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Change
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Finding an answer to poverty

A new TV ad challenges stereotypes around how to help the poor. Tarryn Pegna unpacks the impact of one of the most effective ways to eradicate poverty.

Tarryn Pegna

Tarryn Pegna is a writer for aid and development charity, Tearfund. She helps to communicate where, why and how the organisation works. 

A woman carries a plastic bucket on her head and held by raised arms and hands.

We’ve all seen them – haunting images of starving children, flies on their faces, begging for help – powerless to change the cruel lot they’ve landed in life… There’s more to the story, though. More to the people in the pictures. 

Extreme poverty is a very real problem. The living conditions faced by many around the world are, indeed, truly devastating, and in hoping to urge a response and to help, we can fall into a clichéd portrayal (and understanding) of need that strips people of a sense of dignity and agency.  

But, the answer to poverty can be uplifting, sustainable, restorative and empowering: the answer can be the Church. 

You may have seen Tearfund’s new TV ad. If not, you can watch it now. With some humour it challenges some of the stereotypes about how those in the developed world go about trying to eradicate poverty elsewhere.  

The ad shows a number of excellent things that a community in Burundi has achieved which have transformed the lives of the people living there. It features them talking about the training that made it possible – but what is this training? And what does it have to do with Tearfund or the church? 

Well, here’s how it works: 

It all starts with Bible studies. These are designed to help people identify the skills and resources that already exist within their community, and to see new ways they can use them to respond to their needs. 

Local church members (or leaders) receive training to facilitate these Bible studies and share the message within their community. 

Each Bible study ends with a call to action. This may be something small to start with – like a change in a harmful way of thinking – but can quickly grow in scale to things like improving or building schools, health centres and roads. 

Tearfund and our local partner organisations help to provide the practical knowledge and skills training needed to make it possible to carry out these plans. 

In this way, churches and communities can find themselves working together to lift themselves out of poverty for good and to realise their God-given potential and thrive. 

I played my part in the construction, even if I was not strong, I worked with others in digging the road and moving rocks.

The ad features Cecile, a young married mum with one daughter. She tells us her experience: 

‘We understood the power of coming together as a church and working together for our own development. A changed church changes the community for the better. Our congregation was able to build a health centre, a road and bring up water. 

‘I am happy to be part of this church as I come to know God and see his hand. I now have a church family, we love and support one another. I played my part in the construction, even if I was not strong, I worked with others in digging the road and moving rocks, and we also contributed some money. 

‘It is like an awakening. People are more engaged, we have been inspired to change and to change our community and we are now active.  

‘Apart from building the health centre, more people are working hard to change their situation. Some have started small businesses, I’ve also been selling vegetables and I hope that once I get enough capital, I’ll be able to start a small business at the market and earn more money to help [me and my husband] improve our lives and build a house.’ 

Every day, thousands of people around the world suffer and die because of poverty. Christians don’t believe that this is God’s plan. At Tearfund we believe that the church is part of his plan to respond – and that we all have a part to play in ending extreme poverty. 

Is the church even still relevant though? 

Here in the UK, it might seem strange to be so focused on faith and the church. The most recent census showed that, as a nation, we have a steadily declining affiliation with Christianity, and the news last year made much of the fact that only around ten per cent of the population regularly attend a church service. It might be worth wondering whether the church has lost some of its ability to influence change.

Almost three million UK adults sought help from churches or faith organisations because of the cost-of-living crisis. 

In England, Anglican bishops are still members of the House of Lords, so they have some voice, but for the rest of us…why the faith? Where does God fit into things and is the church even practical or relevant in society these days? 

It actually works 

In spite of the declining number of worshippers, in 2022 almost 3 million UK adults sought help from churches or faith organisations because of the cost-of-living crisis.  

During the worst of Covid, churches across the country provided a hub for making sure the most vulnerable in their communities were fed and provided for. Many church buildings became food preparation and distribution centres and local church members became temporary delivery drivers. 

The local church around the world 

In the same way, around the world, the church is often first on scene in times of need.  

From its unique position right within a community, the local church knows intimately the needs of the people it serves.  

And in many places where Tearfund works, the church has a significant and trusted influence, giving it a voice for change and for justice in society. 

The church, as a vehicle for transformation, has the capability to work powerfully and effectively in a way that lasts. 

No matter where it is, the Christ-following church has always been about the transformation of lives and about community: called by Jesus to first love God (allowing him to transform Christians’ own lives), and then to love our neighbours as ourselves (bringing transformation to our communities).  

More than could, the church should be the answer to poverty.  

The church is a sustainable, efficient, empowering and highly cost-effective way of helping whole communities lift themselves out of poverty. 

The church (in all its various forms and denominations) is the largest non-governmental, non-profit organisation on the planet. Tearfund itself was born out of the church, and recently an independent study that we commissioned confirmed in numbers what our own experience, stretching back over 50 years, had already shown us: the church is a sustainable, efficient, empowering and highly cost-effective way of helping whole communities lift themselves out of poverty.  

By equipping the local church within a community facing poverty to find solutions to their needs, the people being supported can become agents in their own rescue.  

Like many charities, there are questions about the impact they have. Just how effective is working through the church really? 

In fact, researchers discovered that a social value of £28 was released for every pound invested in community transformation work through the church.  

Practically, that means that when compared to people in communities that had not received training and equipping through the church, those that do are: 

  • 27% more satisfied with their lives in general 
  • 113% more likely to work with others on shared projects 
  • 51% more likely to have maintained or increased their income in the last year 
  • 46% more likely to speak up and raise issues with decision-makers 
  • 62% more likely to have invested in assets, such as property or livestock in the last year 
  • and 26% more likely to feel confident they could cope with unexpected events in the future. 

Working through the local church has the power to bring positive, whole-life transformation which spreads throughout a community – so that even those who aren’t directly involved in the activities still experience some benefits. 

You can read more about the study and its findings here. 

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Change
5 min read

Shining light on the census

Exploring census maps on religious affiliation, Jonathan Moules finds out why it is a flawed measure of a country’s faith
Image overlooking London
East London, St Katherines Docks are just to behind Tower Bridge.
Benjamin Davies via Unsplash.

Faith by definition is meant to transcend reason. But the success of St Paul’s Shadwell, a 350-year-old Anglican church that regularly draws in several hundred worshippers each Sunday in an East London neighbourhood with one of the largest Muslim populations is at first glance a mystery up there with the concept of an all-seeing three-in-one god. 

SPS, as the congregants call it, serves a parish where 78 per cent of those responding to the 2021 Census of England and Wales identified as Muslim. And yet the church has a membership close to 300 people. Last November, its bonfire night party in the churchyard attracted over 1,100 people, although there was undoubtedly a draw given that the hamburgers, hot chocolates and sparklers attendees could enjoy were given away for free. 

The 2021 Census has been a landmark document for several reasons, including for the first time a question enabling people to identify as trans. But one of the biggest headlines it has gained has been its finding that for the first time a minority of people in England and Wales (46 per cent, down from 59 per cent in 2011) now identify as Christian, alongside a significant increase in those identifying as having no religion (37 per cent, up from a quarter decade before) and a smaller rise among other faiths. 

How does this marry with the success of a church like SPS? 

The first thing to say is that London provides something of an exception to the national trend of declining religious observation.  

A report last year from the Church of England revealed that between 1987 and 2019, the number of people regularly attending a CofE church in England and Wales on a Sunday morning fell from around 1.2mn to 679,000. But over the same time period, the number of churchgoers in the Diocese of London increased, albeit slightly. 

One of key reasons for London’s success is that it has been a significant beneficiary of a process of restoring the life of existing parishes, called church planting, where larger feeder churches send ordained leaders and up to 100 of their membership to either restart or bring new energy to an existing congregation. This happened to SPS 18 years ago, transforming a congregation of 12, at risk of having to close because of the lack of funds, first to 100 and then to its current size, all the more amazing because SPS has itself “planted” half a dozen other churches in other East End Anglican churches and parishes further afield. 

There is another, more significant, reason why the Census is a flawed measure of the country’s faith. The question being asked was never meant to measure either people’s belief or their practice - the reason that so many people turn up at SPS and other churches around the country each Sunday. 

What the Census organisers at the Office for National Statistics wanted to do was to measure religious affiliation. The reason they ask about affiliation rather than belief or practice is that a key point of the Census is to guide government spending on healthcare, education and social services. In this context, religious affiliation is a helpful guide to personal circumstances in a similar way to age, gender and ethnicity. In fact ethnicity and religious affiliation are often tightly linked, as is the case in Tower Hamlets’s Bangladeshi families, who make up almost the entire Muslim population of the borough. 

One useful addition to the 2021 Census is an interactive map relating to the question of religious affiliation, in which you can drill down to clusters of streets to see how your nearest neighbours self identify. 

My streets, in the middle of Tower Hamlets, buck the borough trend with 44 per cent of the Census respondents identifying as Christians. We have the good fortune to know a lot of our neighbours, perhaps because we live so close together in tightly knit terraced streets. From that group, I know a lot that would call themselves Christian although few attend church each week like us. We also share a street with several Muslim families, all British Bangladeshis, others who would definitely put themselves in the atheist category, a Sikh family and a former banker who is a member of a dwindling Jewish congregation in one of the last synagogues in Stepney.  

Playing with the ONS Census map, the division of faith in Tower Hamlets closely resembles class divisions within the borough. The pockets of families linked to the East End’s white working class past, on the east and west side of the Isle of Dogs, or the upper middle class people who moved into the luxury flats around St Katharine Docks when Docklands was first being redeveloped in the mid 1980s, are all places where Christian affiliation bumps around the 50 per cent mark. 

As well as boasting the country’s largest Muslim population, Tower Hamlets is also the fastest growing and the youngest (with an average age of 31 and a half) local authority in England and Wales. Many of these are the children of British Bangladeshi families, together accounting for about two thirds of the pupils in Tower Hamlets state schools. However, the young demographic also includes the so-called millennials, who have been attracted to the East End both for its vitality and its relatively affordable central London housing, and are the first generation to associate on a significant scale with being atheist. 

What all of this shows is that while statistics are an essential part of understanding, we also need to understand what exactly is being measured as well as the limitations of that data. 

One of the great unknowns about what data we have is how many people have started to think a lot harder about where they stand on the faith affiliation scale. 

The question “what is your religion?” was only added to the Census in 2001, when 72 per cent of the population identified as Christian. No one then realistically thought that this figure was a true guide to the beliefs of the nation, and it seems that since then a lot of people have thought harder about the subject and perhaps been a bit more honest about where they stand in terms of living out a faith. 

Not only is 23 years a blink of an eye in the long history of human belief systems, it is probably not long enough for society to come to terms with where it is with faith. 

The more interesting figure is still the growth in church attendance in London - no doubt driven by people coming to the capital from around the world as well as the church planting movement. Bums on seats is still a flawed guide, but still probably the best one in terms of understanding where the British public are at when it comes to faith. 

Find out what your neighbourhood believes

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