Activation, advocacy and abundance

What does it look like to ‘start again’, to reactivate after a year of rest, you might ask? Well, we’re still trying to work that out. We’re being very intentional about not saying yes to too many things too soon, not filling up our time with busyness again, having just been gifted with a clean slate. Two very wise people in our corps have recently retired, and have taken the decision to not commit to anything new for at least three months while they work out what this new season looks like and what they can best invest their energies into. We’re taking a similar approach – God told us a few months back that this three months is our ‘packing the school bags’ time, the preparation for a new day that goes the night before. We’re not rushing into anything, we’re wanting to be led in the right direction.

At the moment I am racing at a speed of knots through ‘Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now’ by the the ever-wise Brueggeman the boogie-man.

‘Sabbath is not simply a pause. It is an occasion for reimagining all of social life, away from coercion and competition, to compassionate solidarity.’ Simply put, what we learn in the seventh year must be practised in years one to six of the cycle. What God teaches us about rest, spending time together, caring about each other, relationships being more important than productivity: these things must even more be worked out in the context of our working, ‘active’ lives. 

(my brother in law, Shaw, dancing in the O2: Jesus, light of the world)

‘Sabbath is an invitation to receptivity, an acknowledgment that what is needed is given and need not be seized.’ Which for us, begs the questions, how do we give so that others need not seize, how do we share out of the abundance God has given us so that others have enough, how do we re-form our life together in a way that promotes justice and builds the kingdom of heaven here in Banbury? 

By taking a year of rest, we’ve been given a clean slate, an opportunity to start from scratch, to reimagine The Salvation Army here, not as one we’ve merely inherited, but as what the Holy Spirit imagines and Banbury needs.

And yet, there are some exciting doors that God has opened, with such kairos timing that we can’t ignore.

Last month I seemed to fall in to hosting and facilitating a ‘homeless conversation’ in town. For years really, the churches in Banbury have been wondering what we can do to serve and meet the needs of the homeless people in town, whether that be a night shelter, or who knows what.

Through our 24/7 prayer week this summer we did some dreaming together in the churches, and there was phenomenal cohesion of vision, the things God has placed on our hearts, and a big part of that was about having one place, a kind of one-stop-shop, where people can come for support, referrals, services, a listening ear, showers, food, counselling, prayer, a worship space, accommodation, and so on and so forth. It’s a massive dream. And it kept coming up over and over again.

So when someone came to me with a plan for how we could run a night shelter, and I discovered somewhere else a facebook group of hundreds of otherwise unconnected, passionate people who wanted to ‘help Banbury’s homeless’, I thought the time had come to gather all these voices in one room, and hash it all out.

The council got wind of this, and panicked a bit, which was great, because they turned up, and did and amazing job of communicating what the current state of affairs is, and where the gaps are.

They’re really not keen to have a night shelter, as they feel it wouldn’t solve the actual issues at stake, but would encourage people to let go of hard fought for housing solutions. But there are many ways we’ve started to look at working together to fight for justice, to look at long term and short term needs and different solutions.

I must admit, I turned up at that first meeting trembling in my metaphorical boots, feeling completely out of my depth, and not at all sure of what I was doing, or where this was all going to go. But as soon as it started, I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace, and the presence of God, prayers being answered, as people who couldn’t be there were praying us through it.

It was a beautiful time of community coming together, with more than twice as many people as expected, stakeholders from all cross sections of society: council workers, food bank volunteers, landlords, hospital workers, church goers, hippy activists, ex-homeless people, currently homeless people, drop-in managers, church leaders, agency leaders. So many different people, with different perspectives, giftings and experiences, coming together with the same heart, and similar ideas, with different implementation suggested, and the good will to pull it all together.

There was an absolute outpouring of generosity and the will to make things happen. Things that I can’t do, that others can. There was an abundance of wealth in the room: wealth of ideas, experience, passions, resources. Someone brings context and backstory, someone else offers towels and toiletries. Someone is a great blagger and has acquired shower, wet room floor and fitter, plumber, carpenter, tumble drier. Someone else is an interior designer, another a structural engineer. 

It's started us on the way to deeper relationships, greater communication and cohesion.

And just like that, a dream that is bigger than me comes within arms reach.