Cottrell backs plan for 2000 new church groups in poorest areas

The Archbishop of York has expressed his support for an aspiration to ensure that at least 2000 of the 10,000 new worshipping communities proposed in the next decade (News, 2 July) are established in income-deprived communities.Speaking on Monday evening at this year’s Estates Evangelism Task Group conference, held at Swanwick, Archbishop Cottrell pledged to be “a strong voice to make sure that the funding that is available goes to support the poorest communities”, observing that the Church’s commitment to becoming more diverse in the next decade “must also be about the left-behind, white, working-class communities”. He remarked, too, that “we’re only just beginning to really address the race issues in the Church.”

He told the gathering: “I note one of your aspirations is to ensure that at least 2000 of the proposed 10,000 new congregations are located in income deprived communities, and I want to say I whole heartedly support that.” He noted that: “We particularly need to plant new churches on estates, because we know that, in terms of the ratio of clergy and resources to people, the poorer communities are the least well served.”

There was also a need to raise up “indigenous ministry” on estates, the Archbishop said, given that “the best people to minister on estates are people from estates.”

See also: Carl Beech: ‘There is endemic alcohol dependency in the Church’, By Sam Hailes, Premier Christianity: […] Beech has recently set up Edge Communities, focusing on deprived parts of the country.

C. H. Spurgeon on ‘top-down’ evangelism, by Robert Strivens. Some evangelicals in Britain have advocated and adopted a ‘top-down’ evangelistic strategy. Evangelistic effort is focused narrowly on the top echelons of society, in the belief that conversions at that level will have a trickle-down effect on the rest of us. Spurgeon disagreed…