I want to start with a story.

This story is set during the Covid pandemic when our country was in the grips of lockdown. I had recently become a Pioneer Baptist Minister and in response to the growing levels of anxiety, poor mental health and an increase in financial pressures in our neighbourhood, we began to run a pop-up lunch kitchen from the front of our community centre.

The pop-up lunch kitchen was led by three Afro-Caribbean women and on this particular day, they were cooking BBQ chicken in a smoking drum and serving it with rice and peas. There were about ten families standing or sitting on the front decking, enjoying the food. As I looked the mixture of ages, ethnicities and faiths that had gathered to join in with this meal, filled my heart with joy and contentment.

During the meal, we would play some music as a way of bringing a bit of joy and fun into the neighbourhood. Many of our families live in small flats and this was the one time that they could leave them. As we ate, one of our volunteers walked over to the sound system and announced, “We need to put on some wholesome gospel music.” She then proceeded to link her phone to the sound system and turn up the volume so that most of the street could hear the gospel music.

The song she had chosen was the popular worship song ‘So will I’ sung by a Black gospel choir. I was simultaneously taken back by two unexpected happenings. I noticed that many of the people that were at the pop-up lunch kitchen started singing along to the song. Even the Muslim families were joining in and humming the tune. More surprisingly, I noticed myself becoming aware of the presence of God in that space. I found myself ‘catching my breath’ as I sat there in silence being moved by the Holy Spirit. This pop-up kitchen had also become a ‘Jesus space’ and none of it was constructed or influenced by me, the church ‘leader’.

This encounter with God took place not in a church building on a Sunday morning, but on the streets, of what many would call a marginalised and deprived neighbourhood. As a hungry community gathered around a Caribbean drum, full of good tasting food, an encounter with the living God happened.

Eric C. Stewart, in his book ‘Gathered around Jesus’, explores how the Gospel of Mark moves the idea of God space, or Holy and sacred space, away from civilised centres, where the temples and synagogues are located. Instead he suggests that Mark challenges both Roman and early Jewish ways of thinking about space, rejecting these ‘civilised’ centres and providing alternative location for the formation of the Jesus’ movement. Mark sets Jesus’ ministry away from the cities, and places it instead in the wilderness, on the mountains, on the sea and amongst the tombs. People came from the civilised centres to the borderlands to gather around Jesus. Unlike the cities, that saw themselves at the centre of civilisation, Stewart states that “Jesus himself becomes the geographic centre in the imagined world of Markan geography.”[1]

Returning to the story of my neighbourhood, I think I could quite confidently say that none of the people that had gathered around this meal could see themselves going to church on a Sunday morning. Over time, the cultural connections between the Church and our neighbourhood had been lost.

There was safety and agency when participating in activities within the neighbourhood. Everyone knew the unspoken codes. People were familiar with the rhythms of hip-hop and grime music and knew when to dance, Twerk or Whine. People were comfortable with the transient nature of time; it will start when it starts and finish when it finishes. The African, Asian and Caribbean food was familiar and was always the centrepiece for any gatherings. There were even the spaces on the edges where people would go to smoke weed. Many of our neighbourhood cultural activities find their roots in a rich history of Black and Asian heritage. Not only do these spaces feel safe for the community they also reflect a deep connection to the various cultural stories.

Jesus understood this importance of place. Rather than centring his ministry in the synagogues and temple, where the religious leaders held the power and required a compliance to a certain set of purity rituals, he entered the spaces of the sinners, tax collectors, the poor, those who society criticised and cast out, and he allowed himself to be the guest in the space of the other. That day, at the pop-up lunch, we experienced his presence in a new-sacred space.

When we think about the experiences of children who are in or who have been in care, ‘space’ matters. Not all children children grow up as part of a church, but they all grow up in our homes, neighbourhoods and communities. Church can often feel scary and unsafe for some children and young people. Rituals such as sitting quietly or having to be well behaved or being under the constant pressure to hold oneself together can be utterly exhausting and often feel impossible.

Our Sunday services are a wonderful gift and draw on centuries of history and tradition. But spaces outside of our church buildings can also become redemptive spaces, not just for children and young people with lived experience of care, or people from my neighbourhood with different cultural values, but also for us.

As we let go of the control we hold and the boundaries we places over ‘space’, we make room for the ‘other’ and the Holy Spirit. Stewart explores how Jesus left the traditional civilised centres and met people way out in the borderlands. It was in these new spaces that people had a radical encounter with Jesus. These spaces were inclusive and drew many people who found themselves excluded from the traditional practices and customs of the Jewish faith.

When our children and young people come along to church, they may have the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with the other members and have a redemptive encounter with God – and this is something that’s beautiful and to be celebrated. But for those who will find church spaces too overwhelming or unsafe, how great it is that we have a God who steps out of Heaven and meets us exactly where we are; in our homes, on our streets, in our neighbourhoods and in our families.

So, having started with a story, I’ll leave you with a question. Where are the new-sacred spaces in your community? What would it look like for you to bring the love of God outside of your church ‘space’ this week?

[1] Stewart, 2009. Gathered around Jesus: An alternative spatial practice in the Gospel of Mark.