Street Pastors

At Street Pastor training last night - we're still hoping to be 'Christ on the Streets' come December - Looking out for people and demonstrating, practically, the love of God. Making sure people are safe and have a good night out. Street Pastors has now been endorsed by the Home Office in England and Roseanna Cunningham has raised it as an issue in the Scottish Parliament, asking for the recognition and support for Street Pastors in Scotland. The Ascension Trust who are the group reponsible for Street Pastors in the UK and now developing further afield in lots of places across the world, see the church as part of the 'Urban Trininty' including the Police and the local authority. It's about starting to put 'community' back into our city centres.

Last night the topic was, believe it or not, Sociology. Brought back memories of studying Durkheim, Marxist and Feminist theory. We looked at 'deviance' and I guess the conclusion I drew is that Christians are probably now a deviant subculture. Deviant doesn't mean 'bad' - just deviating from the norm. You can be a positive deviant! Probably the best books I've read around this in the last little while are by Dave Ping 'Outflow' '>
and by Michael Frost 'Exiles: Living missionally in a Post- Christian World'.
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We're not the mainstream in society and maybe that's a good thing - maybe that means we have to think a bit more deeply about our faith - not take for granted that Christian values are the norm and live in a way that challenges the prevailing culture.

Street Pastors embrace the very thing that Dave Ping talks about - 'a ministry of noticing' - looking out for people and laying down our own needs and interests for a little while.