Effective Church - a matter of class?

One of the challenges that face any church is that of getting the members to be engaged and active and I am have always been told that a large part of this relates to the issue of class.

Having been in middle and working class churches and lived in areas that ranged from posh to project I have always been challenged by the issue of class and what it means. After all, the Gospel is there for all people and this means that none are excluded or marginalised and yet when I worked with working class folk in London I found that a number of things happened when one of the community came to Christ and became part of Church:

1. They were totally committed and gave everything they had to the point of truly sacrificial giving, 

2. They only had to hear of, or identify, a problem and before you could convene a church council to discuss it, it was done (or at least being taken care of),

3. Although they had low paid jobs and were, in the main, typical working class/blue collar workers, they were full of initiative and invention, and

4. They were introduced to middle class ways and soon became (according to family and friends anyway) posh! Three course meals, cheese and wine and other outward trappings became the norm for the convert and rather than equip them for heaven, we appeared to be equipping them to eat at a Berni restaurant rather than perhaps for heaven

An interesting fact in every community, be it city, town or village, is the fact that social deprivation is usually restricted to certain areas. There is always an 'other side of the tracks' community with its challenging folk and low paid workforce.

Church in Hackney was decidedly different to that in Chingford and church in some parts of Kensington and Chelsea was more different still.

Where the population of a place is limited to working class and aspiring working class and middle class relates purely and simply to the cost of the house, church appears to be a difficult thing to grow and equip people for. What we seek is lifestyle changes but what we get is a hobby that involves church. The people are happy to be directed and yet struggle to work off of their own invention and this leads me to think that to be healthy, perhaps a church does need its directive, middle class / upper class movers and shakers.

Is homogenous church, in terms of class, actually impotent church?