LONDON (ABP) – Black-majority Baptist churches in the United Kingdom are keen to reach the country’s white working class with the gospel, according to a Baptist minister slated to speak at a Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) multicultural event Oct. 16.
Tade Agbesanwa, pastor of Custom House Baptist Church in London, said that black-majority churches are looking for solutions to reach blue-collar whites, including partnering with white-majority churches and increasing their giving to home missions.
“It is a matter of realizing who we are,” he said. “We are Kingdom people whatever our race. If we are a black-majority church in a white-majority area, we cannot close our eyes to them.”
However, Agbesanwa recognized the problems with engaging with the white working class. “We have had the issue of ‘white flight’ in some churches when black people have become the majority. Why is this so? It is an uncomfortable question the people of God should ask.
“Can we disciple someone from a different culture? When people come to church they come for community. Can black and white communities do life together? It is a challenge for us all, the sooner we talk about it the better."
He added, “If blacks and whites in the same church are struggling to stay together, what is the hope that the non-Christian white working class will be attracted to come and stay in a black-majority church?”
The Gathering, a multicultural event that the BUGB has held for the last five years, will be looking this year at helping black and white Baptists reach marginalized communities in the United Kingdom, including the white working class. Speakers at the event include Ian Bunce, head of the BUGB’s Mission Department; Chris Andre-Watson, world-mission coordinator for the BUGB’s missionary arm, BMS World Mission; church planter and founder of Urban Expression Stuart Murray Williams; and Diane Blackler, who comes from a white working-class background in London.
Wale Hudson-Roberts, BUGB’s racial justice advisor, is one of the organizers of The Gathering, which will be held at Woodgrange Baptist Church in London. He said it will be a joyous and challenging event. “The Gathering will not only be exuberant and varied in its worship but will help us understand and appreciate people from different cultures and classes and allow us to see how we can work closer together for the benefit of God’s Kingdom”.
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Chris Hall is a writer and editor for the Baptist Union of Great Britain.