Nobody likes to feel like a project. Nobody likes to feel patronised. Nobody likes to feel like they are coming to church to bask in the glow of the awesomeness of their betters. Certainly not if they are coming to church because they love Jesus.

And yet, we can’t avoid reality. Not that some people are better than others, I don’t mean that at all. But that some people are in more of a position to help others and some are more in need of receiving to some degree. The question is, how do we avoid the sense of being service providers and, worse, patronising people or encouraging paternalism?

The great leveller

It is often said that the great leveller is that everyone has to use the toilet. Scripture suggests that the actual great leveller is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (cf. Rom 3:23). But perhaps both truths can help us in essentially the same way. All of us are in the same boat; we all have the same fundamental physical needs, we certainly all have the same spiritual needs, and the solutions to them are the same in every case.

This should help us as we come into the church. One person may appear more “together” (as our culture judges it) than another. But both have real needs that need to be met, both physical and spiritual needs. Both are, indeed, engaging with the church on the same terms for the same essential reason (or, at least, should be). Both are sinners in need of a saviour, both must look to Jesus as the author and perfecter of their faith and both will make it to glory on exactly the same terms. It pays to remember exactly this.

Everyone has needs; everyone can give

It bears digging a little further into this. The “together” person still has needs and the apparently less “together” person has things they can offer. What is harder for many Christians tempted to patronise others is that they often don’t realise this fact nor what they lack altogether.

The drug addict may have some fairly obvious issues that require specific care, but the gossip addict, the adulation addict, the duty addict and the knowledge addict all have their issues that may well become obvious to everyone who engages with them too. Issues that they may not even recognise in themselves. All of us are sin addicts. Our sins might be different, but we’ve all got addictions we need to kick somewhere (John Calvin called our hearts, ‘idol factories’, making the same basic point).

This is important as the believer who has serious daily money concerns may well be able to show the one without such concerns what genuine faith in Jesus for their literal daily bread looks like in practice. The believer with a more complex background may be able to more effectively reach people with similar backgrounds and teach the one who has no such experience how they might be more effective in mission too. The working class believer may be able to help the middle class believer understand their particular cultural blind spots, which will help them not only engage working class people better but may help them engage across a range of different cultures as they become aware of these things.

Ask before asserting

One major source of friction – and a fundamental cause of paternalism – is one set of believers insisting their cultural values, and therefore cultural solutions, are the right ones. One set of believers insists they know best and therefore makes decisions for or demands on another group without actually listening to them or letting them figure out biblical solutions of their own. This is often driven by assumptions of cultural superiority, an essentially colonialist mindset applied to people in our country.

One of the easiest ways to avoid this problem is to ask before we assert. Why are you doing that? It is very easy to load cultural choices with our own assumptions (both good and bad) and then make assertions about them without fully understanding them. We often do this positively with our own culture and negatively with others different cultural choices. Asking why can at least help us understand the reasoning behind the action.

Unless we have direct chapter and verse explicitly forbidding the thing under discussion (‘do not lie’, for example) we need to be careful that we don’t run a million miles with biblical texts and load them with our cultural assumptions that we then dump onto others. Whilst there is no great cultural wiggle room in ‘do not murder’, understanding ‘let your language be seasoned with salt’ or ‘honour your father and mother’ has a much greater scope for cultural understandings of exactly what that means and looks like in practice. We need to be careful we don’t load our cultural assumptions onto these things and baptise them as though our assumption is what Jesus demands.

Openness is key

Perhaps one of the biggest issues is the cultural tendency for middle class believers to be less open than working class believers. This can give the (wrong) impression that there is a set of believers who are in need of help and another set of believers who need no help at all. This can easily create an atmosphere of feeling patronised as the one who is open received help, advice and counsel whilst the ones who never share are not open to receiving anything much at all.

One straightforward way of avoiding the sense of paternalism and condescension is to be open about our own struggles. When people see that we are willing to be open with them, they are more likely to be open with us. When people see we are willing to hear their spiritual insights on our situation, they are more likely to be open to hearing our spiritual insights on their situation. When we are clear with them by being open and specific about our sins, struggles and life circumstances, people are less likely to feel judged and patronised and more likely to be open with us about their sins, struggles and life circumstances. We can then all help one another in our mutual goal of growing up to maturity in Christ.