have a say. The powers that be will learn a lot from listening to the Cry of the City just as in the Bible, time and again, it was the cry of the people at the bottom of the pile that was the voice that God listened to and upon which God acted.

But I can't blame big business for not wanting to follow that more radical path of listening and learning from those who on the face of it can only be recipients of their gifts. But wouldn't it be great if as well as gifts flowing from the rich to the poor, the rich would also be prepared to receive the gift that the poor have to give to them - the voice of experience - the experience of being vulnerable and unprotected from society. The rich are protected from the harsh realities of our society and so they are in no position to understand it - because they don't see it. I welcome projects like 'Voice of the People' and wish there were more of them so that those in power could hear what things are really like in the society they control and so that ordinary men and women can share their hopes, aspirations and Christian beliefs."

It was a great joy to us as a family that I was ordained Deacon by Laurie and we wish him every blessing in the challenges of what will, no doubt, be an active retirement through which he continues to engage with these same issues.

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Martyn Joseph - He Never Said.