What's different about ministry in London?

African London

In many of London's neighbourhoods Africans are becoming the largest section of the black community.  This is having an enormous impact on many churches as they become increasingly African, Africans have been around for a long time but since the late Eighties they have become perhaps the most important factor in church growth in London.  Growing out of the London student community, supplemented by important refugee communities the African community is very different from the Caribbean community despite their shared experience of blackness.  Many are highly educated and have very high expectations causing them to press for an increasingly high profile role in London's Christian community.  The impact of African Christianity on the wider Christian community is, perhaps, the most important factor in determining the future of the church in London.

Boroughs and villages

London is divided into 33 boroughs.  Much of the administration of the City is devolved to these authorities, despite the reintroduction of London government in the person of Ken Livingstone.  Boroughs vary widely, having very different cultures and reputations.  They are, nonetheless, relatively artificial and churches and neighbourhoods often straddle across the official boundaries.  Boroughs are not large enough to encompass a distinct geographical area nor small enough to reflect neighbourhood loyalties.  London is more like a series of villages merged into each other.  The names used can be important and people will choose a name for their area which reflects their own aspirations -- thus the church wishing to display its inner-city credentials might say it is in Brixton, while the gentrifying neighbours in the same street may say they live in Clapham Park.  Many districts in the outer suburbs of London will deny that they are in London at all preferring to say they are in Kent, Surrey or Essex.

Culture

London is a cultural centre.  I do not mean by this simply its art galleries, theatres and museums but rather the newly named cultural industries.  These create a significant amount of London's wealth -- even though their coherence as a sector is doubtful stretching as it does from a violin player at the opera house to someone at the cutting edge of three-dimensional computer design and including community mural painters on the way.  Nonetheless they are an important part of the image of London -- and in places they to provide a substantial part of the population.  Hackney for instance is said to have the highest concentration of artists in Europe.

Ethnic diversity and 'multi diversity'

Ethnic diversity is a fact of life for the whole of London.  Even if a community is still relatively white the awareness of ethnic diversity nearby is an important factor.  The ethnic diversity of a church and its community will often be one of the most essential factors in a ministry.  Of course the nature of the ethnic diversity will be very important.  Black people are by and large much more churchgoing than white people and are the major part of many congregations -- and not just in inner-city areas.  On the other hand a large Asian community can be perceived as a threat despite the existence of a not insignificant Asian Christian minority.  But ethnic diversity also exists within the black and Asian communities.  This points to what can be termed the 'multi diversity' of London's ethnic make up.  Other parts of the country have large ethnic minority communities but none of them have the same range of different ethnic communities.  In London we have significant Korean, Portuguese, Eritrean and Montserratian communities to name just a few which bring additional complexities into any community or church.

Refugees are also an important part of London life.  Refugee communities tend to gravitate back to London even when diffused throughout the country.

Funding London

There are a number of grant making trusts which limits their grant making activity to London.  The first of these is the City Parochial Foundation.  This trust was brought by the amalgamation of a number of parochial trusts from the City of London and extending their area of benefits to the whole of Greater London.  The trustees for the benefit of the poor of London and will not give grants for the advancement of religion.

6 Middle Street

London

EC1A 7PH

Tel: 020 7606 6145

Fax: 020 7600 1866

info@cityparochial.org.uk

http://www.cityparochial.org.uk/

The other big trust is the Bridge House Trust.  This trust is administered by the Corporation of London.  It was set up to maintain bridges over the Thames but recently surplus income has been made available for charitable purposes in Greater London

Bridge House Trust

Corporation of London

PO Box 270

Guildhall

LONDON EC2P 2EJ

020 7332 3710

http://www.bridgehousegrants.org.uk

There are many other smaller trusts which focus on London or parts of it such as the Cripplegate foundation

Gentrification

Gentrification is not confined to London but it has certainly had a far greater impact here than elsewhere in Britain.  It was a word coined in the Sixties to describe the process whereby traditional working-class districts are colonised by middle-class professionals -- transforming them into fashionable and upmarket communities.  Gentrification first started in Chelsea before the war but was only really noticed in Islington in the 1950s, since then it has spread to all areas of London even penetrating to the most obscure corners of Hackney and Peckham by the millennium.  Generally it is associated with the buying up of older Edwardian and Victorian Housing but in certain places the selling off of Council housing (particularly in right-wing authorities such as Wandsworth) has contributed to gentrification.  The causes of gentrification are disputed.  Some see it being driven by macro economic forces whilst others interpret it more as a lifestyle choice.  The truth is probably that economics sets the general context whilst lifestyle issues determine how gentrification actually happens in detail.  Certainly gentrification varies from place to place -- the gentrification of Islington and Hackney for example has had a fairly leftist character -- Islington being a centre of champagne socialism whilst Hackney has been more of a centre for alternative types such as artists.  This is very different from the gentrification of southwest London where it has contributed to right-wing control of local councils and has a very different feel.  Nonetheless the effect on local inhabitants is not much different -- it breaks up to established communities and forces the next generation to move out.  Nonetheless gentrification is also a force for regeneration and in many situations is returning communities to their original middle-class character.  What is certain is that it is a very real phenomenon which has changed the face of the London and has serious implications for churches -- some have been able to respond to these, most often Anglican, whilst others have struggled to cope with the change.

Global context

London is often spoken of as a global city.  This means that it is a key centre of the global economy -- the London financial markets provide certain services to the global economy which aren't provided anywhere else.  Therefore changes in the global context are particularly important for London, it is very sensitive to changes in the global economy and is also able to exert an influence upon it.  These realities are most typically expressed in Canary Wharf whose development was seen as necessary in order to keep London at the heart of the world economy.  Nonetheless London is not completely driven by global concerns -- it did require local action in East London for Canary Wharf to happen.  We should not subordinate the local realities of London to the global context but rather see the two as constantly interacting.

Health

The health of Londoners is generally slightly better than that for England as a whole but there are two exceptions.

The Standardised Mortality Rate for people under 65 is 104 for London but only 99 for the whole country.  This difference is driven by a high proportion of early deaths in inner-deprived London which has an SMR of 128.  The death rate for men aged between 25 and 55 is particularly high being 20 to 30 percent higher than the national figure

(Kings Fund 1997 p9).

These high inner city death rates are off set by the low death rates in the rest of London.  London has a particularly polarized experience of health. The other problem area for London is mental health.

Unemployment, social and cultural isolation, and the poor living conditions created by poverty all foster vulnerability to mental distress.  In inner London these conditions interlock with the capital's high levels of substance abuse, homelessness, and HIV and AIDS to create unusually high levels of mental ill health.  In addition the capital's younger than average population means a greater incidence of psychoses and eating and personality disorders at the stage in which they require the most active intervention by health and social services.  Substance misusers are highly concentrated in London: about a third of the people starting contact with drug misuse services in the U.K. live in the capital.  There is also evidence that seriously mentally ill people are attracted to live in inner cities. ...  Epidemiological studies suggest that the incidence of serious mental illness in inner London is twice that of suburban and rural areas.

London's ethnic diversity and the fact that the majority of the U.K.'s refugees live in the capital also create particular mental health needs.

Kings Fund 1997 p11-12

London is not therefore an unhealthy place - in comparison, say to Scotland's great urban metropolis Glasgow with its high rate of coronary heart disease (London's is rather low).  Its deprivation does, however, cause particular health problems especially for young men and those struggling with their mental health.  It may not make you ill but it might drive you mad.

In London there is an imbalance of prestigious teaching hospitals alongside poor primary healthcare.  The government has tried to address this by the simple expedience of giving less money to hospitals and encouraging themh to amalgamate and giving a cash boost to primary care.  The Kings Fund are doubtful about whether this will improve healthcare for Londoners because out of towners are continuing to use London hospitals and the cash boost to primary care is time limited.  It is also worried by the complexity of the healthcare scene in London

The turbulence attendant on successive NHS and local authority reorganisations, along with the preoccupation with price setting and the annual contracting round characteristic of the internal market, has diverted energy and resources away from the substantial service design and development tasks central to achieving positive change

Kings Fund 1997 p71

They are also concerned by the lack of an overview and the amount of time spent managing individuals who continue to receive their healthcare from different trusts and authorities.  Now in the new millennium Labour has continued to introduce more changes, including moving away from the internal market so I for one have no idea what's happening now! 

House prices and property

House prices in London are excessive.  Maybe twice the national average.  Therefore although wages are considerably higher in London the standard of living can be much lower because so much of people's income is consumed by their house.  For some people it is impossible to buy a house, others are helped by schemes such a shared ownership or grants to key workers.  But things are not likely to get any better.  700,000 more people are predicted to be living in London by 2016 and these people would need 345,000 homes: 25,000 a year.  London has been gaining 20,000 new homes a year but they are not all the right sort of homes there is (as the London property guide 2003/4 says) a veritable glut of smart to bed flats to let but (despite an 11% fall in rents over 2002) still at prices beyond the means of teachers, fireman and even doctors.  So we have not too few homes, but too few of the right sort and at the right price.  The government has been trying to find solutions to these problems through initiatives such as Thames Gateway but there are a lot of questions about this -- communities are likely to be very isolated with inadequate infrastructure support and liable to flooding

Some examples of minimum three-bedroom house prices in 2003

Whilst clergy are often protected from this issue by church provided housing it is often a big issue for congregations and can increase turnover as people move out of London to find affordable housing.  The Amersham Housing Association is trying to help key Christian workers by shared ownership properties in London.

Liquid church

Liquid church has become a fashionable term recently particularly through the speaking and writing of Pete Ward but it has been a part of the London scene for decades.  In particularly the way in which black majority churches have operated has been very liquid -- responding quickly to new pressures and circumstances in a way which has been disorientating for mainstream Christians.  The big difference between the BMC experience and the new ideas of liquid church is that they come out of experiences of marginalisation and poverty rather than boredom and disillusionment.  Nonetheless London has always been a place to experiment and the church has been experimented with as much as anything else, inner London especially is a liquid place and therefore churches have needed to be liquid.  But what has been distinctive about the BMC experience is that they have recognised the need to create institutions, something liquid church proponents still seem to be anxious about.  They have recognised the ultimately marginal and vulnerable nature of the church which simply responds to changing tides and currents -- there is a need to put down roots and become established in one place particularly through acquiring a building.  What can actually be observed is a synergy between institutions and liquid expressions of the church -- sometimes institutions resist the liquid and the new, but as often as not they are vital in enabling them to happen.  The institution will often provide the space in which the liquid church can develop -- there has been a long, even though not always happy, tradition of established churches hosting new churches in London.  Perhaps what needs to happen is that the institutions need to more intentionally make space for new liquid expressions of Christianity and the liquid churches need to value more what the institutions provide them with in terms of buildings, resources and the under girding of tradition[1].

London in literature

London has been an important inspiration for much literature.  Dickens is perhaps the most important writer who has taken London as his theme and his images of London continue to exert a powerful influence.  Following in the footsteps as Dickens is the contemporary writer Peter Ackroyd whose novels are often based in London.  His London -- a biography was an interesting attempts to write about London in a new way although it does seriously overemphasise the seedy and disreputable side of London.  Literature often gives important insights into the life of minorities in London from Sam Selvon's Lonely Londoners to Zadie Smith's White Teeth.  There is also an important tradition of anti London writing particularly that romantic tradition arising from Wordsworth's description of London as the Great Wen.  Generally writing about London tends to under emphasise the mundane and ordinary.  There seems to be a need to make London exciting, different and vibrant!

London is big

London is a large city by any standards -- except perhaps the mega cities of the Third World.  Certainly it dwarfs any other city in Britain and only Paris in Europe challenges it.  But what are the consequences of this large size, here are a random selection of quotes:

“London is big enough as it is and it should not grow any further. Future development must be limited to improving the conditions for the present population. This is one of the reasons why a BNP Mayor would not allow London to spread into the green belt and beyond into the farming land of southern England. These areas are the green lungs of London and the breadbasket of England”

“London is big. Really big. Not just big in terms of size, but also in complexity and relevance. I live in one of the largest and oldest cities in the US, and I feel like a backwards hick walking through London’s streets. New York doesn’t compare”.

“London is big, big, city -- no one has any time for anyone else, nobody cares for anyone else”

“London is big, rich, cosmopolitan, but divided. There are huge disparities of wealth and opportunity within the capital’s communities and between men and women

“London is big enough to hide in

“London is big - about 1600 square kilometers across, in fact; but don’t let that worry you too much. You can get around easily and explore the city by public transport which is both safe and efficient.

If you put "London is big" into a search engine you will get hundreds of hits.  These are just some of them.  Many of the hits are from personal sites illustrating the reaction of visitors to London.  Others try to modify this experience by admitting its large size but illustrating how it can be coped with, for others the very bigness is an advantage -- you can hide in it.

For ministry perhaps the question is -- does my ministry try somehow to encompass the bigness of London or is that too overwhelming and potentially distracting, therefore requiring a focusing on my local patch?

Media attention

London is in the media spotlight.  Things that happen in London get noticed.  It is easier for London based journalists to find stories on the doorstep and travel out into the provinces.  This also means that people in London are in a good position to get their message across, it attracts people who want to make a name for themselves -- whether that be on a protest march or in the course of their career.  This, of course, is related to London's role as a centre of political and other forms of power.

Radical London

London tends to be a trendsetter and to have more than its fair share of radical experiments.  It is a place to try things out -- whether that be the radical Thatcherite boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster in the 1980s or the anarchist communes of Hackney in the same period, London is always pushing the boundaries.  One of the problems with leaving London is that attitudes and practices are almost always more conservative and traditional -- whether that be in the way a profession is practised or attitudes to homosexuality or multiracial awareness.  Perhaps London also suffers from a surfeit of radical innovation -- it is exciting to be in the midst of new ideas but it can also be wearing.  The picture is also not uniform there are certainly part of Outer London which are very conservative -- but then they tend not to think of themselves as London at all!  London also needs to hear radical voices from the periphery of the nation and can get caught in a fixation with its own radical self image.

London tends to both attract ministers interested in being radical and to radicalise those who become involved in ministry in London.  Sometimes this radicalisation can take the form of an idealism which abstracts people from their day-to-day context but at its best it emerges from the complex pressures of day-to-day life; for perhaps the impulse behind the radical tradition of London is the fact that in London the contradictions of our society are really in your face.  The contrasts are more obvious, whether that be between Mayfair and the Old Kent Road or between Canary Wharf and the Lansbury Estate, Poplar.

Speed and busyness

Although it is difficult to quantify these factors there is certainly an issue around the speed and busyness of life in London.  Much of this is contingent upon other factors which can be identified -- such as the youth of London's population or the importance of making money.  Ministry needs to learn two skills in this context -- the ability to keep up with the pace of life in London but also to provide a space where people can slowdown and put their busyness to one side.

'The City'

The persistence of the City of London -- that central area of London roughly contained within the old city walls -- is certainly one of the distinctive characters of London.  The City is not part of one of the London boroughs but is governed by its own Corporation, to which people are elected by a rather archaic form of democracy.  The City has a tiny population but it has much wider influence -- running extensive housing throughout London and having responsibility for the great green lung of Epping Forest which reaches from the Green Belt deep into East London.  The City is closely identified with the financial sector which is such an important part of the economy of London, and indeed of the world.  Its unique and anomalous role reinforces the importance of money for understanding how London works and gives it a symbolic importance as a centre of capitalism.

(See charitable foundations)

Unfriendliness of London

London has a long history of being considered unfriendly:

“There's nothing so unfriendly as a large city. London proclaims its hugeness completely with its taciturn commuters and tight-lipped cab-drivers. Anywhere else in the world it's impossible to stop a taxi driver from talking--they're like prisoners on death row, hungry for human contact. Not here”

Why is this the case.  A few factors might be important.  It is impossible to quantify how friendly or unfriendly London is, but perhaps what is important is the perceived unfriendliness and the reputation of London as an unfriendly place

1.  As the quote implies it's very hugeness seems to encourage unfriendliness -- it's easy to get lost in the crowd, to feel overwhelmed and unable to find your place

2.  The mercantile history of London seems to emphasise making money rather than making friends -- or if you do make friends it's in order to make money!  There is in time just to be with people you have to rush around either to make your fortune or just to survive

3.  The fear of crime whilst not being a uniquely London phenomenon certainly contributes for a tendency for people to retreat behind the walls of their home rather than to take the risk of engaging with people on the streets

4.  Perhaps diversity also encourages unfriendliness.  Differences in language and accent sometimes make communication difficult.  Culture expectations -- say in relationship to noise creates conflict.  Religious and ethnic difference keeps people within their own group

5.  Change makes the city less friendly.  Friends move on.  Neighbours leave.  Communities driven by economic change are restless and not stable.  Friendliness perhaps persists in more stable communities where people settle down and raise families.

6.  Generally speed and pace inhibit friendliness

I think it is not unfair to say that London is unfriendly.  Certainly friendships can be made but the culture of London driven as it is by speed, change and economics creates a superficial unfriendliness.  Nonetheless people also often speak of the warmth and friendliness of inner-city areas, it is important but highly subjective issue.

Tourism

London is a major site for tourism.  It brings significant revenue into the City and will often affect the way in which London or parts of London are presented -- this often goes hand-in-hand with trying to repackage parts of the City in order to attract business.  Docklands is a prime example of this.  The old term the Isle of Dogs has been almost forgotten in the rebranding of the Thames peninsular as a place of luxury housing and office development.  Tourism is very rarely interested in the realities of urban life -- preferring an image of Dickensian quaintness, vibrant multi-ethnic streetlife or ancient pageantry.  Much of what is written and promoted about London falls into these fairly meaningless cliches.

Transport

Transport is perhaps a more significant issue in London than elsewhere in the UK.  The quality of the suburban railway network.  Plans for the extension of the underground.  The congestion zone.  All make headlines in London.  Years of underinvestment have left London with an inadequate transport infrastructure, so that the congestion of our high streets and the horrors of the rush-hour on the underground are daily topics of conversation.  The length of travel to work has important implications for ministry -- when are people able to get back for evening meetings, for example?  Nowhere is the busyness of life in London better demonstrated than in the impact that these transport issues have on daily life.  Often travel to work will have a significant impact on where people live -- this, indeed, is one of the ways in which London grew; as people clustered around the growing railway networks.  A recent survey of people living in Canning Town, traditionally one of London's poorest neighbourhoods, indicated that the recently improved transport networks was one of the things that was best about living in the area.  But this was only achieved by significant local action in the 1980s when they campaigned for a DLR station to be built in Canning Town.  Action on local transport issues can be an important part of ministry with long-term implications.

Wealth and poverty

London is noticeable for its poverty and wealth. 

London has a higher GDP/capita (total economic output per person) than Switzerland, one of the richest countries in the world and has the highest percentage of high disposable income households in the country. $637 billion flows through the foreign exchange market every day, making it the largest in the world and contributing to the finance and business services sector accounting for 40% of London's GDP.

However, alongside this vast wealth is abject poverty, shown by one million on income support and 43% of children living below the poverty line, when housing costs are taken into account. Also, 20 out of the 88 most deprived local authority districts are to be found in the capital.

Income poverty affects one in four of London’s population. The latest statistics from the Department of Work and Pensions show that after housing costs, over a third of children in Greater London are living in households with incomes below the government’s poverty threshold of 60 per cent of median income. In Inner London, an area which in terms of population is comparable in scale to Wales or the North East of England, poverty affects 48 per cent of children, 35 per cent of pensioners and 27 per cent of working age adults.

The overall rate of child poverty showed a fall between 2000/01 and 2001/02, from 41 per cent to 35 per cent. This was the first significant fall in child poverty in the capital since the mid 1990s. Analysis of these results by the Department of Work and Pensions indicates that there was no statistically significant change in Inner London, while in Outer London there was a significant fall. Inner London continues to have by far the highest rates of poverty in Great Britain

A March 7 article in the New Statesman pointed out, “London is said to have 40 billionaires, 13 of whom are foreign. There is no place in the world like it. They are welcomed with open arms. The capital has become the world’s most significant tax haven. Theirs is a parallel world, in which the purveyors of yachts, private jets and other accoutrements cannot keep up with demand. Where else in the world could you acquire a diamond-encrusted swimsuit for £15 million?”

Ordinary people who work in London are increasingly unable to afford to live there. The government’s recent budget decision to raise the threshold for stamp duty to £120,000 to aid first-time home buyers had virtually no impact in London, where it is impossible to find even the most basic of accommodation at that price.

The cost of buying a home in the capital more than doubled in the five-year period between 1996 and December 2001. Figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) for the second quarter of 2002 put the average weekly rent for a two-bedroom unfurnished privately rented property at £425 in Inner London and £219 in Outer London. The average rent for this property type across Britain was £108 per week. A 2003 RICS survey put the average rent per calendar month for a one bedroom flat in London at £1,159, more than double the national average of £543.

What does this rather bewildering list of statistics mean for ministry?  Probably most importantly it requires ministers to be canny and aware of the poverty and wealth dynamics in their parish and church.  Are poor (or wealthy) sections of the church or community being excluded in some way?  How do poor and wealthy relate in your church?  What impact will the decision is your church makes have on poverty and wealth issues in your community e.g. who you let your hall to.

Youth

London's population is young.  It is particularly concentrated in the 20 to 30 age group, peaking around 28/29 it starts to fall off markedly over 40.  The reasons are not hard to understand people come to London to study and work and then as they begin to marry and have children they begin to leave the metropolis.  This phenomenon is much more noticeable in inner London.  It tends to create a very dynamic, changeable population which lacks the more mundane virtues of consistency and reliability.