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WORKING WITH STREET PASTORS IN READING
Several members of our church are starting to train as Street Pastors. What is it all about?
Below we replicate the testimony of one Pastor. It was published in "GetReading"
Former Reading borough councillor Richard Mckenzie goes out on a Friday night as a street pastor. Here he recounts , some of his experiences helping out in town
Friar Street 2.30am, a lad looking, shall we say, confused sits on a bus stop bench with a thump and his cheeks billow.
I imagine that you know what happens next? He drives the porcelain bus home [throw's up] and talks to Ralf [vomits]; yes he throws up over himself and the bus stop. Not the worst thing to happen on Friday night, but now none of the taxis will take him home and perhaps his mates have abandoned him.
It's scenes like this that made me and others from Reading's churches become Street Pastors.
We are a group of Reading Christians who volunteer to spend Friday evenings in the centre of town.
Armed with lollipops, flip flops, wet wipes, water, and a sense of humour, we work with door staff, police, and those out for a good time to make sure that fewer people go home in ambulances, get in trouble or spend a night in the cells.
Our friend in the bus stop was okay. We washed him down, gave him a lollipop, and then his mates turned up.
Another night, Gun Street, I look down into the graveyard and am surprised to see a woman lying down and who has fallen out of her blouse.
Slight confusion as to which way to look, as I am at the front, I ask, "You alright love?" She revives a bit and sits up. The next job is to persuade her to spoon herself back into her blouse. Not sure what the right set of words for this is, so mumble something about a blouse accident. She looks down and sees the problem.
She's upright but wobbly. We sit her on the wall and give her water. We check that she's basically okay, and then try to find her friends. We slowly coax- out of her who she is with, her boyfriend, and why she is on her own. We keep chatting and she tells us her life story, while one of us rings her boyfriend to tell him where she is.
We wait until he turns up to take her home. This all takes, I don't know, 30 to 40 minutes. As time passes she becomes more coherent and eventually her boyfriend staggers up. They weave off in to the night. On the basis that two heads are better than one, they seem safer together than apart.
On an average evening we deal with four or five similar incidents. We will also pick up broken glass, chat to absolutely everyone, supply flip flops to women suffering from high heel trauma and give out loads of lollipops.
Usually we carry on until 3am when I bike home feeling tired, tired, tired.
Why do it? I love town on a Friday night, it's a buzz and I have felt for a long time that the church is relevant in every situation - including the centre of Reading of a weekend.
We don't preach, we don't condemn, but we try and make sure there are fewer people sent home in ambulances or police cars the evenings we are out.
If we manage that then we have had a good night and the effort is worth it.
