The GRA:CE Project: Growth, Relationship and Action in the Church of England

The GRA:CE Project: Growth, Relationship and Action in the Church of England was launched at Lambeth Palace this week. The Archbishop of Canterbury commented that we cannot divide social action, discipleship and the call to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ – they're all part of the Christian journey.

Theos and the Church Urban Fund are conducting a three–year research project seeking to understand the relationship between church growth, social action and discipleship within the Church of England.

“’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Matthew 22.37–39)

Christians are called to love God and to love neighbour – and that is precisely what churches across the country seek to do, week in week out through:

• serving the needs of their local communities, through projects such as foodbanks, parent–toddler groups and night shelters;
• encouraging people on a journey of faith and deepening people’s relationships with God;
• and helping them learn to support others in their faith.

These three elements – in modern parlance: social action, discipleship and church growth – are all key to the English church in 2018.

What is the relationship between the three, however? And what would happen to church growth if we were better able to join the dots between social action and discipleship?

Their research, which includes St Martin-in-the-Fields as one of the churches being studied, involves substantial primary qualitative research, gathering interviewees, observations and case studies from a diverse range of churches in terms of geography, churchmanship and demographics. This will be followed by a quantitative study drawing on analysis of the qualitative work, aiming to measure the extent of the relationship between social action and church growth. A series of ‘roadshows’ will be held across the country to meet people, hear stories and showcase the research. The project will also develop a set of responses and ‘how to’ documents for church leaders based on the research findings. Throughout the project, there will be regular blog posts to communicate the ongoing thinking and findings of the research.

Some of the questions the research will address are:

• What are churches currently doing in terms of social action and discipleship?
• Is social action a means by which people become part of the church?
• What does this mean for church growth?
• How does discipleship fit into strategies for church growth and social action?
• How can we build on this to encourage churches in the future?

Keep up to date with progress on the GRA:CE project through their blogs here.

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Delirious? - Love Will Find A Way.

Church in Action: National Survey

Last October I provided information to the Church in Action survey about the social issues in the parish of St John's Seven Kings and the ways in which the church is supporting people in the community.

Today, the final report of this survey is being launched with findings which are impressive in showing the scale of Anglican churches' involvement in their local communities, from food banks and parent toddler groups to night shelters and lunch clubs.

'Social action is not an optional side project for the Church; it is core to its heart and mission. The commitment to this calling can be clearly seen in the scale and diversity of activities offered by local churches, ranging from food banks and debt advice, to lunch clubs and fitness classes. Not only do churches offer services that meet specific needs, they also create spaces for people to connect with and get to know others, helping to build stronger and more resilient communities. Over the last few years, there has been renewed recognition of the vital contribution churches make to our society and to the common good. Their presence within communities enables churches to offer holistic and relational support to people who are struggling with different aspects of poverty: a lack of resources, an absence of strong and supportive relationships and/or a poor sense of self-worth. This report reveals the scale and nature of Anglican social action in England. It does not capture the extensive and vital work being done by churches of other denominations. In sharing the results of our recent survey, we are able to highlight and celebrate the contribution that churches are already making to their local communities.

The key findings are:

• 95% of church leaders believe that tackling poverty in their local area is a vital activity for a healthy church – 59% agree strongly, up from 44% in 2011. Furthermore, the proportion of leaders saying this is a fundamental part of the mission of their church has increased from 44% to 53% in the last three years. 
• Loneliness is seen as the most significant social problem in local communities – cited by 64% of church leaders – followed by family breakdown, debt, lack of self-esteem and low income. 
• 87% of churches support people who are experiencing loneliness, either by providing organised activities (46%) or informal help (41%). On average, churches are addressing seven social issues, and a third are tackling nine or more. 
• The scale of church-based social action is impressive: 76% of churches run activities in local schools, 66% help to run food banks, 60% offer parent and toddler groups and 53% organise lunch clubs or drop-ins.
• The number of churches involved in running food banks has doubled in the last three years. A fifth of churches are also involved in helping credit unions in some way, a strong show of support for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s initiative.'

The full report and the summary can be downloaded at: www.cuf.org.uk/church-in-action.

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Mavis Staples - In Christ There Is No East Or West.

Making sense of the Census

The 2011 Census was the second Census in England and Wales to provide data on population by religion for regions, counties, London boroughs and districts in England and Wales on census day. The Census data has been analysed by the Church of England to produce data specific for each parish.

Those using the national Presence & Engagement website can click on their diocese to find out about the religious demographics there. It is also possible to search for the religious demographics in your parish by searching with your postcode. This includes a comparison between the 2011 and 2001 data, as well as age data and poverty data (provided via a separate link to the Church Urban Fund website).

Searching for the data on my former parish St John's Seven Kings produces the following as an example of the type and value of the information available:

"This P&E parish has a very significant 63.05% of the population consisting of faiths other than Christianity. It is a P&E parish. The population is 15200."

"The population of ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, GREAT ILFORD is 15180 and the IMD rank is 9889 out of 12,660 (where 1 is the least deprived parish).

The most significant poverty-related issue in this parish is the relatively high rate of pensioner poverty. The next most significant issue is the relatively high rate of child poverty.

Child poverty and pensioner poverty in this parish are among the highest in the country. Working age poverty in this parish is higher than average compared with other parishes in the country. Qualification levels in this parish are higher than average compared with other parishes nationally."

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George Harrison - All Things Must Pass.

Just Love: Personal and Social Transformation in Christ

The Contextual Theology Centre has posted a new item, 'Introducing our new Lent
book'

Centre Director Angus Ritchie blogs on his new Lent book, written with Paul Hackwood (Executive Chair of the Church Urban Fund).

Costing under £10, with significant further discounts for bulk buys for study
groups, Just Love: Personal and Social Transformation in Christ will be
published early next month.

The last year has seen two exciting developments for Christians committed to
social justice.  They make it an excellent time to launch a book on the
personal and social aspects of transformation in Christ.

You may view the latest post at http://www.theology-centre.org.uk/new-lent-book/.


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Ed Kowalczyk - Grace.

New Cosmopolitanism and Just Love

The global expansion in migration means large cities like London are becoming home to new waves of migrants. This change has instigated new ideas about social interaction, religion and cultural identity. In October, the Contextual Theology Centre will be partnering with the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies to host an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Contending Modernities project.

The New Cosmopolitanism is a conference considering global migration and the building of a common life which will be held on 14/15 October.  The conference, which grows out of CTC's work in East London, offers:

… a fresh look at a question that is dominating the headlines – how the diverse groups that globalisation brings together can discern and promote a truly “common good”;
… an opportunity to respond to the increasing focus on these issues from Pope Francis, which is catching the imagination of those far outside the Church; and
… a unique blend of academic rigour and on-the-ground engagement, funded by one of the world’s premier Catholic Universities.

CTC are also preparing a new resource for Lent 2014. Angus Ritchie and Paul Hackwood (Chair of the Church Urban Fund) are currently writing Just Love: Personal and Social Transformation in Christ which will use the Gospel readings for each Sunday Lent to explore how Jesus loved, and why this love led him to the cross.

It will draw out the implications of his transforming love – both for our individual lives and for our social and economic order.  Drawing on decades of inner-city ministry, the authors aim to show that “Christ-like love” is more than a compelling idea.  It is a powerful reality, enabling people to live out God’s just love in the most challenging of neighbourhoods.

Just Love will be written accessible language, with testimony from lay and ordained Christians already involved in social action.  Written for both individual devotion and study groups, it will include specific, realistic suggestions for prayer, reflection and action.  It will be written for use by individuals and study groups.

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Aretha Franklin - (To Be) Young, Gifted And Black.

Benefits of active community engagement by churches

The Cinnamon Network have sent information about interesting new research from the Church Urban Fund which seems to confirm the hypothesis that when a church looks outward - actively loving and serving its neighbours, especially the 'least of these' - then the church will be healthier and will grow.

The study comissioned by Church Urban Fund and conducted by Christian Research explores the impact that social growth has on churches, as well as on the communities they serve. How does active engagement in the community help to stimulate church 'growth'?

In the study, the majority of church leaders believe that tackling poverty locally contributes to a more outward looking church (79%), a deeper understanding of God’s purpose (76%), and improved relations with other local organisations (71%), the wider community (71%) and within the church (57%).

A significant minority make a direct link between tackling local poverty and increased levels of giving (33%) and growing numbers of worshippers (28%).

Churches that are doing more to meet the needs of their community are much more likely to experience these benefits than churches that are aware of local needs but are not responding to them.

Church leaders were clear that their work to serve the community was not done with the primary aim of growing the church, though in all but one case, their churches had grown substantially. When asked separately about how the size of their congregation has changed over the previous five years, it is clear that the churches doing most to serve those affected by poverty are much more likely to be growing.

Conversely, only a tenth of the most active churches have declined in numbers, compared with nearly a third of churches that are not doing anything to meet local needs.

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The Jam - Start!

Lent: Confronting us with reality

This was my Ash Wednesday sermon, based heavily on materials from Call to Change:

"Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'

"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'"

Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself." (Luke 18. 9 - 14)

The prayer of the tax man opened him up to reality – the reality of who he really was – while the prayer of the Pharisee was an exercise in unreality because it was designed to make him look better than he was by comparison with others.

This is one of the reasons why Jesus says in Matthew 6. 1 - 6 don’t perform your religious duties in public and don’t pray where everyone can see you. If our religious duties and our prayers are performed to gain the praise of others then they are not opening us up to the reality of who we are, instead they are poses designed to escape from, hide or mask that reality.

God’s judgment confronts us with reality.  His word pierces through our layers of self-deception.  It pierces through the false gods of profit, popularity and status on which we set our hearts, and through our shell of self-protecting cynicism.

Under the loving judgment of God, we see ourselves as we really are.  We see the futility of our self-deception, the emptiness of our false gods and the destructiveness of our cynicism.  Why does God force this painful truth upon us?  For this reason: it is only when we face the reality of our lives that change and growth become possible.

The prayers and practices of Lent exist to open us to reality.  Their words of penitence urge us to face the truth about our sins and their impact on others.  For example, the chastening words of the Ash Wednesday liturgy ‘Remember thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return’ force us to face the truth of our mortality.

We won’t go on forever.  The choices we make each day mean there are paths down which we have decided not to travel, possibilities we have shut down, perhaps permanently.  We need to ask what kind of values we will affirm, in our deeds as well as our words.  As we face our mortality, we are forced to ask: what do I want this life to say?

This question needs to be considered alongside an honest examination of what my life currently says.  What would you say my values and priorities were if you looked, not at the beliefs I profess, but at the ways I spend my time and money, the things that preoccupy and vex me, the ways I treat the people around me?

Lent helps us to explore the gap between the answers we give to these two questions: what does this life say? and what do I want it to say?

These are questions we can also ask of our common life.  In The Rock T.S. Eliot asks:

What is the meaning of this city?

Do you huddle together because you love each other?

What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together

To make money from each other?’ or ‘This is a community?’

Today, many people are asking these questions with a new intensity.  There is a large and growing gap between rich and poor, one which politicians of all parties say they want to see reversed.  And we all live with the ongoing and unpredictable consequences of the global financial crisis for years to come. In the midst of a recession – and the yawning gap between the richest and poorest in our society – there is a growing sense that something needs to change.

So this Lent, two Christian social action charities – The Contextual Theology Centre and the Church Urban Fund – are issuing a Call to Change.  (This is online at www.calltochange.withtank.com and on Twitter at @calltochange.)  It builds on decades of ministry by churches in some of England’s poorest neighbourhoods.  It seeks to draw more people into their work of prayer, of listening and of action for social justice by use of the season of Lent to achieve real change in our local and national life.

The Call to Change is not a call to scapegoat someone else – be they a ‘benefits scrounger’ or a banker.  Each of us is called to open ourselves to reality.  We do this through prayer: as we encounter the ultimate reality of God in Scripture, worship and personal devotion.  We do it too through listening: and in particular, a serious engagement with the voice of England’s poorest communities.

Words are not enough.  They need to take flesh in action.  The experience of churches engaged in their local community points to concrete things every Christian and congregation can do – to tackle poverty, and build an economic system that works for poor as well as rich.

Lent is traditionally seen as a rather gloomy time, when we turn inward in tortured self-examination.  The truth is very different.  The deeper purpose of this season is to draw us outward – into a deeper communion with God and with neighbour. We actually need Lent now more than ever, so that mind, body and spirit can be released from the self-indulgence of a consumerist, individualistic society. The ‘Good News’ of Lent is how much more we believe there is to life than this. This is God’s reality which Lent enables us to encounter.

Lent is mirrored on the way Jesus’ own ministry began: with forty days of prayerful discernment. Only then can our action be part of God’s transforming work. Without prayer, we will not discern God’s purposes or act his power. Without listening, we will not discover our neighbours’ concerns - or be able to harness the power of common action.

Both prayer and listening help us see that Christian discipleship involves a challenge to the values of our broken world. In Lent, we are called to remove the idols of money and power from the thrones they have in our hearts and in our society. In Lent, we are challenged to face up to the reality of our self-indulgence in a consumerist, individualistic society and remember that money and power are to be placed at the service of Christ, and of his Kingdom of justice and of peace.

It is through changes like these, individual and corporate, that we can grow together into ‘life in all its fullness.’ That is the message of Lent. And, more importantly, it is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s word of love made flesh.

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Keane - Everybody's Changing.

Christmas at St John's (2)

This year we sang carols at a local supported housing complex before carol singing on the streets; another new opportunity to open up for us at St John's Seven Kings this year. We raised funds for the Church Urban Fund with our carol singing and at our Nativity and Tree Lighting service, where we also collected presents for children known to Barnardos. Numbers were up on the previous year at all our main Christmas services. Work began on refurbishing our Fellowship Room which will give us level access throughout the whole building.

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Extreme - Peace.

Resurrecting individuals & cultures

Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is My Bed an installation by Tracy Emin was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles.

A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.

Our Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 37. 1-10 suggested something very similar about the people of Israel. Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones and God said to him that the people of Israel were like those bones, dried up without any hope and with no future.

Sometimes our lives feel like these two pictures - dried up, no future, diseased, empty, dead. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead.

Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain a few years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them.

Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline (although many of the Churches in the Deanery suggest otherwise) and my Church, the Church of England is dealing with major conflicts over women bishops and gay clergy that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.

Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In Ezekiel God promised that he would put his breath into the people of Israel and bring them back to life and in our Gospel reading (John 11. 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Ezekiel that he would bring the people of Israel back to life. In Jesus, Israel lived life as God had intended and fulfilled Israel’s mission of bringing light to the rest of the world. In this way, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so.

He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. This is why it is important for us to support the work of the Church Urban Fund during Lent as their funding helps disadvantaged people escape their disadvantage. It is why it is important for us to live and work with people of other faiths, as we have been thinking about through our evening Lent course, so that we can escape the dead-end of racial conflicts. It is also why it is important for us to be involved in the regeneration of our area and borough. The beginning of this week saw a deanery meeting on Redbridge and Regeneration held here at St John’s and the end of the week the first public meeting of the Take Action for Seven Kings group.

Each of us can do the same as Jesus through our work and community involvements and we need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us, through those involvements, to transform parts of our society and culture.

Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues.

After Easter we plan to run another Alpha course. Courses like Alpha provide great opportunities for us all to share our faith. There maybe someone that you can invite and bring along to the course or you may be able to help with running the course by helping with refreshments or setting up the room or helping in a discussion group (see me for more details after, if you can help or would like to come on the course). Think for a moment about the people and places where you can share the good news of life after death through our Lord Jesus.

Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus is saying and doing. He is wanting them to see how God is at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They keep looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus goes back to Judea then he will be killed, if Lazarus is asleep then he will get better, and so on. Jesus wants them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he draws out of them the commitment to go with him even though they may die with him.

Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helps Martha to move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helps all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural. Throughout, Jesus is challenging all the people he encounters to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.

Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this morning? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life or will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are? As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence:

Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

Ash Wednesday sermon

There is a great scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where Brian’s Mum and all the other women in his town buy false beards and begin speaking in low tones so that they can pretend to be men and therefore can go to the public stoning. In that scene, the women’s enthusiasm to be present at the stoning and to cast the first stone is symptomatic of our desire to scapegoat other people. We love nothing better, they were saying, than to single out a victim, gang up on that person and see them abused or killed.

We see this happening in our schools when children are bullied. We see it in politics when a party like the BNP succeeds in local elections by persuading people that all their problems are caused by refugees and asylum seekers.

A teacher at the Asian Friendship Centre in Forest Gate, a project supported by the Church Urban Fund, gives just one example from many, of “A young man from Pakistan had limited English. He was laughed at in school and was very lonely.” Forest Gate has high levels of poverty, unemployment and crime, which leave many locally feeling isolated from mainstream society - scapegoated. As a base for social gatherings and employment and educational support, the Asian Friendship Centre is a vital resource which helps to make local people feel a welcome part of their community.

The Church Urban Fund has also been actively involved in the Poverty and Homelessness Week which has just ended. Alison Gelder, Chief Executive of Housing Justice, said: “Churches rightly pay lots of attention to poverty and hunger in the third world but often fail to appreciate the extent of the problem at home … [It is] a scandal that in this the fifth biggest economy in the world more than one in five people are living in poverty … For most people in poverty in Britain it is not about literally being homeless or having no money but about not being able to fully participate in society.”

People at the margins of society such as families having to endure cramped overcrowded accommodation, asylum seekers who are suffering destitution, disabled people having to live in inappropriate housing and families forced into debt in order to afford everyday items, end up being scapegoats for the rest of society.

So the Pythons were right when we look around our world we see many examples of a rush to scapegoat other people. What do our Bible readings have to say to us about this very human tendency?

In our Gospel reading (John 8. 1-11), Jesus is faced with a dilemma involving a scapegoat. A woman has been caught in adultery, the Law of Moses says that she should be stoned, and the teachers of the law bring her to Jesus and ask him what they should do.

The woman is a scapegoat because she has been singled out. It is she, not her partner in adultery, which has been brought before Jesus. And it is she that has been singled out, not any other of the men or women in that place who might have committed adultery.

How does Jesus respond? He says that anyone there who has never sinned should be the one to cast the first stone and begin the stoning. One by one, everyone in the crowd leaves because no one has never sinned. Each of us is a sinner and, therefore, none of us are in a place where we can honestly judge another person. That other person is guilty of sinning but so are we, how then can we judge them?

The one person in that situation who had a right to cast the first stone because he was without sin was Jesus. And he says, “I do not condemn you.” In verse 15 of chapter 8, Jesus says, “You make judgments in a purely human way; I pass judgment on no one.”

This is a crystal clear statement from Jesus about our tendency to scapegoat others. Because of our sin, we cannot in all conscience condemn another person and God himself does not condemn or judge either. Jesus makes it plain and clear that scapegoating others is wrong in every circumstance.

Lent prepares us for Easter and at Easter we remember that God himself became a scapegoat when he was nailed to the cross for the sins of the whole world. Jesus became the ultimate scapegoat in order that there should be no more scapegoating because his death shows us clear and plain that God accepts and forgives all people.

Often, we prepare ourselves during Lent for Easter by giving something up. This is a form of fasting but it is not meant to be focused on ourselves, like a diet is as we try to lose wait. Instead fasting or self denial should be focused outside of ourselves.

The reading from Isaiah (58. 1-12) says that the kind of fasting that God wants is for us to “remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.” As those who follow God, we should actively work for the relief of those who are scapegoated in our world. The two things can go together as, by denying ourselves luxuries during Lent, we can release money to go to those who have been scapegoated here and in other parts of the world.

If we were to give up having a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate a day, by the end of Lent we could give £12. If we were to give up a bottle of wine once a week, we could give £20. If we gave up meals out during Lent, we could give £50 and if we gave up unnecessary luxuries in our weekly family shop, we could give £100. So, let’s use our Lent appeal for the Church Urban Fund, our Lent lunch and the other Lent information and ideas around to think about the ways in which we can give to the relief of oppression in our world this Lent.

But the kind of fasting that God calls for, the ending of scapegoating, isn’t just about giving financially. It is also about the ending of scapegoating in our own lives and communities. It means addressing the issues of bullying, in and out of school, among young people. It means resisting the calls of those, like the BNP, who want us to scapegoat asylum seekers and refugees instead of providing the welcome for which the Bible calls. It means living out hospitality and welcome to those of other faiths in our local community, as we will be discussing in our evening Lent course. Let us give willingly and joyfully to relive oppression in our country and throughout our world but let us not use that as a reason to avoid the challenges to counter scapegoating that arise in our own community as well.

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Living Colour - Solace Of You.