Mitcham Lane Baptist Church

Mitcham Lane Baptist Church is a mixed area of south London and has 150 members. It is one of three churches which ran the Just People course together in 2007.

Phil Barnard, the Pastor, outlines the impact of the course on the church and some of the challenges he sees as a church leader committed to working well in the local community.

We completed the Just People course during Lent together with two other local churches (two Anglican, one Baptist). All three churches suspended their small groups and the course was run in three mixed church ‘pastorates’ involving over 100 people.

We decided to hold our ‘day of action’ on Palm Sunday after the last session. We got Police permission to close the road that runs between two of the churches and we held a short twenty minute service in the road. From there, everyone involved in the course – plus others - went out to do a range of community activities such as litter picking, gardening at a local care home and painting at a local school. After this, everyone was invited back to a big Fair Trade lunch held in the street called ‘Food for Thought’ and we invited many other people too. In my view getting everyone involved practically in this way was essential - the day was a real highlight of the course and gave us memories we still talk about.

There is no doubt that the course was a real watershed for us in our own churches and in our work together. It sharpened our understanding of the needs, and most of what our church has done in the community followed on from it - although we recognise we’ve still got miles to go.

What the church has done since

Our actions since running the course include running a Christian life and work course from LICC, a CAP money course and an in-house sharing your faith course. We also followed up the joint day of action with another day of action in July which involved an even wider range of community service including graffiti clearing with the local authority, gardening for people and singing in old people’s home and football in the park. We followed it with a community barbeque. We put flyers round all the local streets and were thrilled when 300 people came - including the professional graffiti team. In fact, the event was so successful we had to go out and buy more food!

 The event was so successful we had to go out and buy more food!

Other positive outcomes – and the ongoing challenge

Although this second day of action took approximately two months of planning it all came together on the day and was worth all the work we put into it. All the liaison with the local council and the schools was co-ordinated by the ecumenical cell group for young adults, which was a positive experience for them.

We also found that this day, and all that we’ve done since has had a very positive effect on our relationship with the local authority – although we felt it was good already - and we’re looking forward to building on this.

I believe that taking on the implications of this agenda is a radical process that effectively involves a spiritual ‘re-wiring’ of church by shifting the existing mentality towards a more outward focus. This can be hard for some people and means it can be difficult to keep the issues to the fore amidst the ordinary activities our congregation has come to expect of church.  We are now looking to visit the whole agenda in different ways through our regular teaching and are trying to focus on the drip-drip of ongoing change to ensure the church does not drift back into being inward-looking. 


Phil Barnard  December 2008

For more information on the church visit www.mlbc.org.uk