This is the final instalment of the serialisation of my book – The Teeth of our Exertions – full details of which can be found here.

The church has largely failed to reach deprived and working-class communities, choosing instead to focus on middle-class affluent communities. Our movement is overwhelmingly white and middle-class, and we have not been good at reaching the urban poor. The reason we have found ourselves in this situation is that we are scared. We know relatively little about deprived communities and have come to fear them in our own minds. But we need not let this be the final word on the matter. Jesus Christ calls us to go into all the world and make disciples, including deprived communities and the urban poor. My challenge to all of us is whether we will heed Christ’s call to take the gospel to the whole of creation, even those less salubrious bits of it?

If we are to have any hope of reaching the 97% of our country that have not heard of Christ, we are going to have to seriously re-evaluate how we distribute our resources. We are going to have to give real thought to how we can move money and people to the places where Christ is not known. This will not happen by magic but will require a concerted effort to actively reach deprived communities across the UK.

Those who are really concerned for the lost will recognise that we cannot simply permit the status quo to continue. There is a mantra that does the rounds in deprived communities, ‘the cavalry isn’t coming’. Many are convinced that those in affluent churches simply don’t care about the poor and deprived. Many believe that such churches are more interested in hoarding their resources and building their own empires. My call to such churches is simple: will you prove them wrong?

Let us end where we began. Unless we capture Spurgeon’s vision for reaching the lost, we can surely count on nothing changing at all. We will continue reaching people just like ourselves and happily let the poor and deprived waltz straight into Hell because we are comfortable where we are. Let us fear deprived communities less than the harrowing looks of the urban poor, as they are cast into Hell asking, ‘why didn’t you tell us?’ Let’s cast off our aspersions and commit to going to hard places, imploring the urban poor to stay with our arms wrapped about their knees. Let us resolve that if the urban poor and deprived communities are going to Hell, it will be in the teeth of our exertions.