I was chatting the other day about church planting and that London. I think the conversation went from house prices to church costs and church planting. Particularly, we were talking about the relative costs, difficulties and merits of planting in London compared to other areas of the country. It is an issue on which I have fairly strong, and frankly not altogether popular, views.

The simple fact is, however you cut it, London has more churches than anywhere else in the country. If you take the sheer number of churches, they have more. Someone will argue that is necessary because there are 9 million people to reach. But, again, compare the number of churches with head of population and, again, London will outstrip any other part of the country. It is true when you ask the question of any church of all kinds, it is true if you limit it to what we might consider gospel preaching churches and it is true if you limit it in scope to churches of our specific kind. By almost every measure and metric you might care to employ, London has more churches than anywhere else. The story is similarly replicated – though largely skewed by London itself – if you try and cut the figures regionally and look at the wider South East area.

Some will then argue that London needs that many churches, not just because of the number of people, but the kinds of people there. What about all the different languages and nations? To which one wonders why that is considered special when, among the 2.7 million people in the Greater Manchester City Region, the same applies. And in the West Midlands Combined Authority, where there are almost 3 million people across Birmingham and the Black Country, are there not a multitude of languages spoken and largely unreached people needing to be reached? It is also worth asking – and I appreciate there may be a range of views on this – why we think each language group need their own specialist churches? My understanding was that – at least amongst gospel believing, conservative evangelicals – we had largely come to a fairly wide agreement that the Homogenous Unit Principle was not a great outworking of the gospel imperatives. The manifold wisdom of God is seen most clearly in multicultural churches made up of people from every tribe, tongue and nation worshipping together rather than specialist churches of unilingual, monocultural churches serving every special interest group under the sun. Once we reject HUP, we are simply left with the need for churches whereever there are people rather than multiplying yet more churches in the same place to reach special kinds of people and are thrown back on the fact that London outstrips everywhere for churches by every measure and this creates a gospel deficit with other parts of the country.

If we think gospel deficits are bad – that is, other places need churches other than London – it begs the question why we keep cutting our cloth in such a way that we think somewhere half a mile down the road in London from another gospel preaching church needs another one whilst large swathes of the country have nothing at all. I, for example, had an asylum seeker moved to Burnley from Oldham. That is a Lancashire town 30 miles away from ours. We searched around for churches closer to him; anything that preached the gospel. There was one nearer as the crow flies, but my brother needs to take public transport. He travels over an hour on the bus to us because there is nothing nearer (time wise) to him. The church that is nearer as the crow flies, but isn’t much nearer, is even more difficult to get to on public transport. Clearly, Burnley could do with at least one gospel preaching church in the town. But we seem more willing to plant another church down the road in London, to reach an apparently unreached area, when not only would that be walkable, but London has the best public transport of anywhere in the entire country such that the idea people couldn’t travel is just incredible.

What is more, the cost of housing and church planting in London is such that we have to expend far more of our resources planting yet another church there compared to the relative costs of planting a church in a much larger unchurched area of the country. The sale of even a relatively cheap manse (by London standards) would fund an entire church in a deprived Lancashire mill town for five or even ten years. I readily acknowledge that we should not be driven by pragmatism in our church planting, but it strikes me as a sensible use of our resources to determine not to plant another London church, and to sell their high priced resources, to set up a church for 5-10 years in an area where there really is little to no access to any church.

I don’t think we should only plant in places that are cheap because they are cheap. But I do think we should be planting in those cheaper areas where there are no churches rather than planting yet more churches, where there are already more churches than anywhere else, where they are most expensive to plant. In the end, is it more reasonable to spend hundreds or thousands (or even millions) to put a church a mile or two down the road in an already well served city with amazing transport or to spend those hundreds of thousands to fully fund a church in a place where there is no gospel witness at all within even an hour without access to such great transport links to get to any further away?

I am really grateful to the churches in London and the South East who have recognised this gospel deficit and are pleased to send money and resources to smaller, less resourced churches in North and see the need to plant where there really is little to no access to a church. Sadly, we are quite thin on the ground as far as models for anyone to look at go. I can think of only a tiny handful of churches who have thought to resource other churches in much more gospel deprived areas or who considered planting another church in London and the South East as less necessary than a part of the country with no gospel witness for miles. But the truth is, most of us probably don’t know m/any churches in the South East doing this because so few are. Almost none reckon with the gospel deficit in our country. Many of those churches are well resourced indeed. Few seem willing to countenance sending those resources to another needy part of our country.

So, here is my plea. Please do your due diligence and ask, honestly and seriously, whether there is another area that could do with a church more urgently. Are there particular groups of people in our nation, who exist in large number, who are largely missing from our churches and do not have churches in their communities? Are there much larger geographical areas without a gospel witness that are perhaps in need of a church more than, say, a nonetheless different community in London that could easily access one of the multitude of churches only a short distance away? Could we think about directing our resources to where there is real need and lack of gospel witness before adding to the multiplicity of churches that already exist in an area, insisting this community – in ever decreasing circles of proximity – needs one too?

To be clear, I am not suggesting here that places like London do not need churches. Far from it. What I am saying is that London, and the South East more broadly, does plenty well for churches. Certainly relative to other parts of country and even more so the world. Could we not at least countenance suggesting that other places might be needier and direct our resources to those areas of greatest gospel need? Even if we acknowledge London could do with more churches, couldn’t London have more after we have taken it upon ourselves to ensure that certain places, that currently have none, have at least one? Could we not ensure that London churches are well resourced after we have ensured that the only gospel preaching church in a town, borough or wider area is able to keep going so that the people who live there still have access to at least one? Isn’t it right to focus our resources where they are most needed, even if they still might be useful where they are needed less? On that basis, can we maybe have a chat about London and, better yet, have some of those well resourced London churches determine to have a meaningful chat with us?