“Organising Across Difference”
Friends,
One of the most extraordinary things about Citizens
is the way it brings people together across difference,
across faith, race, class, and culture
to act together for the common good.
In a city like London, that’s no small thing.
We live in a time when difference is often weaponised,
when people are told that those who are not like them are somehow a threat.
But Citizens shows another way, a way of building trust across difference,
through shared action and deep listening.
And for those of us in the churches, this isn’t something new or alien.
It’s part of our calling.
Within our congregations we already practise this
— learning to live with people we don’t always agree with,
to listen deeply,
and to build community across the lines that so easily divide.
We do it across denominations,
and across faith traditions, too.
The campaign for the Living wage,
celebrating its 25th anniversary next year,
is a lived example of how organising can build trust across difference,
because it draws people into a common cause
from across the wide spectrum of British society
– with recent immigrants campaigning alongside white working-class workers,
as they share common cause in seeking fair employment.
In London Citizens, and in the life of the Church,
we’re discovering that trust grows not from ignoring our differences,
but from engaging with them
— face to face, story by story, relationship by relationship.
That’s the work of hope: the slow, deliberate building of trust
that makes real change possible
— in our congregations, our communities, our city, and across the UK.
Organising and the Church: Building a Relational Culture
When churches get involved in community organising,
one of the first questions people ask is:
how does this fit with what we’re already doing?
The answer, I think, is that it fits perfectly
— because at its heart, organising is about relationships,
and that’s something the church knows a thing or two about.
The Centre for Theology and Community’shttp:// Organising for Growth programme,
which we’ve been part of at Bloomsbury,
has helped us rediscover what it means to be a relational church.
It’s given us tools to strengthen the community we already have,
and to reach beyond it.
1. Listening and 1-to-1s
A lot of it starts with listening
— not the kind of listening where we’re planning our response,
but the kind that really seeks to understand.
In organising, that’s often done through one-to-one conversations.
Now, I’ll be honest
— in church life, we sometimes find the idea of 1-to-1s a bit awkward.
It can sound manipulative, or utilitarian,
as if we’re trying to get something out of the other person.
But actually, it’s far more human than that.
I sometimes reframe it like this:
I want to share a bit of my story,
and I want to create space for you to share yours.
It’s a mutual encounter. It’s the beginning of trust.
And it’s something Jesus himself modelled
— think of his conversations at wells, or by roadsides, or around tables.
When we practise this kind of intentional listening,
it changes the culture.
We begin to see one another not as roles or functions
— not “the treasurer”, “the deacon”, or “the newcomer”
— but as people with stories, passions, and struggles.
That’s where relational power begins to grow.
2. From Listening to Action
But organising doesn’t stop at listening.
It always moves towards action — shared action.
When we listen well, we start to discern what matters to people.
And when we act on those concerns together,
we strengthen the fabric of community.
In church, that might mean responding
to an issue of injustice in our neighbourhood.
Or it might be something internal
— addressing the needs of those
who feel unheard within our own congregation.
At Bloomsbury, for instance, as we’ve deepened our listening,
we’ve found ourselves drawn into new partnerships
— with other churches, with mosques and synagogues,
with schools and universities —
And we’ve also found ourselves developing relationships
with those who share the use of our building:
with a hip-hop dance company, three community choirs,
a night shelter, an organisation that campaigns on racial justice,
and a prison mission.
Through our intentional relationship building,
we’ve brought people together who previously shared a building,
but who now are discovering shared values,
and a shared desire and capacity to act in the world,
as we learn together how to turn shared values into shared action.
3. The Inner Work of Organising: From Comfort to Courage
There’s another layer to all this
— the inner work of organising.
Because when we begin to listen deeply,
and act together for change,
we soon discover that the real challenge isn’t just out there in the world;
it’s also in here, within ourselves.
Organising invites us to move from comfort to courage.
It asks us to take risks — to speak up, to lead, to confront power,
and sometimes to be vulnerable with one another.
And that can feel unsettling.
In church life, we often like things to be harmonious.
We value kindness, gentleness, getting along.
Those are good things.
But sometimes, our desire for harmony
can stop us from having the honest conversations we need.
Organising teaches us that tension isn’t the enemy of community
— it’s often the birthplace of transformation.
There’s a phrase I love from community organising:
“No change without tension.”
That’s true of spiritual growth, too.
The gospel doesn’t call us to comfort;
it calls us to courage.
It calls us to step into the spaces where love and justice meet,
and that’s rarely easy.
I’ve found that this work has changed me
as much as it’s changed our congregation.
It’s taught me to listen more deeply, to speak more truthfully,
and to trust that the Spirit is at work in the discomfort.
So perhaps part of building a relational culture in our churches
is learning to see tension not as a threat to our unity,
but as a sign that something real is happening
— that the Spirit is stretching us, reshaping us, calling us to grow.
And when we find the courage to stay in that space
— to listen through the tension, to act through the fear —
we often find that the relationships which emerge on the other side
are stronger, deeper, and more hopeful than before.
4. Reflection and Leadership Development
Organising also teaches us to reflect on our action.
That’s another area where it aligns beautifully with the life of faith.
After each action, we ask: What happened? What did we learn?
How did power shift? What’s next?
It’s remarkably similar to the process of theological reflection
— seeing where God might be at work,
and discerning how to respond.
And out of that reflection comes leadership development.
People grow in confidence and in skill.
They learn to speak, to negotiate, to plan, to act.
It’s discipleship in a very practical form.
I’ve watched members of our congregation
discover their voice through Citizens training
— people who never saw themselves as leaders
stepping forward to lead meetings, speak to power, or coordinate campaigns.
5. The Theology of Relationship: Where the Spirit Dwells
Underneath all of this — the listening, the acting, the reflecting —
lies a profoundly theological conviction:
that the Spirit of God is at work in relationship.
When we speak of building relational power,
what we’re really talking about is discerning
where the Spirit is moving between us.
In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit doesn’t only descend on individuals;
the Spirit draws people together
— Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women —
into new and surprising communities of belonging.
That’s what organising does at its best.
It takes the fractures of our social life
and says: the Spirit can move here too.
In the church, we can be tempted to think of mission
as something we do for others — an act of outreach.
But organising invites us to see mission as something we do with others
— an act of relationship.
It’s the difference between charity and justice,
between service and solidarity.
And in that process, we discover something of God.
Because if God is love, and love only exists in relationship,
then the practice of deep, honest, mutual relationship
is itself a form of prayer.
It’s a way of entering the life of God.
So when we engage in one-to-ones,
or build alliances across difference,
or act together for the common good,
we are not simply being good citizens
— we are being the Church.
We are embodying the Spirit’s work of reconciliation.
It’s what I sometimes call a sacrament of encounter
— those moments when we meet another person deeply enough
that we glimpse something holy in them, and they in us.
That’s what sustains the work.
It’s what keeps hope alive when campaigns drag on and victories seem slow.
In those encounters, we see the New Jerusalem taking shape
— not as a vision of heaven far away,
but as a community of justice and peace being built,
relationship by relationship, in our midst.
In our church this has led to us developing
a new monthly meeting called ‘Breathing Space’,
where we gather to deepen our relationship with God and with one another,
creating a context for honesty, prayer, silence, and scriptural reflection.
We have found people growing in confidence
about how to articulate the depths of their spiritual experiences,
and others discovering a new language of faith
that gives voice to their doubts and their hopes
and their deep longings before God.
6. Translating Citizens-speak into Church-speak
Of course, sometimes the language of organising can sound a bit alien in church.
We talk about power, campaigns, strategy, actions.
Those words can make us nervous.
But when we translate them, they become deeply familiar.
Power becomes the capacity to act together.
Campaigns become shared missions.
Strategy becomes discernment.
Action becomes faith in motion.
And suddenly, we see that organising isn’t an add-on to the gospel
— it’s one way of living it out.
7. The Challenge and the Invitation
The challenge, I think, is to let organising reshape the culture of our churches
— not just as something we do, but as something we are.
To move from being programme-driven to relationship-driven.
To trust that transformation begins not with grand vision statements,
but with small, honest conversations.
To believe that when we really listen to one another,
the Spirit can move among us to build something new.
So perhaps the invitation to all of us
— whether we’re seasoned organisers or new to it —
is simply to try it and see how it feels.
Have one intentional conversation this week.
Share a bit of your story,
and create a space where someone else can share theirs.
You might be surprised at what grows from that.
Because when we build a culture of relationship,
we begin to glimpse the Kingdom
— not as an abstract ideal,
but as a living, breathing community of hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment