- Tis the season to...Throw a Christmas party for your neighbours! Why not? Agree a date with anyone you already know, invite the street, and see what happens! And you could get them to sign up to Streetbank on the night so you can lend stuff to each other.
- Congratulations to Jeremy Williams (a Friend of Breathe) for making the Top 5 Christian Blogs as voted by the Jubilee Centre – check out the blog Make Wealth History
- Congratulations, too, to the New Economics Foundation who have succeeded in making the government think about a broader measurement of society than just pounds and pence. A Happiness Index (silly name, I know) could help us to look beyond the merely financial to what actually makes our communities healthier and better. Surely a step forward...
- Last of all, it’s great to hear about the initial success of Mission Year. This year 26 people have moved into shared houses round London to live, work and serve local communities together. It’s a really exciting development which we’d love to see grow. Worth remembering in prayer, too, at a time when we prepare to celebrate that ‘the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood’ (John 1:14, the Message).
Read more from Beth House below about her Mission Year, which began in September when she moved into a predominantly Bangladeshi housing estate (it’s inspiring and challenging stuff!).
And have a blessed Advent,
Breathe
My Mission Year (Beth House)
My husband Matt and I joined Mission year at the beginning of September and moved, with another couple, into a two bedroom flat in a Bangladeshi Council estate. Three other girls are also on our team in the Shadwell area and live together in a flat in nearby Watney Market. Those who were already in full time employment agreed to support the group financially, while the others would be volunteering full time for social action projects in the area. As a group, we were welcomed warmly into the church with whom we’d been connected through Mission year.
Matt and I had been talking and praying about living in community for some time. Feeling that God created us all to be in relationship with Him and our neighbours, we felt that living alongside people in a shared home would be the best way to learn to love others, live simply, share everything we have, hopefully grow in grace and generally have our rough edges smoothed down! It’s so easy to be selfish in private, but in community…not so much!
When I was growing up, my parents were working to start a Christian conservation project called A Rocha in the south of Portugal. My three siblings and I were raised in community and thrived in that environment. It runs deep in me and so personally, living in community now has a definite feel of returning to where life is at its richest.
The bible says that without love as our motive, our actions are without worth; that doing ‘good things’ for your neighbour is empty unless it comes from a place of love for them. And so, without knowing our neighbours, how can we learn to love them? It’s also hard to know how to love those below the poverty line if you are reaching across it from a place of comfort way above that line. We felt that without experiencing material sacrifice and a simplified life, we would never fully love and be loved by our neighbours. Unless we joined them in their context and shared life with them, we might struggle to know them fully as brothers and sisters.
Since moving in, we have been taught so much by our Bengali neighbours in Shadwell Gardens about community and family. They have the most amazing gift of hospitality and welcomed us warmly with offers of food and help with moving in. It’s easy to get over ambitious when moving into an area so strongly influenced by another religion to want to rush in there and shout about the ‘real’ faith. We’ve learnt through wise friends and colleagues that we are not here necessarily to tell them about Jesus (as this could burn bridges before they are built) but to love them, learn about them, pray for them, that they might recognise Jesus in us.
There are some great projects already taking place in the area that we as a team have the privilege of taking part in (such as foodbank, night shelter, ESOL, Alpha) and some new ones that we are in the process of trying to get going (and urban farm on Shadwell Gardens, Dance classes for young Bengali women, exercise classes in the church). I can honestly say the blessing that it is to be a part of Christ centred change in the city, far outweighs any sacrifices we may have made to be here.
