Carl Belcher

I can't believe just how many new blogs and sites have appeared that are devoted to this culture. Emerging culture turned epidemic, love em or hate em, it looks like chavmania is sticking around for longer than their heavily Halfordized nova's will last. Now I'm not going to get into an anthropological rant on Chavs here (although as mentioned there are enough who will) , but during a recent party organised by my cluster I found myself sat at a table chatting away to a small group of people who could quite easily be labeled chavs. The strange thing was, rather than disapproving of this culture invasion (and there are definitely aspects of Chav culture which I find socially harmful and warrant challenging), I found myself at the end of the party thinking "wow this went really well!" and marveling that the the Gospel has the power and relevance to transform any life, any age, any culture..period. I then realized that in terms the socially outcast, apart from those who harm children or suicide bombers etc, Chavs are among the most intolerated and unwelcome sections of today's post modern society. You could go as far to say that they are the equivalent of the tax collectors, political nutters and prostitutes that Jesus hung around with when here on earth. Surely these are the sorts of people who Jesus wants us to 'do life with?' Maybe I'm just being carried away with the euphoria of still having my TV and DVD player at the end of the night (sorry, no more stereotypes...) but I strongly suspect that what starts out as a question of "What would a church effecting Chav culture look like" will end up being "Are you asking me to plant Chav Church God?"