Town Pastors - my experience
Dear Friends,
I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to my first night out as a Town Pastor in Felixstowe beginning at 10pm on April 17th primarily because I wondered how I would look, let alone feel when helping to lead Café worship some 5 hours after going to bed at 4.30am. And then there was the matter of the other two services that followed at 11am and 6.30pm on the same day! Well I not only survived but I was amazed at the incredibly energy I still had by Sunday evening even though I’d only had three and a half hours sleep in nearly 2 days! Let me tell you a little of my experience now.
Saturday morning arrived and I joined a number of other church folk on the Mission Area sponsored walk beginning and ending at Trinity that took in the length of the promenade. It was a beautiful day with the sunshine warming our faces as we chatted to one another. I didn’t do my weak hamstring (a legacy of playing football in the past) any favours as I tried at one point to copy some children in jumping onto the beach from a high point of the promenade. “Won’t you ever grow up?” I heard someone say with little sympathy in their voice as I hobbled on! A cup of soup and a roll, cakes and tea following the walk which helped the healing process before I joined members of all four churches in our Mission Area in meeting the circuit leadership team to discuss progress on the vision of our policy to be ‘at the heart of community’. They seemed impressed with the work in progress! I tried to rest on Saturday afternoon in preparation for the late night start but a mixture of nervous energy in wondering what the night might bring and listening to Leicester City’s progress in their Championship game meant there was no chance! I showered, had tea and set off at 9.00pm proudly wearing my Town Pastor polo and sweat shirt plus baseball cap complete with Christian fish symbol. At Trinity, the base for Town Pastors, I met the team for the evening - Val, Liz and Tony, fellow Pastors and Richard, Jane and Cheryl the base pray-ers for the night. We checked our bags for the necessary provisions, tuned in our radios, donned our hi-viz jackets, checked with CCTV what was happening on the streets of Felixstowe that evening before we spent some time in prayer! It was an incredible feeling of support and protection that all the pastors acknowledged as we left the safe confines of Trinity and headed for the hotspots of Felixstowe on a Saturday evening!
Yes there was some trouble as police were on hand to break up a gang of approximately 50 teenagers from two different High schools who were confronting each other near the Leisure centre. They successfully broke up the group into smaller numbers and Val and I chatted to some of these youngsters who were interested in who we were and what we were doing! By midnight they had disappeared home and we were faced with another challenge - young people entering and leaving pubs and nightclubs, some hardly able to stand. We gave away bottles of water to re-hydrate and chocolate to energise them, helping them to get home safely and giving us the opportunity once again to build relationships as they learnt something of our work as Christians. One young lady called back as she made her way home “Thank you for caring!”
The night passed very quickly helped by two short breaks to feast on toast and tea. We felt blessed to have had fellow Christians praying for us at the base and at home throughout the night. I was informed a few days later that the police had spoken of the work of Town Pastors at a meeting that included representatives from many agencies working in the town. They said that each night Town Pastors had been on the streets, they had sensed calmness over Felixstowe! No wonder I felt so much energy racing through my body following my first night for “the ‘Word’ had indeed become flesh and moved into the neighbourhood” - John 1:14;
If you would like to know more about this Mission work and how you could help please ask myself, Mary or Robin for more details! We’d be only too glad to talk further.
Peace be with you all
David