Politics as mission

So, I’m praying and asking God to reveal what He wants to bring to pass in the realm of Youthwork and politics. I feel an ever so kind kick up the backside as I realise that He already has. He has planted this stuff inside many young people the length and breadth of this country. As young people have encountered poverty and dysfunction during community action or international trips, their natural curiosity has led them to ask, “Why are things the way they are?” They’re not satisfied by the status quo. They’re not satisfied with mere charity that allows us to feel we’ve done the right thing, without effecting long-term change.

In the words of Martin Luther King, they realise many before them have been content to just be the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but they want to improve the security of the Jericho Road so that no-one else gets mugged. Having heard so often the adolescent cry of, “It’s not fair!” they’re learning that injustice is often structural as well as personal. That until the global economic system is rewired according to principles of justice, rather than being ruled by the wealthy, any help we bring is quickly reversed. These facts are leading them to the natural conclusion things won’t change while Christians are just shouting about them from the sidelines, rather than getting on the pitch.

Politics is just people serving people. For a Christian, nothing should be more natural. I stood as a candidate for a by-election in my local area last year; and as I knocked on people’s doors and heard their stories, I realised that there was no one else knocking on these people’s doors. No one else was allowing them to feel connected to the bigger picture. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been there if I wasn’t looking for their vote. The imperfect, yet brilliant thing that is democracy suddenly showed its worth as the glue that holds society together.

I write this from the midst of Labour HQ, so my glasses are not rose-tinted; this is not naive dreaming, but genuine vision. God has promised to redeem and restore all of creation, and politics is merely the way we organise ourselves in the midst of it. God’s perfection IS the future. It will happen. The only question is how soon. You can be certain that we’re the ones who will be the limiting factor, not God. Yet, we have the privilege of being partners with Him in His project of “making all things new.”






So here we go. In 2020...

Youthwork in churches is missional. Young people are continually serving their communities. They understand that this is a vital part of the discipleship deal, rather than a fun summer extra. Engagement with their friends and community is breaking their hearts and forcing them to their knees. It’s also highlighting where broken lives are a product of a broken society, so action is required not simply to mend individual lives, but to mend the context in which they attempt to grow.

Young people are at the leading edge of an eschatological shift that has spread to the whole church. They see themselves as partners in God’s restoration and redemption of all things as well as agents of the kingdom in the here and now. At youth gatherings they are commissioned to bring heaven on earth, rather than cajoled into buying an escape ticket for heaven. They’re ruthless in their desire for justice and righteousness to burst forth in schools, supermarkets, youth clubs and the Internet. They refuse the old “EITHER/OR” of denominational or ecclesiological boundaries in favour of “BOTH/AND”. They are just as comfortable lobbying a supermarket to stock fairly traded goods as they are praying for miraculous healings. And just as comfortable speaking in the town hall as a local councillor as they are speaking in tongues in a brightly coloured prayer room.

Local Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour branches are flooded with young Christians who always hold the kingdom above any political ideology, yet realise the need to find common cause, to engage and debate. They refuse to make it about personality or abuse people and they make their case on the doorstep with a smile and a listening ear. People can see evidence of “the yeast working through the dough,” because there is a renewed integrity and enthusiasm about politics.

It is as normal for a Christian young person to be pursuing a life in politics, as it is for them to aspire to being a worship leader. This calling is being affirmed and given space to grow. People are astounded that MPs are giving away so much of their money to good causes. The days when they were claiming expenses for garden gnomes are long forgotten.

So how could this have come to pass?

Everything shifted when young people were encouraged to see politics as mission. When they put politics in that part of their brains and hearts, they started to understand. In the same way that they would encourage, pray for, emulate, visit and support a “missionary”, they began to act like that towards those whose mission field was politics. Things changed when politics was presented as something exciting, counter cultural, and subversive rather than the maintenance of the “establishment.” Just people serving people rather than themselves.

About Andy Flannagan
Andy Flannagan is the new director of the Christian Socialist Movement based at Labour Party HQ and Parliament – www.thecsm.org.uk. They exist to be a prophetic voice to left-sided politics and the church, encouraging Christians to see politics as mission. A driving passion is to see a just re-wiring of the global economic system. Andy continues to perform, speak, lead worship and play a lot of cricket. His proudest moment as an Irishman was captaining England’s Barmy Army during the last Ashes series. His new worship songs and resources are available for free from www.andyflan.com.