Articulating Church, Class and Mission

Hopefully I'm not stupid enough to imagine that class determines everything, or that 'churches' can be neatly defined in terms of the socio-economic class of their memberships; and yet I firmly believe that class continues to be at least one of the factors, one of the determinants, which contribute to the nature or "groupthink" of any community, churches included. Take, for instance, the research into "growing churches": research which identifies "successful" churches in terms of those best able to articulate their faith and to cultivate church programmes explicitly designed to introduce other people to faith, and advertised as such. "Middle class" churches are not only at a distinct advantage if this is the game we must play "to do well", but I would suggest that middle classness almost defines such "growth" - not that "working class" people and churches cannot be part of similar developments, but churches in "working class" areas which reflect such developments are perhaps bucking a trend, and may be even being quite "middle class"?? I don't mean - at all - that inner-urban churches must define themselves "only" in terms of practical, social concern kinds of things, either as though those things are less important (they're clearly not!) or as though such churches can't do "thinking" and "articulacy" too! But what working-class contexts surely suggest is that Christian "good news" is much more rounded than the business-model of articulation-led mission. If a church works hard to include someone who might not be included in any other group, then that is at least as valuable as a church's evangelistic programme, because it is a real sign of good news. Working class communities are often better at this ... but often the "middle class" pressure to "succeed", to be "viable", means that a church itself will not value such inclusion as they ought to, hoping instead to "grow". If only, instead, each church could "be itself" with as much integrity to its story of good news.