Over the next six months, a hundred came and slept in our church building, as our small congregation (20-30 people) gave money, and helped practically, to look after these arrivals. Other churches joined in: from Protestant and Catholic, Evangelical and Liberal, backgrounds.
Hurriedly, we learned basic Turkish language, genned up on Islam, and Turkish-Kurdish politics, and discovered about asylum law. As the refugees were eventually settled in temporary housing, we also tried to continue the support we had been giving.
Feeling out of our depth, as a tiny, inner city, church, we made contact with para-church groups, who might be interested in working with Turkish and Kurdish people. These included: London City Mission, Operation Mobilisation, and People International.
This expansion of our ministry, however, led to tension with the other churches, with whom we’d formed a Hackney Churches Refugee Forum. They were unhappy with our attempts, to share our faith in Christ, rather than just serving practically, and supporting them politically.
We, on the other hand, wanted to share the whole of the gospel, which included the hands-on help, but also communicated the reason why we do anything – our love of Christ, and desire that others might also know that love.
This caused a split in the Forum, as we went our own way: distributing tracts on the street to Turkish people, showing the Turkish-language version of the Jesus Film, and (eventually) transforming our evening service into a bi-lingual English-Turkish meeting.
After I left the church, this service moved elsewhere, and became a separate, independent church; still small, and fragile, with about thirty people. A few years ago, I was invited to their 25 years anniversary.
Celebrated as one of the founders, I felt embarrassed, because really I had done very little. I had never felt particularly burdened for Turkish or Kurdish peoples, or no more than for any other people group.
My response was simply an attempt to serve Christ authentically in Hackney, among whomever he sent. And this has generally been my attitude to ministry; which I find, today, justified by recent developments in Missiology.
The Missio Dei idea suggests that mission is God’s, not ours. So, we need to discern where God is moving, and cooperate with him. Although, for instance, planning and vision are important, they are not sacrosanct.
Instead, God frequently blindsides us with a move of his Spirit from left-field, in something we never expected. At KCBC, I’ve begun a ministry among elderly people, at the Peel Centre, for similar reasons, after they approached us to use our building during an interim period.
This chimes with management theory since the 2008 crash. Since then, economic volatility has meant longterm plans become quickly outdated. So business leaders need to be nimble, flexible and adaptive. So do we.
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