Street Pastors in Preston; Message from Chris Drury

Street Pastors is an inter-denominational Church response to urban problems, engaging with people on the streets to care, listen and dialogue. It was pioneered in London in January 2003 by Rev Les Isaac, Director of the Ascension Trust, and has seen some remarkable results, including drops in crime in areas where teams have been working.

 

As a result of the developing relationships between Preston Police, Preston City Council and Preston churches through Hope 08, we now have the opportunity to see this national church initiative happening in Preston by the end of the year. As we as churches seek to serve our city and take the good news of Hope onto our streets, we are being actively encouraged and invited by these civic authorities to engage at grassroots, long term in our city in ways that many people, for many years, have been praying for.

 

We have been asked by the Police, in partnership with them and Preston City Council,  to develop a Street Pastors Project for the St Georges and St Matthews areas of Preston This area includes Fletcher Road, which is the red light district for Preston and we have been asked to specifically input into working with the sex workers in this area. It also includes Meadow Street, Ribbleton Lane and New Hall Lane and is just off of Church Street, all areas of the city with particular night time social problems (alcohol, drugs and anti-social behaviour). There will of course be specific training for volunteers in all these areas that will be delivered in partnership with the Ascension Trust, Police, Neighbourhood Management Teams and other agencies working in these areas.

I do hope that you and your church might feel that this invitation from our city is a bit of a Macedonian call and something which your church might feel able to support, or encourage folk from within your church to become involved in. Anyone over the age of 18 can be involved - age is no barrier; in one project elsewhere in the country, an 81 year old man and his wife are actively serving as Street Pastors!

We realise that it is very hard to answer all of your questions within a letter such as this, and so we would like to invite you and or your congregation to find out more on a Street Pastors Open evening on

Thursday 25^th September, 7.30pm

Fulwood Free Methodist Church

Please could we encourage you to advertise this amazing opportunity within your churches? To assist with this, I attach posters for you to copy and display.

Should you wish to discuss anything in the meantime, please feel free to get in touch with us through phone or e-mail on the above contact details.

I do hope and pray that this invitation to make a difference in the lives of people from within our city is something that your church would feel able to support.

God Bless

 

Chris Drury chrisd@fulwoodfmc.net

 

 

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'EQUALLY DIFFERENT?' the new resource and campaign from the Methodist Church

This materail could be useful for your church 

 

www.methodistchurch.org.uk/equallydifferent

 

Click on the link and find lots of ideas to resource your local Church as it begins to seek to celebrate diversity.

 

This campaign and resource is for the 'inclusion enthuiasts' and those who are less sure of the inclusion agenda.

This campaign and resource can enable your Church to open up conversations in new ways, but in situations which feel safe and familiar to people.

 

what is online now:

daily devotions

homegroups sessions

'what is all this about?' sessions

devotions

 

coming soon:

worship materials

materials for use with young people

materials for use with children

ways to share your ideas

 

keep logging on to see what is new

 

Shalom

 

Alison

--
Alison Parker
Methodist Church Equalities & Diversity Project Officer
(01524) 382800
equalities.diversity@googlemail.com
e&d@methodistchurch.org.uk

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A Date for your diary: FYT training for Christian Youth Workers in Preston 28th/ 29th November

Dave Wiles who is CEO of Frontier Youth Trust http://www.fyt.org.uk/ has agreed to come to Preston to help run a training seminar style training event on the broad theme of Christian Youth Outreach to street / unchurched / urban kids.

In the evening of Friday November 28th Dave is offering a session aimed at Christian and other paid and unpaid youth workers on

The Future of youth work: feed back and coffee shop style exploration of this theme based on a consultancy that we have carried out around the UK - see http://www.fyt.org.uk/showdetails,pdf,93.htm for the report

The venue and timings to be confirmed

On Saturday November 29^th we have a tentative booking for The Salvation Army between 10 and 3pm .

The Programme Will take the form of a training day aimed at the people in training for the proposed Street Pastors team but open to anyone with an interest in Christian youth work or serving and reaching those on the margins of society.

Topics to be covered will probably include;

Understanding and Responding to challenging behaviour, including: social and personal context, understanding deeper issues, practical responses, policy needs - a lot of this will be based on Jo and Nigel Pimlott's Grove booklet on this subject.

Young people and Spirituality - looking at models to understand, ways of responding, communication skills, resources that might help...

The events are being organised by Preston Christian Action network working in partnership with other relevant agencies such as Street Pastors and Preston Youth for Christ. For further information email pcan@maister-smith.fsnet.co.uk

PCAN (Chair) Greg Smith
34 Broadgate.
Preston PR1 8DU
Phone no. 01772 827987 / 555425

The Seeds of Exclusion : Newly published report from The Salvation Army

 

 

The effects of social exclusion are often all too easy to see: family breakdown, poverty, poor health, addictive behaviour and homelessness.

The purpose of The Seeds of Exclusion, the fourth in a series of reports published by The Salvation Army, is to identify how patterns of early-life experience contain the seeds of later problems, and how The Salvation Army and others might tackle them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This new report is well worth a read.. You can download the full report or a summary from:

 

http://www2.salvationarmy.org.uk/seeds

 

 

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