20 Schemes: Gospel Churches for Scotland's Poorest w/ Mez

20 Schemes: Gospel Churches for Scotland's Poorest with Mez McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday, February 1, 2014

Jesus has written a gut-wrenching story of how God moves a person from darkness to light, from death to resurrection in the life of Mez McConnell, senior pastor of Niddrie Community Church in Edinburgh, Scotland. The place that God did this in Scotland is called a "scheme," a form of public or social housing. Schemes are known as "council houses" in Ireland, in most of the UK they are known as "council estates", in the US they are regarded as the "projects", and in Scotland they are called "schemes". You can watch and listen to Mez McConnell's story on Vimeo.

Here is the link to the previous post based on Mez's story:

• 20 Schemes: Is Anybody Out There? AutoBio w/ Mez McConnell

The notes below are taken from the conference hosted by Grace Harbor Community Church in Providence that Mez spoke at. 

Mez McConnell Story Reflection

"Geezer" is a like calling someone a "dude" in Scotland, unlike in the U.S. where it's like calling someone a decrepit person.

While statistics report that the middle class of Scotland is 99.5% post-Christian, these statistics do not include the poor. Those in poverty in Scotland still have a supernatural base. The problem is the "church people" are either posh or stiff. They don't know how to relate. Church was sucking for me, but I liked Jesus. He seemed to upset the rich. He was cool. But then I began to not sleep thinking about Jesus. And I would wake up thinking about Jesus.

The two main battles I had to work through were:

• I'm a sinner – there's no one else to blame.
• Jesus is the Savior – no one else can do for me, including myself, what He did.

I've found, for myself and others, the best book to preach through with the poor is Romans. I didn't understand it all, but I was committed. More importantly, I saw how committed Jesus was to me. Every rehab failed me, but Jesus never has. Slowly, but surely I began to grow. And there's not a power on this earth that could have turned my life around but the power of the gospel. 

In sharing or preaching, don't assume anything. Always explain everything. And don't just reach people. Equip people. People are not only saved from who they are. They're saved for a purpose to fulfill what God has planned.

With church I pastor, Niddrie Community Church, our doors our open 24/7. Our homes are open 24/7. We're family. It's not just a religious thing. And we don't tend to panic about the small things.

In the early days of pastoring at Niddrie, I prayed for 2 hours to begin every day. We moved in, started going to the same places for milk, paper, etc. Did this for 2 years. Then we began to see relationships develop, began to pray with people and some started to follow Jesus. Now, in 6 years, we have 5 elders and 15 trainees with 70 members. Twenty people were baptized in 2013. The average age of a man's death who lives in a Scotland Scheme is forty-six years old. Time is short. You have only one life. 

How to Sustain a Gospel Church Among the Urban Poor

"A plague on both your houses!"  – Mercutio from Romeo + Juliet

• Too many conservative evangelical churches are cutting their theological corners and are dying
• Too many liberal mainline churches are sleeping in their beds believing we're all God's children and are dying

Without a concerted evangelism push, the church has no witness. We'll get where we need to be by being honest about how desperate we are – as churches and as individuals.

doctrine + discipleship + evangelism + nurture + service = we're committed to indigenous principles of raising up local followers of Jesus

(1) Cultural outsiders need to look for (2) cultural insiders in order to (3) create indigenous leaders. And never confuse a lack of education with a lack of intelligence and leadership. 

Too much of the church is operating with a 1950s mindset. Too many haven't adjusted to the culture and too many are moving too slow to adjust. In many cases it is caused by "latrogenesis," which is the process whereby those in leadership consciously or unconsciously induce people to think that only those currently in leadership have the knowledge and skills for the situation. This, combined with the "effortless superiority" of many missionaries, makes trusting vulnerable and fragmented people as leaders a very tall order.

The first job of a leader is to find your successor. So I'm looking for who is the next senior pastor of Niddrie Community Church. Leaders who are being raised make a minimum 20-year commitment. There needs to be a renewed long-term view in order for communities to be changed by the gospel in word and deed. Most churches don't have a clue or a plan for dealing with the long-term ramifications of discipling the poor.

We need to consider, "How are we going to disciple a person from conversion to Christ, to life revitalization, to service, to leadership?" We need a plan that's bigger than crisis management. We need a strategic course of action for how to integrate the poor into the life of the church.

Here are 11 steps that Niddrie Community Church has taken:

1. Conscious effort and leadership training is needed to overcome cultural barriers
2. Lead from beside and behind, not just from the front
3. Think of leadership development as shadowing, rather than just leading
4. Build and celebrate – in every ministry – a culture of trying and failing without being defeated
5. Repent for times of lack of faith
6. Work to understand the language of the culture
7. Leadership development must willingly engage cross-cultural exposure
8. Go to love the community and don't plan to "fix it"
9. Know the strengths and the weaknesses of the culture
10. Bring the gospel, not the cultural values
11. Bring historic, cross-cultural and cross-temporal theology, not adaptation to the culture of today

The novelty of whatever is new will get old after 6 months! The joy of the Lord, the foundation of the Word, and the power of the Holy Spirit will have to be your strength. 

– Sully

Questions? Feel free to connect. For other updates, like and follow Emmaus City on Facebook.