Church partnership link
Urban Vision wants to make available to the local church, the cross-cultural skills that have been developed among overseas mission agencies for over two centuries. We feel that the current situation in Britain demands that these skills be transferred to ordinary Christians who are living among Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and others. To this end Urban Vision is developing a “Church Partnership Link” in order to work with local churches at the following three levels…
1. Basic Level - General Awareness & Attitude change:
We supply initial seminars giving an overview of a religion and the fundamental concepts involved in cross-cultural Christian witness to people in it. The aim is to help the local church leadership and congregation to be sensitised to the facts and be able to recognise and address attitudinal issues; these can include fear, anger, racial prejudice, suspicion or resentment, particularly of Muslims.
2. Intermediate Level - A Religion & how Christians can respond:
We supply more in-depth seminars and/or materials on answering non-western people’s objections, misperceptions and misunderstandings of the Gospel (i.e. apologetics). At this level, we also help church leaders to develop strategic thinking about how their members can connect naturally with people from eastern religious backgrounds and how to help those who want to attach themselves to the church (i.e. how to be a culturally inclusive fellowship).
3. Advanced Level - Ongoing Resource & Mentoring Service:
We provide an on-going mentoring service in which Urban Vision becomes a consultant to the local church. This includes linking the church to strategic thinking, resources, contacts and/or further training as needed. Where appropriate, we help the local church become an ‘Antioch’ resource church to bench-mark good practice in their area. Such a church can then …
• offer assistance to other churches which are just beginning the journey into cross-cultural witness. • be helped into exposure and ministry visits to non-western countries for up to three-months
• be twinned with an appropriate non-western congregation in the UK.
The Church Partnership Link enables the local church to start at the beginning and progress from 1-3, if necessary. This can happen over a realistic period of time at the pace the church is comfortable with. Alternatively, a church can start at level 2 or 3.
In return the local church contributes annually to Urban Vision, whatever financial amount they feel they can; for example as much as £500 a year from larger churches and as little as £100 a year from smaller churches. However, money is never the issue with Urban Vision and we never let it get in the way of ministry.