Servants Southall community scrapbook

by Idina Dunmore

Ten years on from closing our doors, this collection of memories illustrates the journey of pioneering the Servants Southall community. I hope this ‘scrapbook’ gives encouragement to anyone considering this type of incarnational ministry. It all began with a picture God gave me in 1999:

From the Servants Southall newsletter, December 2010

I can’t help feeling a little old when I consider that it was back at the end of the last century when God gave me a vision of transformation in Southall. At the time, 1999, I was working as a Health Visitor at a clinic in Old Southall, so I was becoming acquainted with the issues for families in the area: low quality and crowded housing; poor medical facilities; relationship problems including substance misuse and violence; financial difficulties; lack of safe public places…. Although it was overwhelming, I also had a growing passion to contribute to change and help find solutions to some of these issues.

One weekend, I was driving out of London with my prayer-partner and good friend. As we drove around the by-pass we had a good view of Southall and the iconic blue gas tower that looms over the area. As we were on the flyover, the sun broke through the damp clouds and a rainbow appeared, overarching the tower and the town. “There,” said my friend, “God’s giving you a sign about his promises for Southall!” We laughed and didn’t think much about it, except that it was one of those pictures in your mind that doesn’t fade, neither for me or my friend. And we often reminded each other of it.

Funnily enough, more than ten years later, my friend lived in Southall for several years, having married a local vicar. And I live here now too, with a supportive team, and most of my work is in the community with women and families. In September I, with a small team from St John’s Church, set up a Baby & Toddler Group in the Parish Centre. It has started small but already good, supportive relationships are being built with and between parents.

And having prayed about a certain house on Havelock Estate, which was in an ideal location, Mary and I moved into it at the end of October. On the first weekend living there, another rainbow appeared outside our front door, framing my view of the estate. What can I say about God’s plans, except to exclaim with the Proverbs writer, “We make our own plans, but the Lord decides where we will go.” And that they are good!!

Innovation

It was in September 2008 that five people relocated to Southall to start an intentional, Christian, missional community. God had given me the vision two years before and confirmed it clearly.

I was on the board of trustees of a small mission organisation called Servants (www.servantsasia.org). They were looking to set up teams in the Global North, and independently a vicar in Southall met the international coordinator of Servants and requested him to send a team to Southall.

When I heard of their interest in Southall, I wrote a vision document, prayed for a team, and we moved into the area. The photo below shows us at our first meeting – gathering to thrash out what a community would look like in Southall.

We were united by our faith in Christ and the principles and values of Servants, but between us we had little experience of living or serving in community.

Below are some of the steps we took. We really didn’t know what we were doing, but with good counsel, and as we stepped out in faith, God did guide our path.

Nurturing new growth

Before we did anything, we hired an allotment… a prophetic statement about transforming the wasteland into a garden – but also with the vision for starting a community garden on the plot.

This was quickly realised by partnering with A Rocha and became a thriving gardening project/community who worked on the land together every week, supporting each other, and starting Southall Transitions Group funded by the local council. Seeds of another A Rocha project were sown here too: Wolf Fields Urban Nature Reserve was subsequently created half a mile away and continues to be a beautiful urban oasis.

Initiating community

We rented two houses in the same street – near enough to “carry a casserole dish of food in our pyjamas”!                    

We set about forming a rhythm of life: prayer in the mornings twice weekly at 6.30am, and twice weekly team meetings in the evening, with shared meals together. One of these evenings soon became ‘outward-focused’, where we invited our neighbours in to join us for a meal and social time.

Our God, you are Trinity, Community,
Unbroken relationship, Love without beginning or end.
And most wonderful of all, you make room for us,
Drawing us in out of the cold, calling us friends.
As we come to you, you lead us to each other,
Into the security of belonging,
And the risks of openness.
We will not attempt alone what we can do together.
With family and friends, team and neighbours,
With those we would prefer to avoid.
Help us live the reality of trust and forgiveness today

From Servants Rhythm of Prayer – Into the Presence

Reaching out to those beyond the church

How did we get to know our neighbours? We did it through:

• partnering with churches and volunteering at other organisations,
• such as A Rocha, Missionaries of Charity, teaching English in a Somali NGO
• hanging out in our front garden, and D. starting to mend bikes for local children 
• as the children started hanging out in our house, getting to know the parents, and starting an impromptu homework club 

And we took every opportunity to celebrate: festivals, birthdays, babies, hellos or goodbyes:

Happy Anniversary!

We’ve now all been in Southall for one year. How does it feel? What have we done? 

We’ve all got new paying jobs and joined local churches

We’ve lived in the community: over the summer the local kids from our street played in our home most days. We’ve talked to social workers, started tutoring sessions, helped with computers, mended bikes, given out vegetables, hosted cooking and art lessons, taken trips to the local library and even warned off drug dealers! 

We’ve started hosting regular Creative World Justice evenings with a local flavour: for example, we invited some friends from a persecuted people-group in Burma, the Kachin, to inform us of their struggle. Most recently we heard from a Tamil leader about the genocide that is currently occurring in Sri Lanka.

We’ve progressed through our Formation material: we’ve discussed issues such as simplicity, Islam, non-violence, eco-responsibility, community development. We’ve read relevant books each month and shared our reflections together.

We’ve prayed consistently early mornings on Mondays and Thursdays

And we’ve served the local community: helping at English classes, a toddler group and soup kitchens. 

Personally, I rarely tire of this vibrant community, where I very often meet people I know in the street as I go to the local vegetable shop or grocers. I hear Hindi spoken all around me, which encourages me to continue learning, and I enjoy the Indian essence of our neighbourhood.

Written by Idina in Servants Southall newsletter – October 2009

Team building and pastoral care

In our first year we followed “formation material” that our organisation provided and we adapted to our context. We had a reading list of books we studied and then discussed together. We also majored on team-building and understanding each other through personality profiling. This remained important to us in the many ups-and-downs of community life. We had ‘team days’ and also annual weekend retreats away, as well as spending social time and eating together. We all found spiritual directors to encourage our spiritual growth.

Prophetic voice

We led discussions on missional community at the margins and ran a promotional stall at Greenbelt. We also engaged with other like-minded groups and contributed at conferences, including Speak Network.

Re-visioning

We had known from the outset that our charism was to reach out among the most marginalised in Southall. As we prayed about this, we felt drawn to a local council estate, called Havelock Estate.

In the summer of 2010 when our former landlord asked us to move, we found a house to rent on the estate… and subsequently two houses on the same street.

Servants Southall

As a community of Christians choosing to live in an urban, multi-cultural and low-income area of west London, we commit to:

• Follow Jesus
• Share our lives and support one another as a community of households
• Extend a warm welcome and generous hospitality
• Empower local people in co-operation with churches and other organisations
• Challenge the individualistic materialism prevalent in our society
• Work for justice from both local and global perspectives

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

Our community flourished as we met our new neighbours: through the community garden, in the street or at other activities, and at events such as an unofficial street party (for the royal wedding in 2011) and carol-singing around the estate.

Forming a new community of faith

We began a weekly Thursday night bring-and-share meal to which we invited our friends and neighbours.

A stable group began to emerge, mainly of people at the margins of their own community for some reason: family difficulties, single parenting, domestic violence, mental or physical health issues, poverty.

The group slowly became a support for each other, perhaps an ‘extended family’ for those with few other resources – and for us who had moved into the area.

We planned a programme of social activities: barbecues, bonfires, trips to local countryside and the beach, and to cultural events. We also encouraged sharing and creative responses, which gave people confidence in their abilities.

Creative faith-sharing

Our neighbours and friends were mostly from Sikh, Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. However, they knew we are followers of Jesus and many natural faith conversations arose. We had a time of prayer for 30 minutes before each evening, and also led Jesus-centred worship, prayer and discussion especially at festival seasons. A men’s discussion group and a creative women’s group emerged, where issues of faith were the focus of the sessions.

A time of reflection and response to Jesus as the light of the world on Diwali (Hindu and Sikh festival of light):

It was interesting to notice that as the members of our group were nurtured, they became keen to volunteer and especially to serve others in Southall who were in difficult situations, because they recognised the needs of people in the neighbourhood, and perhaps because they saw us modelling that service too.

They have helped with a food bank, winter night shelters for the homeless, Messy Church and toddler group, a community garden, and an English class crèche. And they, in turn, built community in those places.

Partnerships and networking

From the outset, partnership with local churches was at the heart of the Servants Southall community aims. At the local CofE parish churches, we were able to encourage and catalyse the church to serve its local community through outward-looking ministries:  

• parent-and-toddler group
• Messy Church
• homeless night shelter
• food bank
• mental health drop-in and warm space

I became a governor at our local nursery school, and part of the planning group of an annual fun day at the Children’s Centre on our estate, to which we invited the parish church, Servants and Transitions to have a presence. I found this an exciting event, as the community came together to share and connect with one another, and discovered that we could work for transformation together.

Working for transformation at the margins:

Sometimes the needs in Southall seem overwhelming. It can seem that almost every household has a major issue going on; whether sickness, disability, financial hardship, family breakdown, mental health concerns. It can feel hopeless. But we know that Jesus came to restore hope, to bring life, and establish shalom – ‘life in all its fullness’. Can we dream what this means for our friends here? Do we know our part in this? Maybe we’re just starting to… 

Written by Idina in Servants Southall Newsletter – April 2010

In living among our neighbours and walking with them through good times and difficulties, we started to see glimpses of transformation, in them and in ourselves. It is often that the new is growing alongside the old, and at times we see more of one, at times more of the other.

But we kept praying with those in our neighbourhood and held on to faith that in Christ transformation to a new, full life is possible, to become all God has made us to be.    

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm,
May he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

Northumbria Community blessing for Morning Prayer

Endings

After eight years, in 2016, it became clear that it was time to close the Servants community in Southall. There had been 11 team members during these years, and they scattered to pursue new initiatives, the majority inspired by their time in this community.

The Thursday evening group was able to be nurtured into a new worshipping community at the local parish church, called The Table, which has been documented in this book: https://ccx.org.uk/resource/send-me/, and this video: https://ccx.org.uk/stories/the-table/

Ten years on, I hope something of the legacy of Servants Southall remains. We keep some contacts in the neighbourhood, and it is encouraging to hear about continuing faith journeys and engagement in community transformation. The local churches continue to work together, with the neighbourhood now partly gentrifying.

With our friends we continue to pray for God’s goodness, justice and peace in Southall.

With thanks to everyone who has been part of the Servants Southall community

About the author

Idina Dunmore was a founding member of the Servants Southall Community in 2008. She was ordained as a pioneer minister in 2019, having trained at CMS, and is currently associate minister at Church on the Corner (COTC) in Islington. She is enjoying seeing several new pioneering initiatives emerge there, including a warm-space drop-in with prayer-space, an international meal with refugees, and a lay team focused on community ministry across the parish.  

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