I thought that is how you were using the words urban / suburban – referring to a culture, rather than a geographical location. I suppose i still wonder if there are better terms? But then not sure what they would be!

I really agree that it is really cross culteral mission that you are engaged with! I suspect the culture of the areas you are looking at is as different to mine / ours as trying to plant a church in another country!

Been thinking about Paul’s comment on ‘becoming all things to all people’ over the last few weeks. There is something there about contextualising the gospel in different cultures.

Inner city slums tend to be synonymous with post-industrial cities like Glasgow. In Edinburgh, instead, which has always been a judicial/financial centre the medieval town survived and has been renovated. So the “urban” areas tend to be peripheral. In Paris, its like a donut – the urban/slum areas surround the wealthy core and are in turn surrounded by suburbs. So there are a wide variety of city-scapes shaped by myriad forces.

Anyway, I think of the terms suburban/urban in cultural/economic terms rather than geographic (though often geography can influence them). A guy called William Upski Wimsatt once wrote about “suburbs of the mind” as a way of defining a certain mindset or worldview that defines a suburban dweller as opposed to folk from an “urban” area. Its a worldview rooted in assumptions about choice, wealth and upward mobility which an “urban” dweller usually lacks. Poverty of choice/wealth and the social ills that come with that (housing/drugs/crime) tend to be exacerbated in “urban” cultures (as I use the term). A suburban dweller even in a city like Glasgow can actually experience culture shock when they experience another part of the city that they usually drive past. This is exacerbated if you then actually move in to an area. The mindset of the suburbs in the UK reveals itself in phrases like “amazing how how the other live”, in the often almost racial charicatures of “ned” culture, and the often negatively biased representations of the realities of inner-city life that we see in middle-class media. Everyone defines their identity in terms of other identities that they are not, often denigrating those identities. Our worldviews can be subtly influenced by the culture we live in. As more wealthy Christians in the UK, I think we feel more comfortable with allowing the Jewish culture of 2000 years ago to critique us than the culture of “urban” areas often just next door to our homes. What does the continuing existance of deep poverty in Glasgow and the lack of vibrant churches in these areas actually say about the way we express our faith in the majority (more middle-class) churches? And would the biblical verses on poverty that Dave McNeish listed in his last sermon have a deeper meaning if we actually experienced the poverty of these areas on our doorstep on a daily basis?

I can’t shake the reality of seeing a methadone addict wandering zombe-like in Possil the other day, and the story of a 19 year old boy stabbed to death there because of the drug-wars just a few weeks ago.

Sobering stuff, a real shock to the suburbanisation of my worldview.

So a question: is urban and suburban the best definition of these different types of churches? Certainly in Edinburgh, those church in the suburbs are in areas of deprivation, whereas all the churches in the urban centre tend to be middle class, afluent, & relatively wealthy.

Any thoughts?