London City Mission and Migrant Homelessness

London City Mission (LCM) exists 'to share with the people of London, patiently, sensitively and individually, the transforming love of God in Jesus Christ, and to enable them to join his Church' (London City Mission 2013).

Staff and volunteers fulfil this in five broad ministries; firstly in local community-based churches, cafés and schools, secondly through chaplaincies at transport hubs and to emergency services, thirdly through specialised ministry to ethnic migrant communities, fourthly to prisons and homeless people, fifthly to pastoral care to the elderly in care homes. This article however, focuses on just one of these aspects – the interaction of LCM with homelessness – and in particular that amongst the migrant community.

LCM in context

London City Mission was established in 1835 by Scottish missionary David Nasmith. Himself a migrant to London, his city mission to the poor brought 'them to an acquaintance with salvation, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and of doing them good by every means in your power’ (London City Mission, 2013).

According to Kirk (1999, p57) 'there can be no authentic evangelism apart from a living testimony to the transforming power of the Gospel in action’. Whilst publically expressing a Christian ethos in their work, tension exists where LCM presently operates in a society drastically differing from when it was first established in the nineteenth Century. The widely acknowledged European rejection of the Christian narrative today risks muting Kirk's 'Gospel in action' and limiting the transformation of individuals and community.

Due in part to the global recession and eurozone financial crisis the work of London City Mission has increasingly found itself ministering to the growing phenomena of migrant Londoners, with two-fifth of Londoners now from an ethnic minority. (Vallance, 2008, p1) In flux, transition and change, migrant Londoners are likely to experience a certain degree of disorientation and loneliness as they navigate new language, understanding UK government agencies, law, education, benefits and politics.

This is precisely evidenced by Snyder (2007, p13), where London’s refugees and asylum seekers 'face a number of specific barriers not only concerning discrimination and language, but also difficulties in obtaining recognition for non-UK qualifications”, compounded by difficulties for Migrants stemming from Government decision making and policy.  While British rough sleepers can generally find hostel accommodation and financial aid, Eastern Europeans are rarely entitled to such benefits, 'like the hidden armies of unsuccessful asylum-seekers who also have no recourse to public funding, many A10 homeless are now some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in Britain' (Taylor, 2009, p1).

While rough sleeping among UK nationals in London is falling, it is rising among migrants, in 2011 3975 rough sleepers were identified, 48% from the UK, 28% from Central and Eastern Europe, 11% from Other Europe, 6% African, 6% Other (Edwards, 2012, p2). With 52% of rough sleepers in London being migrants from outside the UK, the challenges to organisations like LCM are complex including past socio-historical issues arising in home countries which may have contributed to their homelessness. Many Eastern Europeans come from a generation that went through communism, 'they are scarred and don't trust authority. They drink and find a group that behaves like them. It becomes a lifestyle, and not an easy one to get out off' (Ramesh, 2010, p1).

“While British rough sleepers can generally find hostel accommodation and financial aid, Eastern Europeans are rarely entitled to such benefits”

It is recognised this element of mission requires a degree of training. However, a 'professionalization' of mission risks the unwitting exclusion of volunteers in local Church, for example 'community-based fund raising (inefficient but highly participative) is replaced by skilled applications for grant funding’ (Booker, 2005, p102). However, it can equally be argued as professionals in mission, LCM staff are better equipped to assist migrants with serious pressing support needs, employment and benefits issues, poor physical and mental health, sex abuse, sex working, trafficking and torture as they work in partnership with other agencies. 

A commitment to Koinonia

John Nicholls (2007, p2) Chief Executive Officer, has taken steps address the balance in the makeup of his 150 member team, thirty per cent of whom are from non-British backgrounds and fluent in over 20 languages. This confirms their commitment to reflecting the enriched benefits a diverse team in working among migrant peoples and is a mature and developed distinct form of missional 'Koinonia'.

As the first-century church demonstrated a new way of relating to each other, a transformational paradigm of relationships developed on a larger scale between the Jew and Gentile, male and female. LCM has correspondingly focussed on a missional strategy understanding the necessity that 'Koinonia stands in a dialectical relationship to the need for all to have life in fullness. The gospel is about the possibility of having Koinonia within a context of inequality, as a togetherness of those who are diverse, locally and globally' (Funkschmidt, 2002, p571). However, the questions remains as to how LCM work out missional Koinonia to migrants living on the streets, 'the city is a complex multifaceted reality, capable of extremes and of forming, as much as deforming, the human' (Irvin, 2009, p177).

The potential for LCM to contribute to such 'forming' of the human as an individual is evident in the following words of an unnamed Spanish man at Webber Street, LCM's homeless day centre in Waterloo. Every morning the team offer guests cooked breakfasts, hot drinks, showers and clothing, 'I'm sleeping on the streets, alcoholic, I think many people don't need only the food, only the clothes, only the shower or something like this, we need also the food for our hearts, for our souls' (Love London 2013). In spite of any religious bias 'Christian Today' endorses the Webber Street project as providing rough sleepers with 'refuge from life on the streets and a place where they can experience God's love through the patient care of dedicated staff' (Vacheron, 2013, p1).

Hospitality is a major component to the work of Webber Street where shelter, food and clothing transcend language and culture, 'hospitality is not a means to an end; it is a way of life infused by the gospel' (Pohl, 2003, p11), the value added ‘shalom’ peace of God ‘addressing the needs of the whole person, for it is the whole person that is created in God’s image’ (Rogers, 2003, p29).

“In Berlin I was inspired by the commitment to get people off the streets at all costs. I think we should be willing to take more risks and use our resources better to help rough sleepers”

A typical day for staff at Webber Street is not restricted to the confines of the LCM building, but walking the streets, 'and open spaces to find people. I will go to a park or a hostel just to see how people are who have been in crisis recently' (Changing London, 2011, p7). This enhances the credibility of LCM whose staff make the transition over to guests' sub-culture to seek them out where other organisations may simply wait for migrants to go to them for assistance. This is a positive example of LCM’s mission statement, sharing at an ‘individual’ level and 'restoring some of the dignity that life on the streets has taken from them' (Salsbury, 2013, p1). As Tower Bridge spans the river Thames connecting London so LCM trust in the missio Dei, working beyond their own human capability they seek to form a crossing of opportunity for broken people to find redemption in Christ, a new creation as simply evidenced in Webber Street prayer points, 'for genuine conversions to Christ amongst guests' (Webber Street Quarterly Update, 2013, p1).

Looking beyond

In January 2013, LCM closed its Webber Street homeless day centre for refurbishment, in doing so it invested in staff members sending them to work in other European City mission projects in Berlin, Romania and Poland. In the article ‘lessons learned' (Webber Street Quarterly Update, 2013, p2) staff member Petra Zimmermann says 'In Romania I realised again very clearly how important it is for people to work on their past and talk about painful experiences', whilst Luke Carson said 'In Berlin I was inspired by the commitment to get people off the streets at all costs. I think we should be willing to take more risks and use our resources better to help rough sleepers'.  Exposure to other European migrant mission illustrates the commitment of LCM to narrowing the cultural distance between staff and guests. Such an incarnational approach in understanding migrants alerts LCM that 'to bring hope and security to a place, someone needs to take on the role of host' (Pohl, 2003, p13). In this way London City Mission has demonstrated the sharing 'patiently' element of their vision statement with long term investment in staff as they reflect how what is happening in Europe directly affects their work in London and so avoid a restricted ethnocentric stance.

Conclusion

London City Mission understand the complexities of working amongst migrants and are not over simplistic in their approach with overemphasis on human strategy or ingenuity, a ‘defective missiology’ (Murray, 2008, p9) lacking essential reliance on the presence of God. LCM has evidenced it is able to stay true to its established traditional roots whilst also adapting and changing its expression of mission in culture today. They have shown Kirk's 'Gospel in action' has not been muted in their determination to 'hold social action and evangelism together. When that happens something more of the Gospel is seen’ (Booker, 2005, p107). In doing so LCM work to bring the reality of Jesus Kingdom into the now, ‘he lived as if his Kingdom was already present; and in doing so he made it present’ (Dorr, 1984, p100).

David Roche is a mission partner with CMS, with his wife Amy they were previously based in France where they were church planters. David and Amy are relocating to Lebanon to work with a local charity bringing aid to Syrian refugees fleeing the crisis of civil war.

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