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Pastors in England Discuss Postmodern Outreach to the Ethnic Majority Population
Submitted: May 4, 2012
By AT New Team
Pastors from the South England Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church met on the campus of Newbold College April 18 to discuss outreach among the ethnic majority in the United Kingdom and the postmodern context of their ministry. Dr. Miroslav Pujic, director of ministry to post moderns for the Trans-European Division of the denomination, sketched some key aspects of how a postmodern mindset operates and listed several challenges for the Adventist Church’s conventional evangelistic methods. He noted that a postmodern mindset responds better to a relational approach rather than a program. He urged the pastors to "always start the conversation with Jesus."
"The presentation brought out some wider principles as we try to reach a secular society," stated Southampton pastor Douglas McCormac. Pastor Sam Davies from the Bedford and Milton Keynes churches appreciated the presentation. "It helped me rethink my approach to the wider community."
The afternoon debate on reaching the majority population of the UK displayed a passion among the pastors to find methods to reach this culture. In small groups they discussed threats and opportunities, what has worked where, class differences and cultural diversity within the majority population, and how the Adventist denomination can engage this specific group.
Pastor Theo Rios of the English and Portuguese congregations in Peterborough, called for a better plan from Church administration. Other pastors agreed and stated that this work has to be done in a local context. Youth worker Steven Hulbert emphasized that it is by developing authentic friendships in the local community that churches grow. Pastor Kwesi Moore expressed his feeling that the day had given him an "awareness of how little we understand of the enormity of the task, and how important it is that we can share a deep love for people, regardless of cultural context, color or philosophical perspective."
Pastor Ian Sleeman convened the meeting. "I wanted to share my hopes and dreams for evangelizing the majority population. We have had the discussion many times before, but it was good to hear other pastors' frustration and perceived opportunities, and together, I hope we can find a way forward."
The Seventh-day Adventist congregations in the South England Conference have become almost entirely made up of immigrants from the Caribbean over the last several decades. There are very few new members from the majority white, English population of the country. The South England Conference includes 22 counties and four English Channel islands. It has 144 local congregations with 21,500 members among a population of nearly 28 million or less than one-tenth of one percent of the total population.
Reports from Kirsten Øster-Lundqvist at the South England Conference were included in this story.
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I have visited several SDA churches in France and it is the same problem - no 'native' French people. Again, the SDA Church there appears to consist almost entirely persons whose recent ancestors were the ex-colonies. When I tell Adventists in Australia about this, they are really quite shocked.
I am really happy to see efforts are now being made to reach this vast unreached demographic. I agree that programmes don't work in Europe (or Australia, which is even more secular a culture). Whilst the SDA Church in the Developing World is growing in leaps and bounds, please don't forget the rest of us in the West.
This is not counting members from Eastern Europe, and various parts of Asia.
I have heard it suggested that most of the recent growth in membership is due to this inward movement of existing members but I am not aware of any records available to substantiate or deny this.
I wish I could give numbers of the different people groups within the UK but sadly the church has been unable to carry out any meaningful measure of the various cultural groups. Our Union President recently ‘guestimated’ (from memory) maybe 200 indigenous white members in the whole of the London area.
Stephen, I apologise that it looks if I was commenting on your last paragraph - it was the main news item I meant to refer to. We need to recognise that different people groups benefit from different approaches. We could begin by looking at the few churches within the main stream denominations in the UK that ARE having massive growth amongst young adults in the indiginous white culture.
Needless to say, Steven Hulbert's comment on developing authentic friendships is at the heart of this.
It seems that the Australian born Anglo-Celtic SDAs are increasingly restricted to large city churches and small country churches. There are very few small to medium sized SDA churches that are not either ethnic based or heavily reliant on immigrants for their numbers. I believe we can treat the demise of the Anglo-Celtic part of the church as a crisis without in any way treating other groups as second class or unwelcome. We simply have to face the reality that Australia is, and will remain for some time, a N-W European based society.
A church that is radically different will find it difficult to reach the majority population. We are already seeing that children of immigrants usually blend in to the larger society, and they also do not want in many cases to be in ethnic based churches. While they may be bi-lingual both in terms of language and culture, they see their future in the mainstream, not in an ethnic setting. In some ways, some of the longer established ethnic groups are doing better at making changes towards accomodating the mainstream culture than the rest of us are. I don't think anyone is pretending that the solution to this issue wil be easy, or that we are anywhere near having teh answers yet.
You are hitting the core issue when you speak of values. What are those values? Traditional Adventist 'values' emphasize certain doctrinal teachings that are not appealing to the modern public. Still, the Gospel has great power and is very attractive when we can demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to show the love of an all-powerful God and when our faith is both relevant and a priority in our daily living. A lot of Adventists haven't learned how to move from the first view to the second, hence the current situation.
We're facing the exact same situation in North America, except that England is 30 years ahead.
This is not simply a U.K. problem, but in France also, as was mentioned. There is a growing trend demonstrating the irrelevance of the church to Caucasians in all first world countries. It is not an Adventist problem but a great change in attitudes toward all churches. The fastest growing in many nations is the Mormon and Muslim religions.
An entirely different message and approach might be successful, but who has found the magic idea? It could be akin to attempting to sell black and white TV or washboards for laundry in a 21st century world. Repackaging can't work as the majority of those who are targeted are not interested in what traditional religion offers. Otherwise, this would not be a problem that needs correcting.
When people are so jaded, skeptical, and weary of constantly being targeted with hundreds of products, video courses and endless improvement plans, what does religion offer that is worthy of their attention? There needs to be bright minds thinking out of the box (and when tired of thinking, crawl back into the box ;-)
People everywhere are tired of endless wars. Jesus spoke of justice and mercy and war is the destroyer of those concepts. A church that presents peace: peace in the world today and preparation for a peace in the future; actively working to achieving a just society would make the church very relevant if it played a more active and prominent role. When a patient is dying, drastic methods are used.
I do not know about THE magic idea but I could take you to non-Adventist churches in the UK that have a "magic idea". It involves a complete change of mindset in the way we look at church and participate in church life. For once it did not come from the USA !! Put "Missional Community" into Wikipedia to start with and follow your nose. It involves tremendous dedication by ministers and lay people. They comprise the fastest growing church in the UK, possibly the largest. I could take you to 3 young lay Christians who moved into a house in a run down area to work with the people. Then there is the group working with Iraqi Muslims. The group working with the 'clubbing culture'. Those working with the regects of society. I could go on and on. Yes they have their failures but that is the wonder of our God. He allows us to freedom to fail, picks us up, dusts us down and helps us get going again.
Having seen them at close quarters I believe God is working with and through them. They are successfully reaching groups that we cannot begin to touch.
It is not a matter of seeing what ideas we could glean from them because it is a way of life not a set of techniques.
I like your coment "When a patient is dying, drastic methods are used". I could not agree more.
Would we be willing to look at their DNA and consider adopting it? Any answer I gave would reflect my pessemistic nature!!
Yes, it can be done but this concept: low control; high accountability, it is doubtful that the SDA church would "approve" of such a mission, as it would lose control over the operations.
It is imitating the early church more than any church founded organization of which I am aware. Given the fear of losing authority and control, until that is reversed, it does not appear that it would get approval of the administration.
Sadly I could not agre more. There within may lie the nemesis of the SDA church.
Do you really mean "will literally get these people on fire"? We used to burn people for witchcraft but that was a long time ago ...
Who are "these people"? If you mean the few indigenous English SDA's left, they might get incandescent with rage but it is unlikely that they would burst into flame. If you mean the non-Christian indigenous English they might consider burning your suggested missionaries just to get rid of them.
Seriously, there are a small number of followers of the persons you mentioned who do try to evangelise anyone who will listen but get very little response for their hard working dedicated efforts. Others of this group just move out of the cities to avoid the evils of this world.
We had the Standish twins over here for a time and all that happened was that churches that were working hard with evangelistic enterprises just imploded and the members doctrinally fought each other. The negative effects still linger on in a number of our churches.
There is no quick and easy way to evangelise the secular people of the UK.
If you were joking it was in slightly poor taste, “these people” are my countrymen and women living and dying without Christ. We have enough problems without aquiring yours!
In the unlikely event that you were serious you just have no idea and probably never will…
What you are trying to say nicely, but should have said bluntly, is "the UK is not the US". I get the same thing from some conservative relatives here in Australia "we should bring in some really good preachers from the islands where they are converting thousands". I know some of those men, and don't doubt their sincerity or their success among their own people. But in Australia, even most SDAs would not listen to them. They just don't speak our language, even when speaking English.
Yes, Christianity is losing ground in all the first world nations; there is no dispute about that. Trying to catch fish with the same old bait hasn't worked for a long time. But any new approach not presented by the administration would dictate long committee meetings, gathering consent, then all the paper shuffling which would die "in committee."
The only way, it appears to me, is to forget selling a particular religion. Simply LIVE IT. Gather a group of all who wish to volunteer in efforts to aid those in need--and they are everywhere--maybe even across the street. Begin small and soon people may notice. Don't think this is an opportunity to begin a "come to Jesus" message; continue to serve.
Now, can someone say this is not exactly how Jesus worked? He did much more healing and helping than preaching, and even then it was not the sort of preaching usually associated with SDA doctrines. Don't bet the house on this ever being done.
And therein, I believe, lies the problem of reaching First World hearts and minds with the gospel. It is not so much a matter of race or ethnicity as it is a matter of pride in the sufficiency of humanistic knowledge and wisdom, which is at odds with the presuppositions and understandings of scripture. This is the essence of pagan religion. Ethnic and racial minorities who acquire First World success and education are just as jaded to the claims of the gospel as so-called "majority" populations. The gospel is not so much about a message as it is about the Source of the message - a crucified, risen Lord who alone takes away the sin of the world. For most educated minds, the Christ revealed in the Gospels is foolishness; He must be deconstructed, intellectually and politically empowered to be interesting and compelling. And then, strangely enough, when we accept this Christ, we become intoxicated with our own beliefs, and we create God in our own image.
Most volunteerism in my community is done by Christians. Have you read the book, Who really cares: The surprising Truth, by Arthur Brooks? He concludes, contrary to the expectations he had when he began his research, that conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, are far more charitable than liberals. Are Christians perfect? Of course not. But let's be careful about blaming the church for its unpopularity with the "do-it-yourself" and "let-the-government-do-it-for-you" crowds. Was bad preaching or a poor example by Noah to blame for the few that were saved in the ark?
Jesus didn't seem real concerned about diversity. He said, "If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from off your feet as you leave." Certainly we need to make sure that we are revealing Christ, rather than our projections of Him, in our witness. But then we need to focus our efforts and our resources where they will bear fruit. The unapologetic agenda should always be "Come to Jesus." That, I submit, is our raison d'etre. In the parable of the Great Banquet, the master's servants did not spend time arguing with the invitees over the excuses they offered for not attending. Nor did they obsess over whether the invitation had been packaged attractively enough to impress the invitees. When the master heard the excuses, he said, "Forget the privileged; go bring the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame to the banquet." Maybe that is the take-home message we need to remember when the "majority" population doesn't seem to be attracted to the church.
Do you think the observation that modern Christianity is 'a mile wide and an inch deep' may have something to do with its rejection? When you consider that pagans converted to Christianity in large numbers when paganism was at its height, and yet now so many people find paganism the preferrable option, maybe it has as much to do with the quality of Christianity on offer as it does with the quality of paganism. Perhaps the packaging is making it hard for many people to see the true value of the gift.
Mind you, I'm not saying that the reason First World Christianity is stagnant and unpopular is because First World Christians are modeling Christ. Far from it! With excellent health care, obesity as the number one malady associated with poverty in America, abundant shelter and clothing for most Americans, who needs religion? I'm simply suggesting that the resistance to Christianity among White majorities in Europe and America may require something deeper than smug self-congratulatory condemnation of other Christian family members who are simply not as wise and enlightened as we who have all the answers.
Jesus calls on us to be like the shrewd servant and as cunning as snakes. When traditional methods no longer work in the West, that is not an excuse to give up by saying, ‘Well not everyone is going to accept the Gospel, we will be a remnant, and they have had their opportunity’.
It reminds me of the Exclusive Brethren. They don’t believe in taking on converts, yet they often engage in street preaching – that way they can claim they are spreading the Gospel. However, every time I walk pass one, I am utterly embarrassed as a Christian, because such a direct approach is only going to turn people off.
Who are we – the street preachers or the shrewd servants?
Adventism is a brand of Christianity that emphasises (or re-discovers from ancient times) the importance of:
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the Sabbath (more important than ever in the modern rat-race);
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wholism and conditional immortality especially the rejection of platonic-Gnosticism and monastic behaviour, which can otherwise skew views about human sexuality and living – as Roman Catholics well know);
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health (SDAs are the longest living group in the First world, with the world’s second largest private health care system, increasingly important in a world full of obese, unhealthy people);
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education (with the world’s second largest private educational system increasingly important in a scientific, academic world);
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stewardship (with important messages about the protection of the environment and best use of monies, in an increasingly consumerist and debt-laden world);
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the Second Advent (with an important message that one should learn to live in the present, each day as if it was one’s last, which is contrary to modern tendencies);
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Annihilationism and rejection of the Rapture (with an important message of being ‘earthly’ in outlook, realising that heaven with one day be on earth).
When you put it all together, our beliefs do kind of all fit in with how one would deliberately design a Christian religion for the post-Industrial world. The fact that the SDA movement arose in America and the West with the rise of full scale Industrialisation also has to be more than a coincidence? In short, I don’t think we should discount what our message has to offer the First World.You are on-point. The challenge is communicating those benefits in a way that will be attractive to a non-religious or anti-religious person. Our problem is we've been taught such a limited model of evangelism that many feel thinking about doing anything even a little bit differently is heresy and actually doing it is unpardonable. This prevents us from communicating those items effectively. Until we overcome it we will largely be locked into our current course toward greater obscurity and eventual disappearance from North America.
Thats the way! Come and see what has made such a change in my life, given me peace in the face of adversity, strength in time of need. Come see the power of a loving God in action that can do the same for you. That's REAL evangelism.