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Calvert Navvy Mission Sunday School on an outing
in Buckinghamshire. c. 1897 Page |
Christians have never been solely locked into their churches, Some have always been inspired to go out to where people are.
Sometimes this means going to where people physically are. The
Navvy Mission, for example, sent missionaries out to the gangs of men building canals across Britain. Admittedly they only really got going at the end of the canal building boom but they quickly adapted to serving those building the railways.
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The mobile chapel of the
South African Railway Mission |
And in South Africa, in the early 20th century, distances were great and missionaries few. So the South Africa Railway Mission fitted out a railway wagon as a chapel and took it to whichever towns and villages the railway reached.
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| A modern mobile Chapel |
Transport for Christ is a modern expression of the impulse behind the Navvy and Railway Missions. On the basis that Christian Truckers can't get to church regularly, they take church to them with mobile chapels and chaplains.
Guardian Article.
This missionary instinct to go to where people also applies to those seeking to engage people where they are emotionally, culturally, intellectually. It was what got
Shleiermacher into such trouble with
On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1799).
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The Haven-London launched
in celebration of the creative industries
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The Diocese of London has set up
Capital Vision 2020: a strategy for the Diocese in the coming decade. One part of which is to engage with the creative industries in the city. It has launched the
Haven-London intended to
"offer a physical space within London for contemplation, connection and inspiration, where those of faith and those working within the creative industries can engage together."
Christian adherence may be falling in the UK, not least in the Church of England, but it retains both vitality and an irrepressible optimism. The Church of England may not be in good health but reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.
And it is also very hard to see that any of the streams will be sufficient to the underlying challenge: that fewer and fewer people in the UK are bothered about religion.
