A Community for Social Justice?

On Wednesday 5 January 2011 Victoria and I met with a group of friends and fellow rabble-rousers at the Elephant pub in North Finchley to discuss the possibility of forming a new Missional Community around the theme of social justice. After introductions, we used variously shaped post-it notes to capture our passions, skills and initial ideas. A survey of these post-its revealed a range of passions, including:

• Inspiring action – challenging apathy, raising awareness, envisioning and empowering
• Meeting practical needs – water and sanitation, housing
• Championing equality – including wealth, opportunity, rights of children and women
• Fighting poverty – at home and abroad, Fairtrade and economic development
• Sustainability
• Building community and relationships
• Theology.

In terms of the talent, those present were well equipped to support the running of a new Community, with project management / administration, publicity / social networking, event management and listening / mentoring / enabling all mentioned on the post-its.

In discussing ideas for what sort of things such a Community might do, there was a clear agreement that our meetings shouldn’t simply be about listening to speakers (though this will no doubt form part of our activities), but should balance hearing and doing. Suggestions included:

• Hosting public events with guest speakers (eg. Tearfund, WaterAid, Burma etc)
• Getting involved with wider campaigning opportunities, such as World Walk for Water
• Holding prayer meetings for global issues – might be directed at rallying church(es) or perhaps something accessible to outsiders
• Hosting film nights to show thought-provoking movies or documentaries (perhaps in association with Co-op and the Phoenix Cinema) with post-screening discussion (and prayer?)
• Running / joining a reading group (perhaps with similar aims to the above)
• Running a regular Justice Café with proceeds going to fight poverty
• Hosting an Unfair Games event in partnership with Active Barnet or Barnet FC / Saracens / London 2012
• Assorted practical activities such as litter picking, adopt-a-nursing home, English lessons for refugees
• Short-term mission to international development-related partners (such as Helping Hands, Compassion, Feed the Hungry, Habitat for Humanity).

Having read and discussed our passions, skills and ideas, we moved on to explore some of the finer details of how such a Community would function, what it would do and how it would meet the framework set out by Henry, Colin and David.

A clear voice for justice
One of the key questions was about the balance between seeking social justice locally and campaigning for it internationally. The majority opinion in the group was that international campaigning was a must, predominantly because of the great need beyond our own borders and also because international issues are perhaps more accessible, making it easier to attract new members to the Community. Whether the group adopts one cause at a time or several remains the topic of further discussion.

Some voiced concern that setting up a Community centred on social justice absolves the remainder of St Bs from engaging with such issues. To avoid this, we propose to model ourselves as an ‘MTF’ for social justice - that is to say, a community of passionate individuals and friends who will provide leadership and structure on the matter of social justice within St Bs, raising awareness of the issues and creating opportunities which will enable others within the congregation (and beyond) to play their own role.

In addition, there was agreement that while the local Church does need to be corralled into a more visible position on social justice, this Community was primarily about connecting with the wider community of Finchley, not just the church goers, enabling everyone to get involved in making a difference to social justices. Given Finchley’s population it is reasonable to believe that there will be folk out there who are interested in getting involved with a group like this. Moreover, with influential, educated professionals living locally there is a real opportunity to shape culture and policy not just locally but across the capitol region. For some, this Community may provide focus and structure for their existing campaigning activities; for others it will provide the tools needed to help them turn goodwill into practical action. This will be a core purpose of the Community - to help local people who want to do good but aren’t sure where to start.

A role in sowing social justice locally
Although many felt that the Community’s primary focus should be speaking up for international, there was a clear sense that some local action was required. However, what form that local action would take was less clear. On one thing we were agreed – we (and presumably many others in the church) didn’t understand enough about local needs to decide a local cause. It was suggested that it would be valuable for those present to spend some time investigating local needs and perhaps use this learning to highlight needs to others in the church. In this way our Community could serve a practical role in raising awareness and supporting the development of other St Bs Communities centred on the needs we identify.

Thinking about taking action locally, there was uncertainty as to how much could reasonably be achieved in one night a week (assuming that the Community was to meet fortnightly and only half the sessions would be dedicated to local issues). Likewise, there was concern that most causes would be disinterested in ‘hit-and-run’ help.

Some possible options options discussed to address the local element of the Community were:

• Research and gather information about local charities and ask members of the community to commit to volunteering at one or more in their own time. Give frequent opportunities for people to feedback and share what they are doing and to provide accountability.
• Advertise ourselves to local charities and organisations as an available resource when they need extra help for extraordinary occasions such as larger campaigns or events. Engage with CommUNITY Barnet and Barnet Pledgebank to identify one off volunteering opportunities that would benefit from our manpower.
• Give members ‘homework’, challenging them to carry out ‘tiny acts of good’ that sow genuine community during their everyday lives (for example introduce yourself to your neighbour, plant bulbs in the garden of your block of flats, befriend your supermarket till clerk etc).

For some of those present, there was clearly a desire to dedicate more time to local issues than international campaigning. It was suggested that these individuals might like to get together to pray about the possibility of forming a Community that centres more directly on a local need into which they might pour their energies.

A Community with soft edges
We did begin tentative discussions about the rhythm or structure of the Community’s gatherings, voicing a desire to be radically inclusive of all members (Christian or otherwise). While we understand that the leadership have proposed a model wherein the Community meets twice a month - once for a public event and once for a more traditional celebration - we were concerned about drawing such a stark division between the Christian and non-Christian members.

While no clear alternative model has yet been defined, it is our hope that the each of the Community’s gatherings would faithfully and unashamedly reflect the faith which has inspired its existence without creating a boundary between the Christian and non-Christians members. In this way, we hope to live out our faith openly and develop genuine, inclusive relationships with all those in the Community, allowing them ownership of the group's activities and development. In this way we hope to avoid a sense of those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘outside’ and instead generate a culture where we welcome people wherever they are at and draw them along on our journey.