Talking To Steve Chalke
about Community Action and church in 21C
Steve Chalke is a well-known media presenter, frequently heard commenting for the BBC, as well as Talk Radio, Capital FM and GMTV.
He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1981, and four years later set up Oasis Trust. The author of many books, he also contributes regularly to newspapers and magazines.
In this interview he talks to Noel Stanton, senior pastor of the Jesus Fellowship.
Noel: You ran in the London Marathon recently - even after you broke your ankle? How old are you now Steve?
Steve: I'm 44! On the Saturday before Christmas I broke my ankle but I didn't get it seen to straightaway as I had to go to a meeting at 10 Downing Street that day! The hospital said I'd broken it and had further damaged it by walking on it. I couldn't walk on it until near the end of February, but eventually I did the marathon and raised £40,000 for a new Oasis project.
Noel: You're an unshakeable, Spirit-filled, charismatic evangelical!
Steve: My experience, particularly over the last ten years, where I've worked more and more in the secular field, has made me even more committed to the gospel message and my roots. The only answer for society and for individuals is: "For God so loved the world". I become more convinced of that every day. But the 'unshakeable' bit has more to do with who God is than who I am. I'm very shakeable - He's the Rock, not me!
Noel: So you're living a fulfilled life?
Steve: Yes, although fulfilment is about climbing the mountain rather than reaching the top!
Noel: Like the rest of us you feel your soul drained at times? And sometimes feel a bit of a failure?
Steve: Of course, an absolute failure. A lot of the time! Lack of self-esteem is a human condition; frustration and fulfilment go hand in hand. I'm fulfilled in that I believe I'm doing what I should be doing, I've got vision. I've got direction. I can see what ought to happen. But I'm also fundamentally frustrated the whole of the time and that frustration grows.
There's always the next step of the journey and the next challenge. The more you go on, the more you see the opportunities and the more aware you become of your own restrictions and shortcomings and inconsistencies.
Noel: Are you as much involved in TV as you have been?
Steve: Yes, I'm doing something for GMTV each day next week. I'm also working on some new ideas with the BBC. And Oasis Media produced a six-part series for LWT about the way teenagers view the world and their struggles.
Noel: So you never get fed up with TV?
Steve: I never get fed up with communicating. Television is a means of communication. Sometimes people have said to me "Steve you started out as an evangelist, as a preacher, as a Christian leader and you've ended up as a television presenter or contributor. Why did you change horses?" But the truth is I haven't changed horses. I started out as a 14 year old to whom God spoke and said, "Tell the world about Me!" And that's always been my goal. At the moment one of my platforms happens to be radio and television.
Noel: You're speaking to the millions.
Steve: Yes, but we're keen to expand our opportunities. We're working on new media ideas. Oasis has invested very heavily in involvement with the Internet. It's a progression. So I'm not in love with telly, I'm in love with the opportunity to talk about what I passionately believe in.
Noel: You never long to be a church pastor these days?
Steve: I pastor a lot of people but I don't long to be a local church pastor. Oasis is training local church pastors and evangelists. In fact one of my meetings earlier this morning was simply about that issue - how do we train evangelists more effectively?
Over the last ten years Oasis has launched a degree course with Spurgeon's College, training evangelists and church pastors. The launch of that course has actually lead to the whole of the Baptist denomination - and probably people further than that, re-evaluating what we mean by full time 'Christian ministry'. They've rethought what the role of the professional 'minister' is.
It needs to change more, but there's no doubt that the introduction of that course has fundamentally changed Spurgeon's College. The make-up and the structure of all the training they offer is far more mission orientated now, which is fantastic. But it's also changed the way that Baptists perceive 'full time ministry'.
Noel: Still a member of Purley Baptist Church?
Steve: Oh, yes.
Noel: Do you have relationships of accountability?
Steve: Yes. Very definitely! I think, however, that it's a huge weakness in the way we structure some of our churches.
I served as Moderator of Purley Baptist for a while. My job was to help the church think about restructuring its leadership team, its goals and its mission and to create more accountability. It's great to be in a growing church and it's great to be in a church where I do feel supported and accountable.
Noel: Let's turn to Oasis. What's been happening recently?
Steve: We've restructured Oasis recently. It started as a group of six friends working together, and just grew! However, we had reached the place where the organisation was totally inefficient. So we sat down to gear ourselves up for the next phase of growth.
We spent a year rethinking how Oasis should be structured, what our mission was, what our focus was and where we were going. The organisation has begun to grow again over the last year which is fantastic.
Noel: You've got an exclamation mark in your new Oasis logo!
Steve: The exclamation mark stands for innovation. It's back to "For God so loved the world"! We want to drag the church into the big wide world and the world, (ie the people that God loves), into the church.
Noel: Breaking down the barriers!
Steve: Helping the church understand the world in which we live and vice versa.
Noel: How many staff do you have?
Steve: We've about 75 full time staff in London at the moment and it's going up all the time! Elsewhere around the world there's lots more - I'm not sure how many!
Noel: You now have four action groups in Oasis?
Steve: They're basically the way we've regrouped our departments. We've formed Youth Action, Global Action, Community Action and Church Action. For instance, our social care department, which has grown a great deal, is now our Community Action department. The label 'Social care' no longer reflected what we're doing because we're not just coming in to care for people. We're about empowering people and empowering communities.
For example, we've just opened 'The Foyer' in Croydon, which is a brand new million pound development. It's the first hostel we've run which has been built from scratch. It will house 18 young people and it will provide IT skills and training for up to 500 more young people each year.
The Foyer' is the latest thing in hostels. You can give a young person a bed and meals for a year and then find them a flat and a job and off they go! But within three months they will probably have lost their flat, lost their job and be back out on the street. What we have to do is empower them with the social skills and work disciplines they need in order to survive. You've got to teach them to cook, teach them to budget, teach them to relate to other people, teach them honesty, teach them integrity and supply them with a great support base. This is what the Foyer does.
Noel: And how is all this funded?
Steve: Croydon Council and a Housing Association called Broomley have helped us build the project. They have put huge resources into it - they've been great to work with. Our job is to appoint the staff, manage it and run it on a day to day basis.
Noel: Is it your particular 'baby'?
Steve: It was. My role in Oasis is to initiate projects and incubate them! I went to Croydon Council four years ago and challenged them to work with Croydon's churches and with Oasis in order to bring something like this about. But now it's managed by others within Oasis. I'm now beginning to look at other 'Community Action' projects beyond it.
Noel: Do you get funding through donations?
Steve: A huge amount of funding for the Foyer has come in through central government and local government grants but some of it has also come from local churches and individuals. Obviously government isn't going to put money into evangelism and church planting training! And so funding for those projects comes from Christians and local churches.
We get a great deal of funding from government and local authorities where we provide medical care. For instance, 12,000 treatments were given last year at the Oasis Health Centre in Waterloo. Again, some of the funding on the training courses that we offer comes from fees that are paid by students. But there always seems to be a massive shortfall!
Noel: Do you own any property?
Steve: We are buying our Central London offices. It's the first time we've had a place we don't rent.
Noel: And you've still got time for wider ministry like March for Jesus and Spring Harvest?
Steve: Yes. I'm on the Council of Spring Harvest and very much involved with them. This year I'm also speaking at Stoneleigh Bible Week, at HTB's Focus Week and at 'Junction 1' - a new music event over the August Bank Holiday we're involved in. Over the same weekend 'Parentalk', which is one of the charities we run, is working in partnership with Prima magazine at the Prima Baby Show at Olympia, expecting 40,000 people, so I'm also speaking there.
Noel: 'Parentalk' is now on the Web?
Steve: Yes, at www.parentalk.co.uk. We've invested really heavily in web-based things and new media. I think the invention of the Web is as significant as the invention of the printing press. The invention of the printing press changed the whole way in which people communicated with one another and the way in which we learned. Books meant you could learn without interacting with other people. You didn't test your arguments with them. You just absorbed. Learning became a one- way process.
The invention of the Internet means that we return at long last to that two-way communication. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines have never been that. The editor of the magazine tells us the way the world is and we don't get a chance to debate. The church has been the same, with the audience facing a preacher who tells you what to believe. It's been very hard to have your say, to ask your questions. That's what's been great about groups like Alpha. They allow two-way conversation.
The Internet offers us that same opportunity. Whether the church fully embraces the opportunities or not in the first phase (I hope we will) that's the way the planet's going and sooner or later we'll catch up because we'll have to.
Noel: And your Xalt.co.uk is a resource for the church?
Steve: Yes. Xalt.co.uk is two things. It's an Internet Service Provider, like FreeServe, and also a super-site for Christians with a huge amount of content, which we launched at the start of July. Xalt will have all the same news, views, sports that you'd expect from AOL or CompuServe. But you will also get that integrated with Christian news and views, and it will give you a holistic world view.
Noel: Is this really building the local church?
Steve: Very definitely. Xalt is about allowing people to think 'Christianly' about the world in which they live. And it explicitly builds up local churches because it will give you a 'web strip' with updates on your church's news, events and views as well as a link through to your web site.
What we are doing is building community for every local church because we're giving every local church leader the ability and the opportunity to communicate with their congregation every day if they want to. And it's all free!
Noel: Is the church in the UK declining or advancing?
Steve: It's a complex picture. Some good news and some bad news. In some measure, the Church is on the advance. I know that Peter Brierley predicts that by the year 2040 the church will be almost extinct. I don't buy that at all. Like any mathematician, he's just plotted a graph and kept the line running. But my teenage sons heard Peter's statistics and they said, "Dad, he lives on a different planet to us!" They're excited about the church!
Our church has a big youth section. We've just set up something called 'The Ministry' which is a youth congregation and it's growing fast. As we all know, there are fantastically exciting things going on in the church!
Noel: Do we do have revival?
Steve: Revival is one of those terms which everyone defines differently. I think that we have growth, spiritual hungering, spiritual longing and we have lots of people who are finding that the message of Jesus and a life following Jesus satisfies their need.
Noel: Does the charismatic movement carry on, or has it fizzled out?
Steve: I don't think it's fizzled out, I think it's coming of age. I think that the silly divisions about who speaks in tongues and who doesn't are really a thing of the past. The real issue is: are you following Jesus or not? How does He impact your lifestyle? That's what matters. In fact, that's all that matters! There are sections of what was called the charismatic church which are growing and flourishing and sections that are dying and having to ask themselves questions about reinventing themselves. There are sections of the non-charismatic evangelical church that are growing and flourishing and sections that are having to ask some pretty serious questions about where they're going. The question is, am I excited about Jesus? Do I believe that what He said is the truth? Every day I live, every conversation I have with somebody who is not yet part of the church convinces me more and more that the only answer is Jesus. For instance, the government has just published a paper called, A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal - A Framework Consultation. It's a great document - a report by the Social Exclusion Unit. Tony Blair writes the foreword and in it he says that there are four keys to neighbourhood renewal: revive the economy; revive and empower the community; improve public services and meet the need for leadership. Well, you could revive an economy all you like and you could improve public services and you can train a few leaders but unless you can empower a community, you're hopelessly lost. How do you empower a community? You have to empower individuals. And how do you do that? What's the answer? "For God so loved the world"!
Noel: Spiritual regeneration?
Steve: Yes! You'll never have community renewal or neighbourhood renewal without individual renewal - it's impossible. The only hope is the gospel.
Noel: You feel the churches are making disciples and finding leaders?
Steve: I prefer the term 'apprentice', but yes! I feel that some churches are making disciples and finding leaders. However, what I long for is a church that is 'inclusive'. That accepts people who don't feel that they have 'got there' or have 'made it' yet. It's within the church community that you find and develop faith.
The model for the first church was the synagogue, where everybody belonged and where they slowly learnt intellectually, learnt emotionally and developed spiritually. Some people were faster than others and some people slower. Some got further and some not as far. That was OK. There was room for them all.
Noel: You think belonging is believing?
Steve: Belonging leads to believing. You discover believing in an open church community where you 'experience' believing, where believing is modelled and your questions are answered. The trouble with a lot of our churches is that we're a bit like an Olympic high jump team. The bar is so high that most people never get in. We say: Here's our creed. Do you believe all these things? Do you believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth, the atonement, the resurrection, the final judgement, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the second coming? If you believe, you can belong! Lots of people want to say, 'Hang on a minute, I'd like to ask you about some of those things! No I don't believe them all but I do believe some of them and I've got questions about others.'
Noel: Have we used the opportunity of Year 2k?
Steve: Some wonderful things have happened in the millennium year. The Jesus Day event was a great initiative. Graham Kendrick, with his Millennium Chorus, has got hold of something and produced a great result. We will never know the stories of the lives that are being touched by this year's activities. My gut feeling is that there are fantastic signs of growth. Equally, there are some very sad stories to tell of people whose only answer to a changing world is 'Let's just shout louder'. Shouting louder doesn't do any good if you're speaking the wrong language.
Noel: How do you see young people in the church in 21C?
Steve: Young people are changing - I think one of the biggest changes is symbolised by the success of the television series, Friends. If you go back a generation, the sitcoms that were really successful were about family life - The Good Life and that kind of thing. Friends speaks to this generation. Teenagers are far more committed to community and to friendship than the generation older than them.
I also think that they are far more committed to marriage and working hard at permanent relationships and if you want a prophecy from me (not that I'm a great prophet), I would say that we will see a swing back in the direction of marriage in the next generation.
I was reading the Tomorrow Project yesterday morning. It's a huge piece of research conducted by government and various other bodies across the last three years. St. John's College, Nottingham, have contributed. It looks at our values, our approach to religion, life, family, marriage and education. It's filled with wonderful statistics to stimulate your thinking.
One of the strands of the project looks at marriage. Marriage has become incredibly unpopular, without a doubt, but one of the questions the research raises is that if you look at the rising tide of millennial kids, will that trend be reversed? Certainly young people I know feel that their parents' generation has let them down in terms of relationships and stickability. I feel excited about the possibility of that. If you want it in a sound bite: I think the secular humanist world view, as held by Polly Toynbee, is a dead one; it belongs to the seventies and the early eighties, not 21C.
Noel: Young people have spiritual desires?
Steve: Oh yes. I used to be endlessly asked to speak in colleges or universities on the theme of 'Can you believe in God in an age of science?' Now I can't remember the last time I was asked to do that. No one's interested in that question any more. Their answer is, 'Of course you can believe in God in an age of science.' Science is about how not why. Every teenager is walking around with a mobile phone in their hand. They have the Internet at their disposal. Genetic engineering is a fact of life. But young people are saying, 'What do you mean you can't believe in God in an age of science?' Their message to the secular humanist generation is: 'Wake up!'
When I'm on chat shows on TV or radio and in conversation with a secular humanist, I often say, 'I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you'll find the Christian Union is doing a lot better in every university than the secular humanist society.' However I'm not saying that we have any room to be triumphalistic; most faith societies are also doing better. The truth is this new spirituality is an 'open' spirituality and the big question still is, 'Will the church fill the need, or will the judgement of history be that the moment was lost and people went elsewhere?' The jury is still out on that one.
Noel: Steve, you're excited about the future?
Steve: I'm challenged, I'm frustrated, and yes, I'm excited!
'Talking To..'
Steve Chalke is a well-known media presenter, frequently heard commenting for the BBC, as well as Talk Radio, Capital FM and GMTV.
