I have been aware of the ‘Oasis’ organisation for decades; primarily as a ‘training’ opportunity for gap year students. I suspect that part of its ministry is now in the past. Today it is better known for its School Academies, over fifty of them, up and down the country. These highly respected schools, often serving ‘disadvantaged’ communities have a subtle Christian ethos at their centre. Indeed, the founder of Oasis, The Revd Steve Chalke was on the BBC just last week being interviewed about the huge deficit schools will face, come the autumn, in their heating bills. As always, in that radio interview, he spoke well, mixing, as he frequently does, his enthusiasm and compassion. He is, I think a very worthy recipient of his MBE!
Steve Chalke trained, like me, at Spurgeon’s College in South London. He was always an ‘outside the box’ person, yet I suspect that none of his tutors envisaged that forty years on he would be looking back at a ministry that had ‘social’ care and engagement at its core. In the last decade or so Steve Chalke surprised the ‘evangelical' world on two fronts. Firstly, he distanced himself from the traditional ‘atonement’ theory of The Cross and secondly, he became a very public advocate of the LGTBQ community. These actions were at some personal cost to him as he was ‘thrown out’ of The Evangelical Alliance and his projects received a significant cut in funding by a number of evangelical organisations.
The Oasis Church in London is sited just opposite the Lambeth North Tube station in what was, formerly, Christchurch and Upton URC. Some members of that former congregation still attend. It’s a huge late 20th century building, still retaining its spire from a former architectural incarnation.
The building is used throughout the week for a myriad of social projects, including housing a school academy, a food bank, parenting centre and urban farm office.
This is not a huge congregation, neither is it one full of one particular age group. It is, however, a congregation with a significant number of folk attending from the LGBQT community, indeed I suspect they were in the majority.
At many times during the service the ‘openness’ and ‘welcome’ of the church was emphasised. Inclusivity is a driving force here. Indeed a recently printed leaflet, scattered freely across the site, was one that offered an apology to gay people for the way they have been treated by The Church in history.
There was a pervading sense of ‘gentleness’ in the service.
We sang similar songs that would have been sung yesterday in countless ‘high octane’ evangelical congregations, used the same sort of prayer styles with everything being presented in an informal style; yet at Oasis Waterloo it came across as ‘softer’ and ‘humbler’. I cannot really explain it, it just felt full of certain type of warmth and integrity that I found very moving.
The preacher was from Oasis, Bath where she is the Senior Minister, and she preached a super, well-grounded and helpful sermon on ‘Why go to church?’ It was the fourth in a series of sermons which have all been followed by a ten-minute Q and A session in the service.
I am sure there are a whole host of questions around the ministry of Oasis. Their budget is enormous and the work wide ranging. The ‘elephant in the room’ is always about the relationship between such social involvement in the community and the building and nurturing of a faith community. I know that those involved with Oasis would see no distinction between the ‘Kingdom of God’ either inside or outside the walls of a church.
This visit was one of the final ones of my Sabbatical, at least on a Sunday. The actual last Sabbatical Sunday will be in September when we visit a church in Germany. And as the Sabbatical Blog comes to an end, I’ll also reflect on the URC 50th Anniversary Service from Westminster Central Hall in October and an upcoming visit to a Synagogue Service in the autumn.
So, it was great on Sunday, to be amongst such inspiring people in a congregation in which it felt there was so much integrity. The pracher yesterday mentioned some of the core values of an Oasis Church, they included:
* Inclusivity
* Social Action
* Progressive' theology
(It was interesting to learn that Brian McLaraen will be visiting the church next month)
* Informal Style
Oasis, Waterloo is an example of the way the Church can evolve and embrace the future, without fear because ‘love’ will see us through. ‘Love will win’, with gentleness, warmth, kindness and compassion, because love is from God. And on Sunday I sensed the love of God, present in our worship from start to finish, and it made my heart glad.
