This is the next instalment of the serialisation of my book – The Teeth of our Exertions – full details of which can be found here.
What is also interesting is that this point appears to hold in church history. Tim Chester notes that the Great Awakening was a largely working-class movement that saw leadership responsibility given to the working-class people who responded to the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield.[1] Likewise, Robert Wearmouth points out that ‘Methodism gained its greatest successes among the socially distressed and ostracised among the labouring masses… the higher classes were barely touched by Methodist influence, but the working men and women were profoundly affected’.[2]
David Bebbington also notes that, in the mid to late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, working-class skilled labourers were disproportionately attracted to Nonconformist churches. He states, ‘whereas artisans constituted some 23 per cent of society at large, they composed 59 per cent of Evangelical Nonconformist congregations. The Secession churches of Glasgow made a parallel appeal to the skilled men of the city’.[3] Such was also true of the 1859-60 second Evangelical Awakening in Britain, the 1904-5 Welsh Revival and the subsequent 1921 East Anglian Revival.[4]
A similar pattern appears to be borne out even today. John Stevens notes:
There seems to be greater gospel response at present amongst the very rich, and the very poor, including amongst refugees and immigrants, especially amongst Iranians, who are turning to Christ in large numbers… In contrast the most hardened communities to the gospel are those that are white-British, moderately affluent and aspirant. They have little apparent interest in, or need for, the gospel’.[5]
Given the sheer number of people who can be considered ‘very poor’ when compared to the ‘very rich’, we can conclude that we are likely to see most gospel fruit amongst the poorest in society. This simply does not tally with a focus on reaching the wealthy and influential. If the Bible expects us to see fruit amongst the poor, church history shows that such is where fruit will be found, and even current trends continue to bear this out, we must surely take seriously the call to reach deprived communities. Indeed, it must be a gospel failure that we have as few churches in those places as we do when there are so many people, who are amongst the most likely to respond to the gospel, who do not know of Jesus Christ.
Dying to self
The second issue with which we need to get to grips is Jesus’ call to die to ourselves. Jesus’ specific words, in Luke 9:23f, were these: ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it’. This is Jesus’ call for his followers to cede control of their own lives, make a commitment to him that will be costly and follow Christ in both his example and teaching, even to the point of laying down our lives as he did. When we grasp just what Jesus is commanding here, it brings many of our fears about going to deprived communities into sharp relief.
If Jesus is calling us to cede control of our life to him, and to follow both his example and teaching, it is hard to escape the conclusion that we are called to go to the poor and marginalised. What is more, he is calling us to lay aside our personal ambitions and aspirations and commit ourselves to humble obedience of him. It may just be that the cross many middle-class Christians will have to bear is one whereby they crucify their desires to move up the property ladder, or surround themselves with people just like them, and instead die to themselves and follow Christ’s example to reach the poor.
If the Bible is clear on reaching deprived communities with the gospel, the importance of our going ought to be settled. Jesus spent much time reaching the poor and calls us to die to our own desires, taking up our cross daily and living for him. The question is not whether we should go, but what will it be like when we get there?
[1] Chester (2012), Op Cit. p. 10
[2] Wearmouth, R., Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth Century, Epworth Press, (London, UK 1945), p. 263
[3] Bebbington (2002), Op Cit., p.111
[4] Ibid., pp.116-7, 193, 257
[5] Stevens (2017) Knowing our Times, Op Cit., p.42