Middle class people generally value objectivity and rationality. Our sermons reflect that tendency, partially because that is what our hearers value but also because that is the background of many pastors and preachers and that is certainly the way they are taught to preach. However, people from working class areas judge authenticity by passionate engagement with truth rather than by detached logic. It is not that they are illogical but rather that they want to see someone who passionate believes in what they are saying. Discussion about truth will be passionate and at times heated in working class environments and that is not a sign of people falling out, or not listening to one another, it is them passionately sharing the truth and engaging with it.
Middle class people, and therefore, the vast majority of churches are ‘respectable’ and not forthright. There are certain unwritten assumed rules about how we will interact, what we will speak about, how we will answer the question 'How are you?' For those from working class background such interactions may be perceived as unreal or fake, because life just isn't like that. We need instead to honestly reflect and lament the reality of living in a broken world in our service and in our conversation, and talk openly about the hope and transformation the gospel brings in those.
Our conversation is also another area where there is a stark contrast in approach to relationships. Questioning is middle class, we ask one another how our weeks have been, how the family is, and so on in a series of questions. However for someone who is working class that can seem like an inquisition, as if we are on the hunt for something, as if we don't believe them and are looking to catch them out. By contrast in working class communities they communicate via storytelling, recounting their day, or an incident while the other listens before then sharing their stories. If we want as churches to have a church that is cross classes we need to learn to story tell as well as ask and answer questions.
An issue I had been unaware of until we moved Grace Church to meet in Hayfield is the difference in the attitude towards use of homes. Those churches of middle class background tend to utilise homes lots, we meet there for home groups, for leaders meetings, we rightly use it for hospitality etc... And that is right. However, that can also be barrier to those from the working class for whom entering someones home is hard. We need as churches who want to be cross class to be finding ways of meeting people where they are at and where they find listening to the gospel comfortable, as well as gradually easing people into hospitality and making them feel comfortable with it.
The Bible assumes churches will be bridging divides, reaching groups unlike themselves, being multicultural and multi-class united around the gospel (see Acts 6, 1 Corinthians 11, James 2). The Bible assumes churches will bridge economic and class divides, not that we will be planting separate churches in such areas for such people but church that bridge the divides. So if we aren't, are we really gospel churches? Is this our Jew Gentile issue, where just as the early church and its leaders had to be confronted and challenged to move beyond their comfort and their prejudices we do too?
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