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Most days I walk past the high stone walls of the Bank of England, just a few blocks from where I live. Today its Monetary Policy Committee are widely expected to reduce the base rate of interest. As they meet, there's speculation and warnings from many that the United Kingdom’s economy is not growing anywhere near enough.

Reducing the base rate of interest is meant to make it more accessible for businesses and individuals to borrow money, to stimulate economic growth. It does however carry risk – not least with rising prices, the new US tariffs, and fewer jobs around.

Growth is meant to mean a bigger cake to cut among public services: more nurses, more social care, more for schools and local communities. All good. And of course, growth means that I have more money to buy more things to keep the growth going.
But what does growth actually mean?

John Wesley taught that we should gain all we can, save all we can, give all we can – but his goal was never that we have enough to be self-sufficient, but that we have enough to share.

In the community where I live, legitimate needs can feel like they are in competition with one another sowing division rather than solidarity. And then growth, if and when it comes, may feel like it is making someone else’s life easier, yet someone else's significantly worse. Growth, if it is just about promoting a fearful self-sufficiency, does not feel to me like it will make things better on its own.

Jesus told people to ‘seek first the kingdom of God’ – by which he meant many things in addition to the growth of faith in God - among them my neighbour’s wellbeing, safety in my home and on our streets, the justice of enough food and care for all. If I seek these things for my neighbour as my first priority, he taught, my own will follow.

No one who has struggled to find a safe place to live, provide enough food, or care for an older relative would be in any doubt of the need for more of these things to go around.

But there is a paradox about the feeling of financial security – it may come exactly from being involved in helping another person, and knowing the help will be there for us. Solidarity, not competition, and being involved in one another’s needs. I hope for growth in my sense of well-being that comes from faith in my community and its future, not just from my own bank balance.

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