I'm currently working in London. By any measure the place seems to be booming - people are still shopping, Starbucks is full as it sells its overpriced coffee and last night's dinner party at a top quality West End restuarant showed that there are still plenty of people with money to buy bottles of wine at £50 a throw.
However the lunchtime billboards for the Evening Standard seller outside the office block in which I work brings a daily reminder of pain. Today they announced that BT were to loose 10,000 staff.
I know from my contacts in the agency world that contractors - those who don't show up in statistics as staff - are being hit hard. Lot's of three or six month contracts have not been renewed. These people don't show up in the official figures as it is hard to claim unemployment benefit.
Nor do the new unemployed easily show up anywhere. This time there aren't the big factory closures hitting whole communities. It is a war of attrition as staff and contractors are laid off one by one, scuttle home to the suburbs and spend hours on Jobsite hoping to find a lifeboat.
Many of the new unemployed are white collar, have mortages on homes that were overpriced and now in negative equity, have built up credit cards debt and wouldn't be seen dead joining a trades union. They certainly won't regard themselves as "working class" and won't - at the moment - be joining demonstrations demanding work.
So that brings me to a simple question: how does the church respond?
In the big recessions of the 1980s a sense of class solidarity helped a lot of people through. We could blame Thatcher who had engineered the destruction, join demonstations, set up youth employment schemes, go to local council unemployment centres. Much of the unemployment of those years was concentrated in our Northern and Midland towns. I did several articles about it at the time for the trade union papers that I edited. It was clear people were in shock, but a residual class solidarity saw them through.
This time its going to be very different. Someone used to daily commuting, high salaries, and an overblown sense of their own economic value will find redundancy and unemployment hard.
Those fortunate to have a pay off will survive for a few months. Those on contracts will feel the pinch within weeks. Scattered through the suburbs, there won't be a sense of solidarity. They will be at home, on their own, gradually feeling more and more isolated and desperate.
Some will blossom. For them the glass will be half full, especially those with a Christian faith, a challenge can be a time to move on, but many will not be so fortunate.
Can the churches help?
I feel that gets a mixed answer.
Churches jammed packed with young people may not be the easy place to be. Imagine one of the big middle class churches in London. If you happen to be the one without a job will your employed friends take a different attitude? I don't know because I don't often go to such places, but I can't help feeling that many are now geared to the young and succesful - all very well until a smattering of members fall on their face.
Then there are the churches where people in employment rarely cross the threshold. So many churches now have a membership that is retired or close to retirement that the world of work is alien. How will such churches cope with local people, totally isolated, facing finacial problems and in an entirely different generation? Frankly I don't think they well.
However some churches could sieze the moment. Suddenly, on their doorsteps, will be a new pool of youngish people rethinking their lives, isolated, and with time on their hands. Now those churches with weekday activities usually focus on the retired and toddlers. Surely there is a new ministry, a new "fresh expression" that can reach out to the newly unemployed?
With skilled pastoral support, a love of love, and a lot of prayer, we could open our doors to a new generation needing support, looking for meaning and identity beyond work, and with time to spare and intitially few others to be with.
Our full time ministry, those newly retired and those existing members who are unemployed may have a new and exciting opportunity to witness in a way that is relevant to people at their point of need
I'd be very interested to hear of any examples of good practice which come out of the present recession. Perhaps our denominational industrial chaplains can give some guidance and encouragement. This could be an opportunity for the church to serve a new generation in a new way and show that Jesus can transform and help at our points of greatest need.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
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4 comments:
We are a church of mainly older members and so our Girls' Brigade was threatened with closure when the Captain retired and another officer moved away. Then a young solicitor, working mainly on house purchases, was made redundant and, having time on her hands has renewed her GB involvement at her previous church and filled the gap.
Typical Church. Unemployed people equals free volunteers. There is a world, if not an eternity, of a difference between people giving their services and the Church expecting it.
Not quite as it seems. She chose our church because it had a Girls' Brigade and she wanted to be part of it, but held back from getting too involved because much of her work needed to be done in the evening. So she was delighted to have some free time to give to GB. (She is being paid until January, even though she has been made redundant.)
Probably one of the worst emotions that someone goes through when being made redundant is that feeling of being useless. In many ways the person can be helped by getting involved in volunteer work, as it is often that feeling of being useful and making a difference in the lives of others that gives one the impetus to pick themselves up again and go out to look for work again.
The Church can provide such opportunities for volunteer work, but in addition should be backing up the volunteer with testimonials of their work. Potential employers may well be swayed by a CV indicating that the person has remained active while seeking employment, and I'm sure that a glowing testimonial from the person's minister can't do too much harm, either!
The church can also play a major role in offering counselling to those who have been laid off, as well as to develop a network within their congregations whereby work-seekers can be matched with potential employers.
From the tone of Mad Vakell's post, he/she may have had a bad experience with volunteer work, which is unfortunate if this is the case. Volunteers are unfortunately rather thin on the ground, so when someone does come forward, we tend to "flog the willing horse". No excuse, but that's unfortunately what happens at times. I trust that this won't put Mad Vakell off any future volunteer work.
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