God's love in the community - the Springfield Project Children's Centre

Richard Sudworth shares the story of how a new Children's Centre - which has a strong Christian ethos but offers a range of services to a multi-ethnic community - came out of a period of renewal at St Christopher's Springfield.

You can also read another part of the Springfield story, including tips from Angie Clarke, the Head of Care.

Richard Sudworth facilitated a training day in March 2010 on the issues of working in a multi-faith community and you can can read the notes from the day.

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“God’s Love in the Community” has been the strap-line of the Springfield Project in Birmingham for some years now. There used to be a huge poster with these words on it draped down one outside wall of the church next to the church hall where we hosted our core activities of nursery, stay-and-play and family support. The former church hall is now a state-of-the-art Children's Centre, the flagship for Birmingham’s programme of early years provision. “God’s love in the community” is how the Springfield Project began and it is the faith basis that has been the springboard for the remarkable series of partnerships that have lead to this wonderful facility, completed at the beginning of 2008.

“God’s love in the community” is how the Springfield Project began and it is the faith basis that has been the springboard for the remarkable series of partnerships that have lead to this wonderful facility.

The project is remarkable because, to all intents and purposes, the Springfield Project should not be here. It bucks the trend; it undermines all the perceived views of how things “should” be done and counters so many of the preconceptions we are all too familiar with from the media. The Springfield district of inner city Birmingham is a Muslim-majority community. The largely Mirpuri-Pakistani background neighbourhood is home to a whole wealth of ethnic and religious groups: Sikh, Hindu, Somali Muslims, white, Chinese, Afro-Caribbean, working class and middle class. The Pakistani origins are what are most evident though in the local stalls, mosques and clothing seen around the church. So, in a climate charged with fear over religious extremism, how was it that Britain’s second city, in the middle of a Muslim community, chose an evangelical church-based project as the site for their largest Children’s Centre?

Some fifteen years ago, St Christopher’s Springfield experienced a period of renewed growth and there was a tangible sense of increased faith and commitment for many members of the church. Several women decided that this fresh enthusiasm was all to no avail unless people outside the church were affected and transformed in some way. The beginnings of the appropriately named “Seedlings” stay-and-play began then. From a fragile, small group of mothers, Seedlings grew, very slowly, as trust built up and, largely by word-of-mouth, families in the neighbourhood began to recognise the unconditional safe space that was offered there. The leading personalities were professional nursery workers, in part-time employment, and so were determined to give the families “the best”. Not content to merely have a period for parents to chat over coffee, good quality toys, a structured programme and fun games and activities that developed confidence in the children and encouraged bonding with parents became the norm.

Appropriate Bible stories that resonated with the Muslim faith were read in story-time, Christian festivals honoured and church members available to pray with anyone in need. Rather than this being an obstacle to engaging Muslim families, the very public faith evidenced in the provision made the project a place that was increasingly respected.

Throughout this formative period, Seedlings was a place that “did God”. Appropriate Bible stories that resonated with the Muslim faith were read in story-time, Christian festivals honoured and church members available to pray with anyone in need. Rather than this being an obstacle to engaging the Muslim families that came, the very public faith that was evidenced in the provision made the project a place that was increasingly respected. Children could be entrusted to the care of the Springfield Project because this place represented faith and moral values in a way that so much of British society did not to Muslims fearful of the corrupting influence they saw around them.

This formative period has not been seamless, though. The history of the Springfield Project is one of continuous wrestling with what the aims and objectives of the church actually are. As an evangelical church, the opportunity of such direct encounters with people of other faith may seem to some like an incredible opportunity for witness; well wasn’t that the spirit that drove people outwards to begin with? The realities of relationship and trust have reminded us, though, that our practical outreach and service should have no ulterior motive; no hidden agenda.

'Let the draught go both ways'

Several years ago, a chance conversation about the vision of the project threw up the catchphrase, “let the draught go both ways”. The conversation was taking place in a meeting room that was effectively a corridor between the church and the old church hall: an awkward space with doors at either end and constant traffic to and fro. Like the meeting room, the project needed to allow the draught to “go both ways”. Somehow, the motivation and fuel for the church’s engagement with the community: our faith and our spirituality, needed to be part and parcel of what made a difference. Conversely, we were failing as a church, not following Jesus’ pattern, if we ourselves were not being changed in that process: there would be a journey that would be uncomfortable for both church and community. If we held all the cards, knew all the outcomes in advance, were immune to threats, then we weren’t being true to the faith of the cross. If the families served by the project did not encounter, experience and recognise in us something beyond human altruism, then we had probably defaulted to another privatised version of religion.

This mutual draught has been evident in many instances. While the Childrens Centre was being built, all the nursery and stay-and-play services took place in the main body of the church, (praise God for Birmingham Diocese, exactly one hundred years before, not installing pews!) The church had twelve months of storage cupboards lining the worship space, chairs, toys and tables that had to be stacked and restacked many times a week, and singing choruses on a Sunday morning sandwiched between room dividers pasted with children’s art. It was an uncomfortable but very vivid and healthy conversation between the stuff of Sunday and the lived reality of a working week! But it wasn’t just the church getting the draught. Imagine, scores of parents leaving their children on a Monday morning into the care of nursery staff drawing them into a large Anglican church with its stained glass and under the looming shadow of a large cross. If you are a mum wearing a veil, labouring under the fears and misapprehensions of what the Christian faith is, what Western civilisation represents to you as a Muslim, that is a huge step of trust.

The risk and vulnerability continues, too. Some might envy the fabulous new facilities, but we are conscious that what has made the project so special over the years has not been the prestige of the environment. For a church with around 90 or so adult members, the 40 or so that either work in the project through the week or volunteer in some capacity is testimony to the commitment in relationship. The Springfield Project has not been driven by outcomes, targets and national agendas, however good and useful these may be. God’s love, agenda-free, has underwritten so much of what happens when Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Christian and non-faith families are being served. 

The Springfield Project has not been driven by outcomes, targets and national agendas, however good and useful these may be. God’s love, agenda-free, has underwritten so much of what happens when Muslim,Sikh, Hindu, Christian and non-faith families are being served.

We are very conscious that the inevitably increased professionalisation of services that a Childrens Centre demands may squeeze the space for just listening to people, and building up trust to hear their stories. Part of the vision of Childrens Centres is to become a one-stop-shop that provides access to a whole range of provision for vulnerable families. The Springfield Project, then, will become host to professionals like midwives and health visitors, back-to-work counsellors and nutritionists that may be unfamiliar with our ethos and unused to the language of faith in the public square. The “success” is not then in having obtained the gleaming new building for the use of a church-based project; rather, it is in having engaged a local council and other faith groups in working for the good of all local families in the name of Jesus. How do we foster that success in the face of potential challenges like this?

The challenges of partnership

The decision to proceed with the Childrens Centre proposal was not a fait accompli. The church entered into this partnership with some diffidence and even ambivalence. Would the church be swamped? Would we lose the vital relationship element in the process of enlargement and external funding drives? Would the demographic patterns of the future of the city mean that we would be actually handing over a major resource from the church to a secular or Muslim institution in years to come? Would a new government with a new strategy derail Childrens Centres and leave the church with an untenable liability to Birmingham City Council? Might there not be a flaw at the heart of the Childrens Centre ethos that seeks to drive mothers to work for dubious public sector budget reasons? Should the church then be colluding with ulterior government agendas with their very mixed motives for promoting “community cohesion” that they see demonstrated here? The answers to each of these questions, we know, remains unclear. At each and every stage of discussion with key council staff, the church stressed its Christian vocation and values, its desire to have Christian faith written into the warp and weft of the project. Yet that still did not put them off!! At the planning permission stage, some local political opposition was overturned by the advocacy of the mosque across the road from the church. The message we were hearing was that “on the ground”, this project mattered and could be trusted to bless all people.

At the planning permission stage, some local political opposition was overturned by the advocacy of the mosque across the road . The message we were hearing was that “on the ground”, this project mattered and could be trusted to bless all people.

The Springfield Project has far from “arrived”. There is a long journey ahead of conversations, challenges and mutual draughts. Just recently, the leadership were discussing religious festivals. Christmas and Easter have been celebrated with parties when the underlying stories have been shared and Christian belief explained in ways that connect with some of the shared resonances with, in particular, the Muslim faith. But as the numbers of non-Christian staff grow; what about an Eid party or Diwali party? Integral to the project ethos has been the belief that reducing faith to the merely cultural is dishonest and reduces our ability to see our neighbours in the round, with all their values, hopes and beliefs in play. So, we might have Easter eggs and a Father Christmas for the children but as a church community, these festivals mean so much more. We need to hear the Bible stories too, and allow time for prayer. Could we legitimately host an Eid party then without compromising our beliefs? It’s a good question and drives us to our own faith in prayer and reflection, asking additional questions like “what are our motives?”, “what are the aims of the party?”, “what is honest and has integrity and consistency?”

The Springfield Project is an exciting place to be. Swiping my card to buzz through the office door now is a far cry from the dingy side-chapel with its problematic rats. Arguably, the church is deepening in its own faith and spirituality as it faces some of these insistent questions in a way that we would not do from a position of comfort and certainty. But what is truly thrilling of a Monday morning is witnessing the gaggle of parents, belying all our stereotypes, veiled, unveiled, black, white and Asian, entrusting their children to a church-based project. Seeing these children play together across boundaries of colour, ethnicity and religion and each being valued in the name of Jesus is profoundly moving. These children will grow up appreciating and enjoying the diversity of Britain today. They will have found here, at the Springfield Project, that the Christian faith can be the difference that permits difference and will have been loved unconditionally.

Richard J Sudworth,  Chair of the Springfield Project Management Committee, June 2008.
For more information on the Springfield Project visit www.springfieldproject.org.uk

Richard is married to Fiona and they have two children, Fenella and Dylan. Richard is a Church Mission Society mission partner with a passion for  equipping churches for a constructive engagement with other faiths. He has recently written ‘Distinctly Welcoming’ - a very practical tool for churches who want to engage with ethnic minority groups on their doorstep.

For more information visit www.distinctlywelcoming.com