Black Light

Over the past 50 years, the church scene in many parts of Britain has experienced dramatic changes. One of the most striking and significant is the growth and multiplication of Black majority churches and other churches comprised mainly of members from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia or Latin America. Many other churches have also received new members from these backgrounds, some who have come as immigrants, others who were born here.

These developments have been exciting but also challenging. Not all have felt welcome in churches with a dominant ethnicity or culture. Not all new churches have thrived. Many are struggling to reach out beyond their own ethnic group or to hold on to their children. Efforts at partnership and mutual learning have often floundered. Overt and institutional racism has been evident. And yet the potential is huge for mission and church renewal!

(If you find this description a bit formal and would like a more informal explanation of what Black Light Course is about, please go to the end of the page for 'The alternative explanation').

The Course

The Black Light course offers an opportunity to explore and reflect on this scenario. The course was first run in London in the 1990s as an opportunity for Black Christians to dig deeper into their history and think about contemporary challenges and opportunities, and for White Christians to learn more about the history, spirituality and faith of Black Christians and churches. Black and White presenters and participants shared in a rich learning experience.

Over 20 years on, some of the issues have changed, others remain the same. There has been further growth in the Black majority churches; there are more mono-ethnic churches; many of these churches are losing their young people and are still unsure how to reach out to others; and the Black Lives Matter movement has renewed consciousness of the continuing struggle against racism. The Black Light course has been revised and updated and was run in the summer and autumn of 2021 as an online course. The present course starts in May 2022.

Programme

5 May 2022
Black and White: the challenges we all face

12 May 2022
The Black Influence on Church History

19 May 2022
The Black Presence in the Bible

26 May 2022
African Christianity in Western Europe

Bank Holiday break

9 June 2022
Post-Christendom & Post-colonialism

16 June 2022
Roots and Routes

23 June 2022
White and Black: churches in the UK today

30 June 2022Partnership in Mission

Programme of speakers on specific dates to be confirmed

Is there in-course study to do?

There are no assignments or in-course study required, and no preparation needed prior to commencing the course, however there is a recommended reading list provided to complement the speaker sessions.

Community of Practice
At the end of the course there will be an opportunity to meet monthly with others and a facilitator online to dig more deeply into the subjects and reflect on practice in local contexts.

Timing

Speakers & Hosts

Les Isaac is the founder of the Ascension Trust. Under the umbrella of the trust, Les has pioneered many community partnerships and launched initiatives such as Street Pastors, School and College Pastors, Rail Pastors, Prayer Pastors and many more. With over 30 years of Church leadership experience and partnership development on global initiatives, Les is a visionary who wants to see the Church, equipped to serve the communities where they stand.

Kate Coleman is a Baptist Minister and the founding director of Next Leadership. She has over 30 years of leadership experience in the church, charity, voluntary and business sectors, and is a strategic advisor who mentors, coaches and supports leaders and organisations locally, nationally and internationally. Kate completed a term as Chair of the Evangelical Alliance Council (2012-2014) and is a former president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (2006-2007). Her network extends across all sectors and church denominations. Kate is the author of 7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership. Her media contributions include the mainstream press, radio and TV.

Robert Beckford is professor of Black Theology at Queen’s Ecumenical Foundation in Birmingham and VU University in Amsterdam. Robert is the author of six books and over thirty television and radio documentaries on the interfaces between theology, culture and politics. His most recent radio documentary, “Black Jesus” explores the meaning of black Christology in the age of Black Lives Matter. His current research is a practice-based theo-musicology, “The Jamaican Bible Remix album”. The album inscribes black theology into black urban music. A book reflecting on the project, Decolonising Gospel Music: A Black British Praxis will be published in 2021.

Ben Lindsay is the founder of Power The Fight, a charity launched in 2019 to train and empower communities to end youth violence. He is an experienced trainer and facilitator with more than 19 years spent working with high risk young people in the field of gangs and serious youth violence. Between 2016 and 2020, Ben was lead pastor at Emmanuel New Cross. He sits on the Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit reference group and on the cross-party Youth Violence Commission. His first book, We need to talk about race – understanding the Black experience in White-majority churches, was published in 2019.

Janice Gittens is of African Caribbean descent, having arrived in Britain as a child from the Caribbean. She is a mother, motivational speaker, educator, trainer, facilitator, thought leader and therapeutic coach. She has worked as a teacher of business studies, a senior manager in the fields of mental health, criminal justice and addiction. Janice holds an MA in Psychoanalysis and has a private practice, offering coaching interventions for senior leaders seeking to transform their leadership to an anti-racist, trauma informed, justice model. She came to faith over 25years ago and this has influenced and transformed her perception of self and the lens through which she sees herself in the world.

Bev Thomas works as a freelance consultant, speaker and lecturer. She has worked for the last 35+ years in the UK and internationally as a trainer/speaker on social justice and ‘race’ issues. She is also an experienced mediator, facilitator, administrator, team leader and projects and events manager. She speaks on numerous issues, including diversity awareness and inclusion, social justice, youth work, sexuality, singleness, women in leadership and politics. Bev is currently a lecturer at Formission College. She is a trustee of The Feast, Sandwell Churches Link, Urban Expression, Trussell Trust and a volunteer chaplain for West Midlands Police. She also enjoys genealogy research, keeping fit and singing for recreation.

Harvey Kwiyani is an African mission scholar and practitioner who has, since 2001, served in missions in several countries in Europe as well as the United States, working mostly amongst locals as a theological educator, missional coach and church planter. He holds a PhD in Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary in Minnesota, USA, having done his research on the theological implications of the missionary work of Africans in the West. He oversees the work of Missio Africanus and teaches African Christianity, cross-cultural missions and leadership at Birmingham Christian College and at Church Mission Society’s Pioneer Leadership Training Program in Oxford. He is the author of Sent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West (2014) and Multicultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church (2020).

Stuart Murray Williams spent 12 years as an urban church planter in East London and has continued to be involved in church planting as a trainer, mentor, writer, strategist and consultant. Under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network and Urban Expression, he works as a trainer and consultant, with particular interest in urban mission, church planting and emerging forms of church. He has written books on church planting, urban mission, emerging church, the challenge of post-Christendom and the Anabaptist tradition.

Senior Minister and Public Theologian, Ron Nathan is currently the Pastor of the Hoggard African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Jackson, St. Michael, Barbados. He has been in Christian ministry for 42 years and has held several Christian leadership posts in Kenya, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom. He has published several academic articles on Black Theology and various African themes. As a public theologian, he has lectured extensively in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States of America.

Bejoy Pal is CEO of the Ascension Trust and has worked alongside the team for 7 years overseeing the schools and youth work across within the ministry. A Street Pastor in Croydon and a School Pastor in Lambeth, Bejoy has been involved in youth work and ministry for 20 years supporting missions and projects in Moldova and nations across East Africa; as well as connecting with the young people and community at Christchurch Purley amongst other churches.

Israel Olofinjana is the new Director of the One People Commission of the Evangelical Alliance. He is an ordained and accredited Baptist minister and has led two multi-ethnic Baptist churches and an independent charismatic church. He is the founding director of Centre for Missionaries from the Majority World, a mission network initiative that provides cross-cultural training to reverse missionaries in Britain. Israel is the author of, among other books, Partnership in Mission: A Black Majority Church Perspective on Mission and Church Unity (2015) and Reverse in Ministry and Missions: Africans in the Dark Continent of Europe (2010). He is the editor of World Christianity in Western Europe: Diasporic Identity, Narratives and Missiology (2020).

Alton Bell is a qualified Industrial Chemist, a pastor, a writer and community activist. He is the CEO of Pivot Point Community Development Foundation, a director of SWAY youth project in LB Brent, and the chair of the Movement for Justice and Reconciliation. He is motivated and driven by a conviction that a vibrant transformative cutting edge third sector is vital for a just society. He is concerned with the disproportionate number of black youngsters underachieving educationally and at risk of prison.

Black Light is a joint initiative

Urban Expression is a mission agency set up in 1997 that recruits, supports and networks together teams that live in marginalised neighbourhoods across the United Kingdom, exploring creative and contextual ways to live out the gospel where they are. This may result in the planting of new churches, developing social enterprises, campaigning for justice, community organising or other forms of holistic mission. There are currently 24 teams in the network. In 2005, Urban Expression launched the Crucible course, which has equipped several hundred people for mission on the margins.

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Ascension Trust is a charitable organisation set up in 1993 to help equip people to serve. The aim is to empower the church to make a lasting positive impact in their communities and show strength through unity. This is undertaken by our initiatives such as Street Pastors, School and College Pastors, Rail Pastors, Response Pastors, Prayer Pastors and many more. With more than 25 years’ experience in community partnership development, the Ascension Trust continues to have a global reach in sharing the love of Christ by Caring, Listening and Helping.

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Cost

Full course £80 (unwaged £40)

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Positive things people said...

We received these testimonies from people who participated in the Black Light Course early 2021:

I would highly recommend this course for anyone from a white Western background, who is interested in exploring issues such as black influences throughout church history and in the bible, Pentecostalism, current trends in church growth worldwide and in the UK, multicultural expressions of church and faith. This course will certainly inform and challenge you and your pre-held views!
(Anonymous)

Black Light will tell you how (and why) the Christianity you know and love has been whitewashed. And why it's not OK to ignore it any longer. (Lynda, East London)

I have really enjoyed being able to listen to and learn from a range of people sharing their experience and knowledge through the Black Light Course. The course has opened my eyes to things I had not heard of previously and enabled space for questions. It was very thought provoking. (Anonymous)

The Blacklight course was so helpful in opening my eyes to the extensive history of Black Christians and Black churches, while also bringing challenge for the now and steps we can take to grow our communities into multi-cultural, diverse places of life." (Ali Elder)

The alternative explanation...

Black Light? That sounds rather ominous – like ‘Black Power’ or ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Who is involved? What’s the course about? Is it political? Is it meant to make people feel guilty? Who is it for? What’s the agenda?

The Black Light course was developed 24 years ago by Les Isaac and Stuart Murray Williams, who became friends when Stuart was teaching at Spurgeon’s College and Les did some teaching there – so it’s not a knee-jerk response to current issues, but it does engage with contemporary concerns about racism and injustice. Nearly 120 people registered for the online course we ran twice in 2021, so we are running it again in May/June 2022.
The hosts and presenters are followers of Jesus, church leaders and leaders of mission agencies, black and white, from different backgrounds and with different areas of expertise. Some of them taught on the first course in 1997; others are younger and bring fresh perspectives.

What’s it about? It explores the presence and contributions of black people in the Bible, in church history and in Britain today. It celebrates the remarkable growth of the church in Africa and the exciting ‘reverse mission’ impact on Europe. It does not shy away from looking at the legacies of Christendom and colonialism, but it invites creativity and courage in seizing the opportunities that are emerging.
Is it political? No more than Jesus himself was political in the things he said and did, the way he challenged the status quo, his announcement of a new politics, which he called ‘the kingdom of God.’
Is it guilt-inducing? No, that’s not the aim, but it is challenging, inviting us to recover lost aspects of our histories, to reflect on our attitudes and relationships, and to ask what it means to follow Jesus in a multi-ethnic society.
Who is it for? Anyone interested in these topics, but especially for church leaders, youth leaders, mission leaders – actually, anyone interested in evangelism, justice, healthy churches and peaceful communities.
What’s the agenda? There is no hidden agenda, but one of our hopes is that the course will not only inform but inspire, challenge and equip, and result in new forms of partnership between black and white Christians and churches in seeking the kingdom of God in our nation. That’s the focus of the final session in the course.