Youth work, as is often the case, flips that on its head. Instead, there is an up-front invitation to belong; maybe to an open access youth group, then further into small group work such as Alpha (other programmes are also available). Then, within those small groups, there is often an opportunity to figure out together what belief in Christ and then behaving like Christ might look like. Yet central is the open invitation to come and belong. Belonging is something that happens when you identify with another entity; it could be a person or a community, it could be a movement or a culture. Young people feel a sense of belonging to all sorts of different things, and often hold these in tension with one another. For example, young people with a dual heritage background may feel a sense of belonging with both their mother’s and father’s heritage. An odd thing about belonging is that it doesn’t have to be reciprocal: those on the fringes of a community may still feel a great sense of belonging to it.
I work for The Frontier Youth Trust and, as a charity, we have a group of people who generously give to support the work we do. We sometimes get letters of encouragement from those who financially support us. In one such letter, the writer described themselves as being part of the Frontier Youth Trust community. People can feel a sense of belonging without the other party’s knowledge; they don’t need our permission.
FOUR SPACES OF BELONGING
Writer Joseph R. Myers suggests that we all find belonging in four different ‘spaces’: public, social, personal and intimate.
1. PUBLIC SPACE
Public belonging occurs when people connect through an outside influence. So, fans of a football team experience that sense of belonging because they cheer for the same team. They wear the kit and stay up to watch Match of the Day. They find a shared kinship in a public space.
2. SOCIAL SPACE
Social belonging happens when we start to share parts of our lives with others. You might belong socially to the people you work with or people you meet at a party. This social belonging is important because it provides a space for the ‘neighbour’ relationship. It also provides a space in which to decide who you might like to develop a ‘deeper’ relationship with. In the social space, we provide just enough information that helps others decide if they connect with us. And we get enough information to decide if we would like to move someone we connect with into a different space.
3. PERSONAL SPACE
Through personal belonging, we share private experiences, feelings and thoughts. We call people in this space close friends. They know more about us than an acquaintance would, yet not so much that they feel uncomfortable.
4. INTIMATE SPACE
In the intimate space, we share our ‘naked’ selves, in that we share the very depths of us; our hopes and fears. We have very few relationships that are intimate. These people know the ‘naked truth’ about us and neither of us are ashamed.
In this model, belonging is not about intimacy. Everyone needs to find a sense of belonging in all four of these spaces. It would actually be inappropriate to try and move every interaction towards an intimate space. Imagine if you revealed your ‘naked’ self in a public space (no sniggering!).
As youth workers, we often try to engage in activities and set up different groups which help young people transition through these spaces. In that process, we also hope that their relationship with God will moves in the same way. It might be that we do an assembly in a local school (public space), inviting young people to an open youth club (social space) and then, with those who are interested, running a small group exploring who Jesus is (social / personal space). In this group, young people might share their thoughts and feelings more deeply.
The Experiment
Josh is a youth and community worker with the Christian International Peace Service (CHIPS). They are passionately committed to the practical pursuit of peace within areas of conflict or tension. If any other youth and community worker were to enter a new community, they might use the model of belonging above to plan the path of their work. But Josh and CHIPS don’t work in the standard way:
One of our key principles is becoming part of the community where we live and serve. Looking at Jesus’ incarnation as the beginning of his peacemaking mission, we try to learn from that and explore what that looks like in each situation to which we are invited. The project I work with is based on Angell Town and Loughborough Estates in Brixton, South London. It is a community that urgently needs investment: there is little community and youth provision, alongside a well-documented culture and history of gangs on the estates, with the violence that follows. That being said, the estates are also vibrant places where people feel known and have a sense of belonging.
Brixton as a whole has a fantastic reputation. At all times of day you can smell the wonders of jerk chicken being cooked and the streets are filled with a chorus of eclectic music and the chatter of patrons in bars and restaurants. However, Brixton is also in the midst of change, a change that is not welcomed by all, with local businesses being forced into closing to make way for chain stores. Housing and rent is becoming unaffordable to the local residents, and cultural opportunities seem to be less and less diverse and inclusive.
The CHIPS commitment to become part of this community is far more complex and challenging than it might first appear. Firstly, it is a long, slow process. Although we live on the estate, this only scratches the surface of what it means to belong and to be perceived as belonging. Secondly, we live in a majority Afro-Caribbean area and we are currently a white middle-class team. Our team has come to the estate from a very different world to that of the young people and the wider community. There have been many times that young people, and even youth workers, have assumed that I and my colleagues are undercover police. If not police, we are considered to be part of the wider issue of social change in Brixton that has left the local residents feeling disempowered, displaced and isolated where they have lived, raised families, belonged and created a culture.
We cannot change the minds of young people and the community overnight. We’ve definitely not come with the answers and we don’t presume to know what’s best for this community. But we’re there, praying regularly and seeking opportunities to support those who are working to transform their community in any way we can. My youth work instincts tell me to run a project, to build relationships and carve out a relationship with the community by providing a service. But a key part of CHIPS’ method of entering a community is to not run any project of our own for at least a year. It challenges my natural instincts, but forces us as a team to build relationships from the role of neighbour, friend, prayer supporter, participant, or volunteer - a very different power dynamic. Make no mistake, this does not mean we are avoiding relationships with young people and the community – we are actively seeking them every day – but the basis of those relationships and the dynamics are different.
We in the CHIPS Brixton team have started something which will be slow to develop but, long-term in its impact. The personal challenge for me to overcome is the desire to be busy; rather I have to push myself into a posture of listening. It is an ongoing challenge that we face as a team to have the patience and commitment to learn from the community and to become ‘neighbours’. At times it feels like we are flying in the face of conventional wisdom but then the pursuit of peace and wholeness is not necessarily conventional.
As youth workers who want to build a better world with young people, we are repeatedly asking and inviting young people to join and find belonging in the communities we host. Yet Josh and his team flip this on its head. They don’t set out to build a space where they can host and generate relationships themselves. Instead, they take the time to slowly work their way into the community. They pursue existing community spaces where they might find belonging. This approach tries to change the power dynamic in favour of the community who they wish to serve. The team are hosted by the community, but even this has its struggles and challenges. CHIPS have a long-term approach to the community they wish to serve and be a part of. This requires them to first belong to the community, and through that, work to build a mutual belonging in the social spaces that present themselves.
Thomas was the disciple who doubted Jesus. He walked closely with Jesus and the other disciples for three years. He must have felt a great sense of belonging to this group headed by Jesus. After Jesus was crucified, the disciples were im disarray. Throughout the week that followed, the disciples heard accounts that Jesus had risen. Thomas still belonged to this group even though he doubted. It wasn’t until he encountered the risen Jesus face-to-face that he found belief. Thomas went on to be a missionary to India and died for his belief. Thomas belonged, believed and then behaved.
Experiment Yourself
Map all the activities and programmes that you run in Joseph R. Myers’ public, social, personal and intimate spaces.
• Do you focus on any space more than the others? If so, why do you consider that space more important?
• How are young people invited into each of these spaces? Are they all given the same value?
• List the rules of belonging to these spaces, both written and unwritten.
• As youth workers, do we belong to these spaces in the same way that we ask the young people to? Do we encourage ‘depth’ in a small group space but not open up in the same way? Is it even appropriate? If there is a difference how do we deal with it?
