Let me get serious now . . . this was the very first feature I did for Street Pastors and was the precursor to the work that followed on their magazine.
1. Following a launch last May to recruit more pastors, Aston Christian Centre in
Birmingham (UK), with a membership of approximately 400, now has 20 pastors.
And senior pastor at the church, Rev. Calvin Young, along with associate pastors,
Rev. Sandra Thomas and Rev. Michael Royal, hopes to expand the pastoral team even
further before long.
But why would a church of 400 members need all of 20 pastors? Why would it
still be on the lookout to recruit even more? And what on earth will all these pastors
be doing in one church? Quite a fair bit, in actual fact, and they have already been
doing it out on the streets of Aston, Lozells and Handsworth, to be more precise. They
are the street pastors, part of a growing team across the UK, who have literally been
taking the streets by storm in several cities where gun and drug related crimes have
set in with gangrenous effects. They patrol the streets from 10 o’clock at night to 3 or
4 o’clock in the morning on Fridays and Saturdays and get involved in anything from
simply smiling and saying hello, to praying for people, diffusing potential gang fights
or referring people to social service agencies that can assist with housing, drug
addiction problems, domestic violence issues, education and a host of other social
needs.
Street pastors typically go through a training course of 12 full Saturdays
stretched over six months. After the fourth week, they start going on the streets, while
they continue their training.
Seven street pastors graduated officially from the training programme at Aston
Christian Centre recently. It was the first batch from the centre and the remaining 11
are expected to fully complete their training at different times in the coming months.
But it is hard to tell the graduates apart from those still in training. They are all
clad in the distinctive blue shirt and coat with ‘street pastor’ emblazoned across the
backs. They are all bubbling over with an enthusiasm for what they do and they all
have amazing stories to tell of how God has used them to make differences in the
lives of countless people who would not normally attend regular church services.
Associate pastor, Rev. Michael Royal, himself one of the seven graduates, said
being a street pastor was about listening dialoguing, caring and being a visible
presence on the streets in troubled areas.
“Our fellowship became involved in the initiative in response to gang violence
and the gun culture here in Aston and the surrounding communities of Lozells and
Handsworth,” he said. “I was concerned personally and that’s why I became a street
pastor.
David Summers, another graduate, said he has been a street pastor since last
April. He recalled the incident when four girls from Birmingham were shot, two of
them fatally, and said he felt there was not enough being done to address the issues
that led up to the incident.
“I wanted to make a practical difference in my community.” he said, “That’s
why I decided to become a street pastor.”
David said being on the streets has been interesting and fulfilling. He also
recalled an incident where a girl rang the street pastors hotline for assistance,
subsequently started visiting the Aston Church and, along with several of her children,
eventually got baptized.
“She is still in fellowship here,” David said. “We are not aggressive in our
approach,” he continued. “Listening is key. Sometimes we go into pubs. Sometimes
we will just sit there and have a drink and people will often approach us. Depending
on what they say, we let the conversation flow from there.
2. “Many of the people we speak with are backsliders so we get opportunities to
encourage them. Sometimes people will ask us to pray for them. Once a girl stopped
us and asked us to pray for her. We did and we prayed for her during the week. The
following week we saw her again and she told us that she had derived comfort from
our prayers. We were able to refer her to the hotline for additional assistance.
“Jesus was the first ever street pastor. He went to the tax collectors and the
prostitutes. It’s all about meeting needs, not just banging on all the time about hell and
damnation.”
Street pastors have sometimes been mistaken for police informants. “That was
mainly when we first started going out,” said David. “They were wary of the uniform
and whenever we spoke to people, it’s like they’d look at the tag on our jackets and
say: ‘street patrol…that’s not how you spell patrol.’ Laughing, David scrunched up
his eyes and mimicked someone peering at a street pastor’s coat tag. “But it got better
once they got used to seeing us out there.”
Yvonne Richards agreed. “People were a bit sceptical when they saw us the first
week. Then they saw us again the second week and by the third week they began to
get a bit more comfortable seeing us out there. They would ask us what we’re doing
and once they knew, they’d say that more of us were needed. It’s about building
relationships and trust; about building a bridge between church goers and non church
goers.”
Yvonne, one of four women graduating from the programme, said she too was
concerned about what was happening in local communities and wanted to help.
“I’m never on the street late at night,” she said, “so I would never get to meet
many of the people who need our help since I don’t see them on the street during the
day. That’s why I decided to become a street pastor. It’s been eye opening to see how
the other half live.”
Jackie and Angella Lawrence, two sisters who also enlisted to become street
pastors, hope to graduate later this year.
“We’re here to support those graduating tonight,” Angella said. “It will be our
turn soon and I am looking forward to that.”
Angella is happy with the response they are receiving on the streets. “We give
out leaflets with our hotline number and other useful social service numbers on it.
Once a girl stopped me and asked me, ‘do you have any of the leaflets with the
numbers on it?’ It made me feel like we are doing something worthwhile and like we
are in fact making a difference.”
“Being at this graduation makes me feel confident,” added Jackie. “It gives me a
good feeling about all that is happening with street pastors.”
Many other stories abound of the work of the street pastors in different cities in
the UK. One night in Hackney, in London, a group of six street pastors were nearby
when a group of some 200 young people poured out of a nightclub. An altercation
was brewing; it seemed to be about a girl. The female street pastor, who was leading
the team, intervened before the fight broke out. Getting right in the middle of the fray,
she said, “There’s no fighting gonna take place here tonight!” For half an hour, they
negotiated with the swearing factions, picking out the ringleaders and concentrating
on them as trained to do. But before it ended, a car arrived on the scene with four men
armed with guns who had come to join in. The female leader of the street pastors went
over to them and said, “You’re big men. What are you doing? Get out of this place!
You should be ashamed of yourselves!” The men drove off and the street pastors
managed to eventually diffuse the situation completely. Before leaving the scene, one
of the young men approached her and said, “Thank you mommy street pastor.”
3. Another incident is reported in Brixton where a group of women were involved
in an altercation and about to fight. They were loudly threatening each other and
swearing. A street pastor approached and said, “Now, now, ladies, there’s going to be
no fighting.” The women paid no attention. Suddenly, she raised her voice and
shouted, “In the name of Jesus…” Everyone froze. The street pastor was then able to
lead the ringleader away and another major incident was averted.
In Peckham, too, Rev. Les Issacs himself, the founder of the street pastors
ministry in London, was involved in diffusing a situation between a group of about
twenty black youths and two Chinese youths over the sale of a faulty DVD. Bottles
were thrown. One of the Chinese youths had sustained injuries and Rev. Issacs and his
colleague spent time pacifying both groups: Rev. Issacs speaking to the black youths;
his colleague, who happened to be Chinese, speaking in Cantonese to the Chinese
youths. Before long, another group of Chinese men arrived on the scene, in a car, with
metal bars to join in. At the sight of them, the black youths fled and Rev. Issacs and
his colleague spent some more time trying to pacify the new arrivals. Their presence
was even more instrumental when shortly afterwards a black youth, unrelated to the
incident, got off a bus and the Chinese men mistook him for one of the group of
twenty, only agreeing to let him be at Rev. Issacs’ insistence that he was not one of
them.
Police statistics for Peckham and Camberwell, two notorious hotspot areas, have
shown a dramatic reduction in violent crimes since street pastors started working in
the areas. A comparison of the figures for 2003/04 and 2004/05 between October and
January, shows between 88% and 100% reduction in violent crimes on a weekly basis
in Peckham and between 32% and 90% reduction in Camberwell. The Camberwell
police called Janice Gittens, Strategic Planner for street pastors at Ascension Trust,
saying they had to check their figures three times. But the evidence was correct. Their
presence on the streets had made a tangible difference.
“Besides all of these incidents, people are also coming to Christ,” Rev. Issacs
reports. “Countless people have emailed or telephoned or come up to us at meetings
and said ‘thanks for what you and your team have done for me. I am now saved and
attending church and serving the Lord.’”
Rev. Issacs, Director of Ascension Trust, a mission organization based in
London, and the man responsible for pioneering the street pastors ministry in London
in 2003, delivered the main address at Aston’s graduation ceremony.
“We have missed opportunities to be relevant,” Rev. Issacs told those gathered.
“People know what the Church is against rather than what we are for. There is a need
for us to stand up and acknowledge that yes, we’re Christians; yes, we love people
and yes, we’re human. It’s been a challenge just for the Church just to let people
know that we’re human—more than just happy clappers and tambourine people—
people who are relevant to the needs out there.”
Rev. Issacs acknowledged that even though not everyone they helped would
come to faith, they still had a responsibility to love and to care for them. “We need to
remember,” he said, “that but for the grace of God, there go I and as Jesus said, the
least you do to these, you have done to me.”
As enthusiastic about missions as the graduates, Rev. Issacs said, “We can’t
afford just to have Sunday service for two hours. We have to go beyond that.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful for a thousand people to be on the streets on any one night
just bringing hope to those in need?”
The street pastors have been working in cooperation with many social service
and other charity organizations. Karen Fyffe, of Barnardos, a charity that works to
4. support vulnerable children and young people, was present at the ceremony to endorse
the initiative. Karen has worked closely with the graduates, providing support and
assistance during their training.
“This ministry is like an embryo that will grow into a child,” she told them. “But
don’t let it overwhelm you. Just let God continue to use you and take you to the next
level.”
Endorsement for the overall street pastors programme in the UK has come from
several sources since it was launched 2 years ago in London. Supt. Neil Wain of the
Greater Manchester Police, in a BBC news interview, said he was keen on the work
the street pastors were doing in Manchester and acknowledged that gang members do
have a certain respect for the Church. The police in several cities across the UK where
street pastors operate work in cooperation with them and likewise appreciate the work
they are doing.
Last year, leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard,
enthralled by reports of the street pastors’ work in London, went out one night with
Rev. Issacs and one of the teams to see for himself what they were doing.
“I was very impressed by the work of the street pastors,” he had said, “and wish
them well in turning people away from crime.”
Drivers customarily show their support, the street pastors say, by tooting their
horns and giving the thumbs up. Regulars who interact with the pastors, like Steve, a
security guard at a London nightclub, welcome their presence. Steve refers to Rev.
Issacs as my pastor. Major media houses have picked up on the story and a slew of
press articles and television reports and features have been produced. Major mentions
have included the BBC, an article in a prominent glossy monthly, New Woman, and a
slot in the 2005 edition of Local Heroes, a government sponsored publication that
gives recognition to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to local
communities. Even a drunkard the street pastors met one night mustered up enough
sobriety to give his own brand of endorsement. He is reported to have said, “It’s about
f-ing time the Church got out here. What took you so f-ing long?”
But where did it all really begin? With Rev. Issacs who pioneered the work and
was behind the first street pastors who started in London in 2003? Or perhaps it really
started in Jamaica where, in 2001, Rev. Issacs on a visit with Pastor Bruce Fletcher of
Christian Life Fellowship in Kingston and Pastor Bobby Wilmot of Covenant
Community Church, also in Kingston, first noticed that these men had a good rapport
with gang members sitting on street corners. Perhaps it started with the white middle
class pensioners in Stockwell, a group of old ladies who heard about the street pastors
when they were featured on Songs of Praise and subsequently telephoned Rev. Issacs’
office to say they had been praying for something like this for some time. Or perhaps
it goes even further back to the prayers of Rev. Issacs’ mother, who prayed
ceaselessly for her angry teenager who, in the face of racism, had embraced
Rastafarianism and rejected the blue eyed, blonde haired god whose henchmen were
the perpetrators of injustice and hatred towards the black race.
One may not be able to pin it down precisely. But one thing is clear—the seeds
were sown. After meeting with an African Christian man, who shared truths with him
that he would have been unable to hear from a white Christian on account of racist
experiences and hurts, Les gave his life to Christ at the age of 18. He was concerned
about missions from early on and became known as an ‘on-fire’ young man in church
circles. He eventually pastured a church for a number of years and finally started
Ascension Trust to concentrate on missions work to involve many churches.
5. In 2001, after witnessing the rapport that Pastors Bruce Fletcher and Bobby
Wilmot in Jamaica had with young men on the streets of Kingston, he took the
inspiration back to the UK. From there, it germinated into a road show that toured the
UK’s major cities, holding discussions in each location to try to get to grips with the
crime and violence problems being witnessed. It was clear that no one had the
answers. But after looking at the problems and analysing where and when killings
were happening, it became evident that what was needed was some solution for what
was happening at nightclubs and parties and on the streets late at nights. The street
pastors initiative was birthed directly out of this analysis. And it was officially
launched on 20th January, 2003 at Brixton Baptist Church, with the first ever street
pastors appearing on the streets of Lambeth and Hackney in April of that year and
officially becoming the first UK graduates in September of the same year.
The ministry is poised for expansion into Southend, where 30 applicants are
ready to start training; Waltham Forest; Leeds; Leicester, Chelmsford. And the
international arena is on the cards too: from as far as Bolivia, churches have been
phoning to say they want to have street pastors there too. The Caribbean and Africa
are also on the cards. And Jamaica, where Rev. Issacs first received the inspiration,
has since come to the UK to witness the mobilization of an idea which was loosely in
effect in its own backyard and has taken the observations back to develop them there.
If Rev. Issacs has his way, street pastors could become a common fixture on the
streets of major cities all over the world.
So, if you have your sights set on the pastorate and have been thinking of
putting yourself forward for consideration, broach it with your local pastor—you can
never tell, you could very well find yourself out on the street!
To contact the street pastors ministry in the UK, telephone Ascension Trust: 0207 771
9770
Email: ascensionswjp@yahoo.com
Website address: www.streetpastors.org.uk