Post No.3 - Impressions

Lenda outside the Bull Ring malls

One of the markets

We've been in Birmingham a few days now and started to gain some impressions of the place and its people.We've spent a few days orientating ourselves with the bus routes, and generally how to get places like supermarkets etc. It appears that the centre of Birmingham is the main shopping/retail hub. It has a series of multi-story malls in an area called the Bull Ring (see photo of the bull) and open and covered markets that sell everything from fish/meat/poultry to trinkets/jewellery and and everything that sparkles to every style and type of clothing to pretty much everything you could want. It was almost obscene! It was just so full of "stuff". And the place was swarming with people from every ethnicity imaginable. And there was even an evangelist working the street handing out tracts (see photo). He appeared to be from the old school as when I took the photo he was arguing with the two men. I felt like taking him aside and suggesting that arguing was not helpful (note the sign taped to the back of his jacket)... It doesn't look like Birmingham has the big urban malls and shopping areas that a place like Auckland has. Everyone goes to the city, and all the buses head that way...

An evangelist working the street

We were very encouraged to have a coffee with Nigel di Castiglione (see photo), the senior pastor/vicar of St John's Harborne. Harborne is about 7 kms from down-town Birmingham. It has a small shopping centre comprised of narrow streets and little shops with an assortment of cafes and pubs. Birmingham is comprised of lots of communities that were once little villages that have been linked by urban sprawl. It makes it a bit of a mission to drive around and hard to develop space-wise, possibly the reason central Birmingham is the retail and business hub. Nigel is introducing us to the congregation on Sunday and has encouraged his staff and leadership to talk/meet with us. Nigel has only been with St John's for 20 month. He came as an agent of change, and they are working presently working through that process re vision, goals and strategies. Historically they are strongly evangelical and during the 1970s were profoundly influenced by the charismatic renewal movement, even becoming a centre for it, and today remain evangelically charismatic. But they, like many churches who have traveled this route, appear to have become a little stuck modeling their identity on the past rather than looking to what new things the Holy Spirit is up to. Nigel wants to take them forward from this to develop a new identity, but exactly what this looks like is what they are presently exploring. I'll talk more about this during the next few weeks.

The church sign

Nigel di Castiglione

St John's from High Street

We are looking forward to attending their Sunday service and then we are off to the west coast of Wales (near Moylegrove) for a few days with my brother and his wife (Alan & Barbara). We will go from there to spen 3 days at New Wine in Somerset (Wed, Thur, Fri). On Wednesday Francis Chan is doing a session with leadership and we have been invited to attend. On Friday evening we will return to Birmingham. I'll try to blog during htis time but it will depend on wireless internet access. Until then...