Voice of the People - Part 3

My Dad has been a man of commitment and integrity throughout his life. He is, without doubt, the person from whom I have learnt the most. At this point in his life when he is so ill I would like others to know a little of what it is about him that has been so special to me and many others. What follows, in this and subsequent posts, is a little of the man that we know and love in his own words:

"The Voice of the People Trust was formed to: work at the grass roots level of our society; encourage Bible-based experimental and innovative projects in disadvantaged, urban communities; listen to the voice of people and groups in such areas; and devise projects that link into local need using self-help community development principles where appropriate.

The Trust undertook the following work:

• Applied Research: A confidential survey was carried out among Angelical Parish Clergy ministering in The City of Birmingham's 72 Urban Priority Area Parishes. The results were published, in 1990, as Despair and Hope in the City - Community Work: What relevance to a C/E parish struggling to survive in an "Urban Priority Area"?


• Project Evaluation: A blueprint for detached Community Youth Projects was developed. This blueprint was adopted and implemented in the Aston and Newtown areas of Birmingham. A community centre project was fully revised. This revision was successfully implemented by the church involved. A volunteering project was planned and funding obtained. The project was successfully implemented by the church involved. The management committee of a outward bound youth project was re-structured.


• Publishing: The Trust published a series of wide ranging and accessible papers on Biblical urban involvement: Despair and Hope in the City; Ten 'Thoughtsheets' - occasional papers covering a variety of aspects of church-based community involvement; Voice of Prayer the Trust's news, prayer and information magazine.


• Youth Needs: The Aston Community Youth Project was set up by the Trust and began work in October 1989. It adopted a task-force approach based on self-help principles. It's workers were placed outside of existing church networks into the 'life space' of disaffected young people. The Trust set up a Management Committee of local people who after the initial starting up period took over the running of the project. The management committee later assisted churches in the Newtown area of Birmingham to duplicate the project. Both projects later amalgamated to form the Aston and Newtown Community Youth Project.


• Debt: The Trust published material on debt in a Thoughtsheet and unsuccessfully bid for funding to carry out a feasibility study for a Debt project in the B11 area of Birmingham.


• Ethnic Minorities: The Trust blueprint for the Community Youth Project enabled the project to become genuinely multi-cultural with this being reflected in its users, staff, management committee and partners. A Thoughtsheet was published about grant funding to ethnic religious groups.

Work on the Trust was carried out in conjunction with Phil's church ministry firstly, as a curate at Aston Parish Church and then as vicar of St Edmund's, Tysley. In both settings he was able to encourage the development of church led community action. He was helped in work on the Trust by three Trustees who also implemented aspects of the Trust's thinking in their local settings.

The Trust had grown from a small, localised think tank into a charity that was increasingly involved in fund raising and management issues for a number of different projects. The burden of the administration of this work feel solely on the Trustees and this began to prove too great for their voluntary input. In the autumn of 1992 the Trustees gave themselves 18 months to discover a solution to this problem. A development plan was produced and a programme of internal discussion, external consultation and fundraising applications begun.

Each aspect of this development programme was blocked throughout the allotted period. Attempts to expand the support base failed to bring any significant increase, funding applications were unsuccessful and consultations with church authorities encountered strong and, at times, hurtful criticism. As a result the Trustees took a decision to close down the Trust.

This whole process was a difficult and painful time for all involved in the Trust, particularly Phil. The parable of the mustard seed had been meaningful throughout the life of the Trust. At first the Trust viewed itself as a small seed that had potential for growth. Later, that growth occurred. Now, however, it seemed that the Trust itself had to die – Phil and the other Trustees hoped it would be reborn in some fashion."

What happened at this stage was that God began to lead Phil into a discovery of Celtic Christianity including a period of pilgrimage that began to challenge and develop further his own spiritual life. This discovery also complemented and assisted the exploration of spirituality that was underway at St Edmund's, Tysley. Celtic-based materials seemed to communicate well in an urban context and a project to study the use of such materials in an urban setting developed.

At the point that Phil's hopes and plans for 'Voice of the People' seemed dashed new and unexpected opportunities developed that fed into his thinking and acting on urban ministry.
Then, the Management Committee of the Aston and Newtown Community Youth Project stepped in and proposed a plan for continuing the Trust as a merger with the Youth Project.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Stevie Wonder - Living For The City.

Voice of the People - Part 2

Before taking up the next phase of Dad's life journey, what follows is an extract from his book, Community Work: Theory and Practice. Remember, as you read, that the essay from which this extract is taken was published in 1974 in a book written for community and social workers, not for the Church. I have a friend who was inspired to find work in the mainstream (i.e. non-Church) youth services of this country by the argument in this essay:

"The church in this country with its various sectarian groupings is structured in a way that seems typical of organisations in the modern, industrial Western world. Such sectarian groups usually have a powerful, central, national committee with a hierarchical structure of organisation and control leading down to individual churches, with some more than others, having systems of lay participation and control. Equally, they vary in other degrees for example, from bureaucratic to charismatic forms of control, yet so often their central characteristics remain. Central organisation, a common constitution, similar local patterns of church government and control; structured ways of worship and church activity with a rigid pattern of norms governing individual behaviour and so on. What seems to have been lost is the 'organic' nature of the church, the Jesus centred freedom in the community of Christians so cardinal to the early New Testament church, and so much the concern of Bonhoeffer.

The basis of my argument is that the New Testament ideology and its obligation to communicate its message has become wedded to the organisational structures of the Western world, structures which are being, and which will increasingly be rejected by the present generation. It should, therefore, not be a matter of surprise to learn that it is often the homes of Christian believers that are becoming 'oases' in the desert streets of their village, their town, their city, to which people come to share in the Christian way of life, rather than in formal meetings within church buildings. The Holy Spirit is so often active outside of the establishment-type institutional structure of many churches upon which believers have heaped such a concentration of their commitment, work and resources. And yet these "dry bones" to recall Ezekiel 37 could become alive!

If we are to be concerned about Christian community life then our first concern should be that we and fellow believers in our locality are sharing our lives in fellowship and in service in an 'organic' manner. We need to increasingly consider the personal and local implications of this. Such a way of living may be different from the traditional norms of church living and service which have become encapsulated within the chrysalis embrace of the church building and the church as a formal organisation.

Here then is a major problem ... the structure, the norms, and patterns of behaviour so often associated with church life in this country. Perhaps we should re-read Revelation 2 and 3 about the message of the angel to the churches. Perhaps we should take another peep at "Solomon's Song" so filled with an endearing love, commitment and vision of what that love in fulfilment could mean, and of the readiness to suffer and sacrifice that it might be attained ... "I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets. In the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth" (Solomon's Song 3: 2). You see, the obligations stem from love. Perhaps Jesus is outside your church, somewhere within the busy thoroughfares of your neighbourhood?

Many evangelicals in Victorian England heeded this, as Margaret Heasman has so carefully documented. She writes:

"It gradually became an accepted fact that social work in one way or another was a duty of every earnest Christian. From having looked upon charity as a duty to less fortunate members of the church, and perhaps to those who are obviously in urgent need, it was extended to include all who were in some way under privileged. Evangelicalism passed from the somewhat introverted and introspective attitude of personal salvation which it had tended to assume in the 18th Century, to an active benevolence which attempted to demonstrate the spirit of Christ by helping other people who were in need."

We need to re-capture their vision and apply it to the social situations in the concrete jungles and urban deserts of the present. It seems regrettable that so many believers still limit their Christian work to their church-focused activities. Social need they leave to 'the welfare' and the other percentage of their lives are lived within their homes, and the trappings of an affluent, respectable, consumer-focused society. One reason why the masses are not being reached is because the church and church people are failing to be involved, or to communicate their message in a relevant and comprehensive manner. Revival within individual believers, and their church seems a basic pre-requisite if this situation is to be altered, and a recognition that we are not talking about a 'Social gospel' when we advocate such changes ...

... the church has a major community work opportunity facing it as it had in Victorian Britain. And, the church in action, has capital and a fund of goodwill which it could employ if it was ready. This could be employed for example at the sociological level of community i.e., the local authority administrative level, where the church could be involved in planning, liaison and co-ordination with the Social Services departments, Councils of Social Services, Tenants' Associations and so on. It could be involved also at the grass-roots level of actually providing services to meet local need, playgroups, Adventure Playgrounds; acting as a contact group for those in need and sharing its community life with others."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Specials - Ghost Town.

Voice of the People - Part 1

My Dad has been a man of commitment and integrity throughout his life. He is, without doubt, the person from whom I have learnt the most. At this point in his life when he is so ill I would like others to know a little of what it is about him that has been so special to me and many others. What follows, in this and subsequent posts, is a little of the man that we know and love in his own words:

Philip Alistair Evens was born, in 1936, into a North Somerset working class family - his father was a plumber by trade - living on the edge of the city of Bristol. He remained in that setting, and in membership of a strict non-conformist group called the Open Brethren, until his early twenties. After doing a variety of jobs, including clerical work, factory work and nursing (which gave him a real interest in people), he began studying through night school and correspondence courses for a GCE 'A' Level.

In 1958 he went to Leicester University where he obtained a special honours degree in Sociology, and then a certificate in Applied Social Studies (Social Work Training Course). He married during 1962 and then began work as a basic grade Social Worker (Child Care Officer) in Somerset. This process of social mobility led him to become, in 1965, the youngest Deputy Children's Officer in the country when he and his family moved to Luton. Here, he helped set up a new Children's Department, as Luton had just become a County Borough, and new, experimental projects such as the Bury Park Family Advice Centre in a multi-ethnic part of Luton. He also started a research project on deprived social needs areas at the London School of Economics.

In 1970, the family moved to Oxford where Phil entered Social Work education by becoming a Lecturer in Applied Social Studies at Oxford University (Department of Social and Administrative Studies). He discovered that he really did not 'fit' into that rather exclusive network of 'North Oxbridge Society' people. He was able to move back a bit nearer to his ideological 'home', and his working class identity, by setting up an Applied Action Research Community Work Project in 1973. This was a joint project between the University, the Local Authority Social Services department, Central Government and an international charity called the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The project was called the 'Barton Project' after the council estate on which it was based. Phil was appointed Director of the project. His experiences in this project and other contributions to the development of community work were published in a two volume series of books called Readings in Social Change. Volume 1 Community Work: Theory and Practice was published in 1974 and Volume 2 The Barton Project in 1976. Both were published by a company called Alistair Shornach Oxford, set up and marketed by Phil.

In 1976, following the massive inflation of the 1970's, the Project lost funding and Phil's job was re-structured away. He became unemployed, had to sell his home in Oxford and return, somewhat disillusioned, to his working class roots in Somerset. He became a £39 per week horticultural labourer, then did a TOPS retraining course in horticulture. Following this, he became self employed as a gardener/landscaper setting up his own business 'Wessex Gardening' with nil capital. This became successful and provided a healthy outdoor life for a number of years.

During this major mid-life crisis he, and his wife, put their roots down in the Church of England. Within this, Phil continued to do, as he had done for many years, to set up and run detached types of Christian youth clubs. From the end of the 1970's, this led into involvement in wider aspects of the ministry of Church of England - pastoral work, PCC membership, deanery stewardship officer - eventually resulting in a 'call' to train for the ministry.

Phil automatically presumed that, seeing as he was a working man enjoying the outdoor life and having re-created his human security following his redundancy, God would want him in the non-stipendiary ministry. He very much liked the worker priest concept. When interviewed by the Suffragan Bishop of Taunton, however, an Abramic challenge was put to him. Was he prepared to go forward in utter trust in God not knowing what the result would be, or where it might lead? Or, instead had he decided that it had to be NSM ministry in Somerset? This challenge was deeply moving as it touched very directly on the personal struggle of his wife and himself for survival and human security for themselves and their family. Being socially mobile from the factory floor to Oxford and then to lose it all had led to a colossal struggle to re-adapt to working class life and self employment. Now that he had succeeded in this, to give it up would be extremely hard.

After the interview, the Suffragan Bishop strongly advised Phil to go forward for full-time training saying, "The Church of England had been thoroughly middle-class in its ministry ... that the number of Priests available to the Church who could communicate with artisans and working-class people was at a premium ..." So, in a strange way, after leaving the city and experimental community work God seemed to be dragging him back again.

Following ACCM and the Bishop's acceptance of its recommendation, the family sold up and moved to Trinity Theological College. Whilst there, he set up a Trust to sponsor Christian ministry in Urban Priority Areas, mainly through community work project developments linked to local parish churches. He called it the 'Voice of the People Trust'.

During 1984, a Christian magazine called Grassroots had published a critique by Phil about the magazine and what, he perceived to be, its failure at that time to uphold its objective of being "a friend to the poor and oppressed". This critique argued against an 'issue' orientated approach which he equated with middle class thinking. This "allows people to be intellectually involved in discussion about social justice, the nuclear debate, the poor and oppressed etc. without this necessarily having any real effect on their own lifestyle". Such an approach allows "the freedom to maintain a split between the two parts of our nature, the intellectual beliefs (social justice etc.) and the emotional (the actual lifestyle adopted, affluent, cultured etc.)."

He argued that "it is more important to emphasise the work of the Holy Spirit in challenging the British class structure than to be concerned about issues of social justice, the nuclear arms race, feminism and the like. We need to be very cautious lest we are pressed into humanistic and secular objectives that are likely, in the end, to leave the poor, and the disadvantaged ... Instead we must try to discover what the 'voice' of the ordinary people really is and what their values are. We must do what Jesus did, to come down among the ordinary people and relate to them according to their actual needs. Only this will help all of us to move out from the social class stranglehold into the classless freedom of being sons of God."

A friend of Phil's challenged him not merely to write critiques but to actually do something about the matter of discerning more of the voice of under privileged people. The result was the 'Voice of the People Trust'.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gary Clail On-U Sound Syatem - (There's Something Wrong With) Human Nature.

In the desert

A couple of days ago my niece said, "I love Grandad, up, up, up ..." My sister and mum expected her to say, "up in heaven," but instead she said, "up in the desert."

The prosaic reason for this is probably that my Mum and Dad had told her about visiting the desert during their recent holiday in Israel and had enthused about how interesting the desert there was.

More profoundly, as children's insights often are, my Dad (her grandad) is, through his illness, now in the desert metaphorically. Time spent in the desert has often been seen as liminal or transitional time and that is certainly where my Dad is currently. Caught between the life he has lived for 71 years and the life he will continue to live with Christ after death, what he is currently experiencing in his unconcious but still breathing state is no life at all by comparison.

When the Israelites travelled through the wilderness they, despite their meanderings and circlings, were en-route for the Promised Land. The same could be said of my Dad. Their meanderings and circlings were deemed necessary for learning lessons that would be needed when they entered the Promised Land. Quite what my Dad can or is learning from his wilderness experience I do not know.

It may be, of course, that there are lessons for our family to learn from this wilderness time; because that is also where we are as we wait for something to happen, speaking to, touching, and praying for him not knowing whether he can hear or register any or all of what we do, say or feel. Again, if there are lessons to be learned at the moment I do not know what the hell they are!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Black Eyed Peas - Where is the love?

Stardust and Seeker

Stardust is a feel-good fairy laced with wit and irony. Michelle Pfeiffer is a wonderfully wicked witch and Robert De Niro is hilarious as the lightning catching camp pirate.

Seeker has a gripping and original plot line which keeps you hooked all the way to the fascinating but briefly described denouement. The storyline is the book's strength and compensates for the rather plain style in which the story is told.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Young Disciples - Apparently Nothin' (Soul River).

Issues facing London's economy

Mission in London’s Economy (MiLE) and Faith Regen Foundation (FRF) are inviting representatives of faith-based business organisations to a round table discussion on faith community responses to the issues facing London’s economy. This meeting is to be held on Thursday 24th January from 10.30am at The Royal Foundation of St Katherine, 2 Butcher Row, London E14 8DS (with lunch to follow).

MiLE exists to draw together the expertise of a wide variety of people working in London to advise on ways and means of the church fulfilling a ministry towards the industrial, commercial and urban community and to stimulate public opinion on relations between the Christian faith and industrial, commercial and economic life. FRF is a Muslim-led multi-faith agency committed to working towards increasing social harmony in our society, through multi-faith action, by empowering and regenerating individuals and communities through the development of increased capacity, economic independence and a stronger voice.

MiLE and FRF are interested in working together with other faith-based business organisation to explore interest in ways of creating co-ordinated faith community responses to the issues facing London's economy. The round table discussion on 24th January is intended as an opportunity to explore the scope that might exist for such joint working.

Initial thoughts on possible responses include:

· publicity for faith-based business organisations/resources;
· conferences/seminars on faith-based approaches to business;
· information leaflets/booklets on faith-related issues in business;
· faith-based responses to consultations on London’s economy.

However, the round table discussion and any subsequent meetings would be used to determine what, if any, responses might be developed.

Faith-based business organisations are encouraged to be part of an initial discussion which is genuinely open in its agenda and which holds potential for raising the profile of the vital part that faith actually plays within London’s economy.

For more information contact: Revd. Jonathan Evens, Chair of MiLE’s Practitioner Group 6 and FRF consultant
C/o Mission in London's Economy, The Royal Foundation of St Katherine, 2 Butcher Row, London E14 8DS
or Tel: 020 8599 2170 / Email: jonathan.evens@btinternet.com .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ricky Ross - This Is The Life.

Go Gordon

Over 12,300 people from the UK sent email, photo and video messages to Gordon Brown as part of Oxfam's Go Gordon campaign.

Thanks to these combined messages, during his first 100 days Gordon Brown has: committed extra funds for aid which will pay for schools, teachers, nurses and doctors across Africa; and shown strong leadership on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and Chad. The Prime Minister's response to these messages and Oxfam's verdict on his first 100 days can be read by clicking here.

But there’s plenty more for the Prime Minister and the government to do. Oxfam need people to keep the pressure on key decision makers, and to take immediate action on climate change, which is already undermining their work to end poverty.

So, by clicking here you can tell Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to put the needs of poor people at the heart of crucial UN climate change talks in December.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Moya Brennan - Perfect Time.