★ Eden's Perspective: Statement On Recent Urban Disorder

from Matt Wilson, National Director

I’d like to say thank you to all who have been praying for peace in our cities over the last couple of nights, and especially to those who have sent messages of support for our Eden teams. As you know, we have teams in challenging communities in London, Manchester and Salford – all places that have been affected by the urban disorder.

For those concerned for the safety of our teams, I can confirm that none of the specific neighbourhoods we are based in have been affected by the disorder in any significant way. I live in Salford where there were sporadic public order problems last night around the local shopping precinct. Additionally, some windows were broken on a main street, home of the LifeCentre, which we set up with Langworthy Community Church ten years ago. Manchester city centre was hit quite hard last night but apart from a few isolated incidents of vandalism, local communities were not affected. I have been in touch with our team leaders in London and although roving gangs of looters were out and about in their boroughs on Monday night, their specific estates were not affected.

Our team leaders in Bradford, Sheffield and Middlesbrough report that all has been calm in their parts of the country. Our hearts go out to our friends involved in urban ministry in places that have been directly affected though – especially to friends we have in Tottenham, Peckham, Hackney, and in Ealing, where Dan, our Eden London Regional Director, lives with his family; also to friends beyond London in Toxteth and Wolverhampton. We are thinking of you and praying for you.

In terms of directing your prayers, I would offer the following:

• We must pray for the Spirit to move on residents’ hearts, to free them from fear. Imagine you are elderly, or a vulnerable young parent trying to cope on your own; imagine that you don’t have many friends or the support of a great church. Now perhaps you can get a sense of how easy it is for fear to grip the soul. We banish fear in Jesus’ name.
• We also need to pray for the Spirit to release people from the corrosive effects of the anger they are feeling. Of course we all feel angry but as God’s word says, ‘In your anger do not sin.’ Bitterness and division won’t help us build a better future.
• One of the great rays of hope to emerge from the events of the last few nights has been the practical community response of getting out on to the streets to clean up. Pray that God would breathe his blessing on this peaceful counter-movement and that it might become a powerful and lasting force for good in our communities.
• And last, but by no means least, pray for rain! As I sit and write this it has begun raining in Salford and you can be sure that if it continues into this evening there will be far fewer people on the streets tonight. Pray that it reaches London too, and Birmingham, Bristol and Nottingham.

Finally, by way of personal comment: I am keen that we do not cite poverty as the cause of the riots. I am also keen that we don’t level the blame solely at teenagers either. Using such broad labels risks further marginalising many good people who are made in God’s image. My own conclusion is that we should be speaking out against a toxic, morally corrupt culture that glories in individualism and associates ‘respect’ with violence. This culture has become very widespread in our nation and exists at all levels of society but is present in a dangerously concentrated form in many deprived neighbourhoods, such as those in which Eden operates. In my 15 years of urban ministry I have only found one strategy that works in combating it: making disciples. The events of the last few nights have made me more determined than ever that Eden will continue doing what God originally called us to: going to the hardest places, establishing homes in the heart of those communities and using them as bases for disciple-making. It’s what Eden does, it’s what Eden does best and it’s what Eden will always do.