Podcast: Sharing the love of Jesus with at-risk and marginalised people – with Caring For Life

This article is part of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast series.

In this episode of Affinity Talks Gospel, we are joined by Erin and Jonathan from Caring For Life, a charity which seeks to share the love of Jesus with at-risk and hurting people. We discuss Caring For Life’s mission to support marginalised individuals through housing, activities, and the gospel. This relationship building and practical support is built on an evangelical Christian foundation.

Graham Nicholls hosts this episode of Affinity Talks Gospel with guests Jonathan and Erin from Caring For Life (CFL). Erin works as the Benefits and Tenancies Team Manager at CFL, supporting people through benefit processes. Jonathan, CEO of CFL, is responsible for fulfilling the organisation’s objectives in engaging with marginalised individuals and sharing the gospel.

Caring For Life aims to lead people to Jesus, provide meaningful activities, and offer stable housing to those at risk or vulnerable. They support individuals dealing with homelessness, mental health issues, addictions, and other challenges. The organisation also runs a working farm which provides therapeutic projects and engages individuals to find purpose and direction. Caring For Life also assists people in accessing benefits and supports them in finding employment opportunities where feasible.

Relationship building, meeting individuals where they are, and providing practical support like safe housing are vital to the charity’s goal of sharing the gospel with the marginalised. This is made explicit through the organisation’s strong Christian foundation. They engage in prayer, Bible studies, and spiritual conversations with beneficiaries. They also highlight the need for churches to be more proactive in ministering to individuals in need, including those with complex backgrounds and challenges.

We also touch on the difficulties of integrating individuals with diverse needs into church communities and the importance of seeing them through Christ’s eyes. Caring For Life value prayers for effectiveness in their ministry, impactful witness, and continued provision to expand their work and bless more people in need.

For more information on Caring For Life visit their website and social media platforms. Alternatively, they would love to welcome you to an in-person visit: www.caringforlife.co.uk

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Topics addressed in this Podcast:

• Understanding the need
• Encouraging work opportunities
• Expansion of farm projects
• Spreading the Gospel net
• Importance of prayer
• Impact on wider society
• Discipling and engaging
• Challenges in church engagement
• How can we pray for Caring For Life?

Transcript

[0:10] Hello, my name is Graham Nicholls. Welcome to Affinity Talks Gospel, where we talk to various partners of Affinity about what they do, how the gospel works out in their lives, in their ministries, in their sets of churches. And today I’m delighted that we are talking to a couple of people from an organisation called Caring for Life. Welcome to Jonathan and to Erin. Do you want to introduce yourself, Erin, first as to who you are and what you do for Caring for Life?

[0:40] Yeah, my name is Erin. I work for Caring for Life as Benefits and Tenancies Team Manager. So my role includes supporting people through the benefits process from initial application all the way through to appeal. Right, so a lot of dealing with local authorities sort of people. Yeah, local authority, Department of Work and Pensions, agencies like that.

[1:01] Supporting people to navigate that system, to advocate for them, speaking up and ensuring their voices are heard. Brilliant and uh jonathan tell us anything about yourself thank you graham yes jonathan parkinson so i am now the ceo of caring for life i’ve been for about 10 years but i’ve been involved in the ministry almost from the start so overall responsible for making sure the ministry fulfills its objectives in engaging appropriately with people who live on the margins and taking the gospel to them so overall responsible for the whole shooting much and erin you’re not from the the leeds area which is where caring for life is where are you from and why did you end up here or there yes i’m glad you picked up on the accent so originally from new orleans and grew up there and about 10 years ago i came to caring for life and did a volunteer week and fell in love with what the work was doing and seeking to share the love with those who are most vulnerable and at risk and an opportunity came up to start working in the supported accommodation at Caring for Life and that’s where I started out and worked there for two years and it taught me a lot about how we walk alongside people, support people, care for people, how we meet people where they’re at and then I joined starting doing the benefits in 2016 and I’ve been doing that since.

[2:24] Right, and Jonathan, tell us what really is the goal of Caring for Life? What’s it for?

[2:33] Okay, well, ultimately, we want to see the mission field with which God has called us to go and minister within, that body of people to come to know Jesus, to know Christ, to find a home within a gospel church.

[2:48] That’s our ultimate aim and objective. Okay.

[2:51] We also want to engage with those types of people and give them real meaningful purposeful things to do in their lives as well so um we’re not just meeting people across the city um face to face we’re encouraging people to do stuff with their time we have a farm where we have loads of different types of projects so getting people who don’t fit in the world somewhere to fit or helping them find uh purpose and direction is a big part of what we do but ultimately graham it’s about leading people to christ yeah that’s brilliant uh just for people perhaps who are not quite so familiar with the work of caring for life cfl what kinds of people or is it just anybody but it happens to be a cluster of a kind of person i don’t know how you would categorize that it’s difficult it’s ever so broad i mean we would the vast majority of people we support you would describe as being at risk vulnerable so a good proportion will have been people that may be grown up in care they’re certainly from chaotic lifestyles chaotic backgrounds um some are people who might have suffered with mental health issues some may have had issues around addictions some may have lived on the streets so being homeless um very broad category um but the majority of of them were people and just are going to struggle to cope living without any other support in their lives.

[4:16] And the fact is they haven’t got anybody in their lives, nobody in their corner to look out for them. Um, initially we started because there were kids that are growing up in care. So back in the eighties, we had a load of kids in our church who had grown up in care, left care, left to it, and really were just getting into trouble and nobody was there picking up the pieces in terms of giving them a, what you would say, a family structure to help them cope.

[4:40] Yeah. So I may have misunderstood because I thought when you started off, it was a bit more focused on those with learning difficulties, but that might have been just incidental because a number of people who are at risk also happen to have either mental health issues or learning difficulties. Would that be so? so no i think the initial need was the issue of homelessness so right i’m casting my mind back now to like 1986 yeah across our church the the kids that have grown up in care were my dear friends close friends still today many of them are and you’ve got lads there who were getting in trouble with the police so getting in trouble with crime one lad was uh getting into uh burning things i had a pyromania streak um due to the abuse that he’d suffered really there was one or two that had learning disabilities so like me making your way through understanding bills yes didn’t know where to go yeah so that was really our our playing field to start with as we’ve developed graham there’s people that have come to us who have got learning disabilities Some who are on the autistic spectrum, some with Asperger’s, and they find a home with us because we try and meet them on that kind of level and find a place for them to fit. But the initial need was homelessness and trying to bring stability. Yeah.

[6:03] So, Erin, what do you provide for them? Obviously, the bigger goal is leading them to Jesus. And the kind of on the way to that is you’re providing a home and stability and support services and stuff like that. Home as in family, not so much a literal home. Do you literally provide them a home or do you just help them get a home themselves? A lot of our work is quite practical, meeting people where they’re at. It’s relationship building. It’s providing sanity, love, consistency.

[6:33] And for many of those that we care for that’s completely unknown entity and they’ve never experienced that before and a big part of our our relationship is is getting to know that person working alongside that person and then trying to meet the need also there so that may be homelessness and finding a safe and appropriate housing so some of our folks are in quite dangerous situations or difficult situations or homes that are not meeting their need and unfortunately Unfortunately, though, trying to find a home at the moment is quite difficult. So there’s a great demand for housing. And you’re talking for the top band and council properties, you’re looking at at least a two-year wait, if not longer. And that’s for people who are in the most urgent need. We’ve got a lady who’s been in a shelter for quite a while and just unable to access safe housing. We do have some accommodation. So we have our support accommodation. And we also have a couple of properties out in the community too, where we support folks from. So yeah, our being their team, we get alongside people and support people. We’re tentatively sustainment, trying to access safe housing, getting the register and stuff like that. And my role then would be supporting people to access funds, especially as a cost of living crisis going on and ensuring just to support people. But all of that relationship building, walking alongside people, going through the ups and downs and pointing them to the Lord. How do people come to you on their own or social subscribers or what? How do they end up with you?

[7:57] There’s a mixture of referrals so we do get referrals from social prescribers and through GPs we get referrals from social services we get referrals from probation services from the police.

[8:08] And but also a big part is also referrals from those that we support who might be in their streets or their friends or their aunties and uncles and cousins and all of that so it’s word of mouth as well quite often you’ll hear as you’re visiting someone oh that’s the caring for life law you should get some support from them with this that can quite often happen when you’re out and about um but yeah there’s a real vast array um of referral presumably you help them both with getting housing benefit or whatever they need but also are you trying to get them back to work as well or as well as just get benefits yeah yeah so we don’t really support people to access the benefits where there’s a need so for some of those in our care um they would never be able to work they would struggle with um because their chaotic lives their mental health their physical health being able to work would just be a real barrier but we do encourage people where that connects our farm and engaging in our therapeutic project we recognize the benefits of getting out of the house and engaging in those sort of things but some of our folks in our care um work is an option so we’ve got one gentleman who we supported with benefits initially and did some benefits work but actually his mental health has got better so he started working and we’re just supporting him in accessing support around that and so we never yeah benefits we don’t just do because we want benefits we want to encourage people to work we want to encourage people to engage but it’s where that person would not be able to and that’s the wonderful thing that we have a welfare state and we’re able to support people isn’t it um where there’s need yeah yeah.

[9:34] We have um we have a service locally called grace advocacy which which we operate much smaller scale but um uh sometimes that’s helping people with benefits sometimes it’s disputes marital disputes sometimes it is people with just chaotic financial planning lives um but it’s kind of being advocates for them if they’re not capable of advocating if that’s the word for themselves um and something similar-ish that we do locally is is um we have a house that we operate that um is with other people’s money that they’ve lent for it but we help the the residents tenants get benefit and then they pay into that sort of fun so there’s a slight overlap but the the farm is a significant thing jonathan you started with did it start with the farm was we did you have the farm already was your dad a farmer or no my dad was a baptist minister yes i knew he was that as well but yeah so perhaps he’s a farmer too no no farming souls that’s that’s his job we ended up moving to the farm in 1980.

[10:36] Basically we wanted a place where, the kids that were in the home and some of the kids that we got to know who were crazy kids but wonderful kids could come let their hair down and the neighbors wouldn’t get upset by the noise, so so to live there and it was a ramshackle doll place we had to run it as a working farm so we were breeding pigs and then got into free range eggs so that’s how we got to the farm it’s quite a long story we’re not going to that it was wonderful but god’s providence it brought us to this place so um caring for life started in 87 and it was really to deal as i said with the issue of homelessness that those guys were facing but it didn’t it didn’t take a genius to work out it’s okay putting people in a home putting a roof over their heads what they’re going to do during the day so that’s when the farm came into play and maybe about well just less than a year later, the farm was given to caring for life so it had a base to then start developing daytime stuff to engage with people either as a stepping stone or as a long-term place for them to brilliant, i i grew up on a dairy farm by the way and ended up yeah free range eggs on that farm so um on a large scale so i’m familiar with farms yeah but i’m not familiar with with farming i mean yeah long story but my parents did take in various people and help they helped work out on the farm in a previous generation but that wasn’t really my experience um.

[11:59] So how do you kind of, how did you manage, how do you manage all that with all the kind of, I don’t know, safeguarding and danger and, you know, worries that, I don’t know, they might, people might just take advantage of you, do something dangerous to themselves or somebody else.

[12:15] And you’d like totally chilled and you just say, well, God’s in charge, which we’ll just sort of sort it all out. No, we do believe God is sovereign, but we’re not that daft in terms of safety. We’ve got a very good training program for staff and for beneficiaries when they come.

[12:30] We we supervise very closely and we personal risk assessment is crucial just understanding what people are good at and what people are not so good at and working within that kind of parameter of course working with animals large animals in particular cows horses you know you’re at risk getting trampled all sorts of stuff so we don’t throw people into dangerous situations but we do want people to be fully immersed into the life of of the farm so that they have a meaningful part to play in in the workings of it all um so yeah we are very very good when it comes to training um teaching people around safeguarding issues not just in terms of health and safety but in terms of managing people who have an awful lot of issues yeah and the farm i think developed with a sort of cafe and a restaurant on site doesn’t it um we we started um like a little cafe around about 12 12 13 years ago to try and generate a little bit of income for the trust and then about five years after that so yeah about 10 years ago we started a restaurant and nurseries and we’ve made the gardens accessible to the public as well which has been a mission field in itself people come here and ask it about what caring for life’s about and they know nothing about the Lord. So yeah, lots of new opportunities there.

[13:53] Yeah that’s a brilliant model um give me an idea of scale um perhaps erin like uh as a really simple crude question are there loads of people at risk is there more than you can cope with or do you kind of get to the end and you’re or you’re even worried that you haven’t got enough clients or something so any question i think it’s one of those things where you sometimes only see the tip of the iceberg you know we’re constantly getting new referrals and the cost of living crisis I think has exasperated that and levels of poverty that we’ve never really seen before in terms of growing needs and that’s led to we’ve had more referrals this year than we’ve ever had I think in terms of benefits alone and housing ongoing constant need and we’re constantly coming into contact with people who are at risk um yeah do you think there’s something it may be a jonathan question because you’re not quite as old as jonathan uh i reckon anyway but um you may have just worn it really well but i think maybe things have changed in society i don’t know maybe all all that those with celtic lives and at risk were more dealt with by the local authority or more dealt with in family situations and as a sort of combination of basically local authority cuts.

[15:17] And the breakdown of family that stirred it up or is i might be too simplistic about that.

[15:23] Yeah i think i don’t think that this scene has changed i think it’s become more complex right so i think.

[15:29] Accessing support has become more complex certainly.

[15:32] With the benefits side of things i think that yes there.

[15:35] Have been huge cuts which means there are in terms of housing a lot less uh a lot less provision out there so very very few hostels in fact there’s no hostel in leeds now in terms of dealing with homeless people um so yes i think the scene has changed um i think back in the day the local authority didn’t have follow-up support um hence the reason we’re there but in terms of christians doing it very very few christians doing real gospel work with with vulnerable people but i do think the scene is this exactly the same i mean thinking about children in care there’s going to be 100 000 children in care this year right well you think about where all those children end up you know we’re still dealing with the aftermath most of those kids are in care because they’ve suffered and we’re unearthing historical abuse like now we’ve got a gentleman who erin’s supporting or passed on actually he’s come through benefits he’s now working in our art room in our art shop and he’s disclosed sexual abuse from when he was in care the same time we were caring for our kids in a loving way who were in care back in the same time so i think there’s an awful lot of hidden yeah abuse and a lot of trauma from all of that when you say a hundred thousand in care just for for people listening who don’t know quite what that means what do you actually mean when you say in care well you still got children in children’s homes.

[17:04] Children who have been cared for in, uh, in, in, in, in foster homes or foster homes. So a lot of children who have been displaced from their families. Hmm.

[17:16] Uh you know living without the love of a mom and a dad and the safety and the security that that should bring um so many children living without that again that that mission that was our mission field initially and that’s going to be a huge issue for us moving on into the future yeah do you tend to work with young well not young adults necessarily adults or do you work with children as well yeah a lot of families we’re working with a lot of families and and now we’re dealing with the little ones of the parents we were caring for in the first place so now your next generation in fact for one family third generation we’re caring for their children right um and some people might say well i mean you sorted them out because you know you should have been able to get them all stable it doesn’t work like that when you’re dealing with sort of like this cycle of abuse this cycle of trauma right it takes a lifetime you know hence our title caring for life we know we’re in it for the long haul yeah because no quick fixes are there no no and i i mean i think it’s probably a much it’s a longer graph than um than you’re.

[18:20] Starting but i i i guess the breakdown in family life has a contributory factor in that you know families and wider families tended to provide a bit more of a support network you know it’s not as though there wasn’t any crime and there wasn’t any orphans you know the different seasons of history there’ve been lots of orphans but uh probably you know there was a there was a sweet spot where the christian influence was very strong families were very well stronger at least and uh there was a bit more bit.

[18:49] Wider family uh and sort of extended family support and most most of that is gone lots of people are quite isolated so if something kind of breaks apart there’s not a wider family necessarily to pick pick that up there’s definitely very levels of isolation then i’ve even seen the 10 years i’ve been here i was thinking we’ve just taken on a new lady there recently and hasn’t left the house 2017 judycrophobia you know that’s a more recurring thing of isolation living lives where they’re not actually seeing people the gentleman that jonathan referred to wasn’t seeing anyone at all wasn’t leaving his house was anxious just to leave the house and now he’s engaging in the farm coming weekly and that’s transformed his life because the whole week is based around i’m going to see people on wednesday and that makes such a difference just that consistent, and turning up and having conversation having someone to talk to yeah i’d also say that the the areas where a lot of these folks live and not particularly nice areas.

[19:47] So in terms of say the local church engaging with people like that, you’re not going to be, you’re not going to plethora of good gospel churches that may bring people in, preach the gospel to him, but also try and think through how can we help this person with their deep needs that are going on of, you know,

[20:06] of poverty or trauma and, and deal with that wisely. Because we try and do things wisely graham so we’re not going to just for example we’ve got a food bank we’ve had it ever since day one we call it the manor project we don’t just give people food willy-nilly and feed a habit we want to try to do things and manage things wisely and appropriately to help people uh you know yeah on every level yeah but there’s not many gospel churches in poorer areas so i suppose that’s what we’re seeking to do spread the gospel net into to those areas to meet those people that live in those.

[20:43] Pretty chaotic environments to be fair one question about how you minister the gospel then one question about the wider church because you’ve hinted a couple of times about how you, seek to introduce people to jesus is it just organic in that you’re interacting with them you’re christians and it just comes out or is there is there kind of a program as it were that uh it sounds very mechanical and clinical but you know what i mean that you try and sort of work with everybody to say we know we’re going to help you but you know yeah you need to read this book or something yeah yeah no out of the block we explain to anybody that comes to caring for life anybody who we are that we’re explicitly a christian ministry and we’ll share with them about our love for christ and that’s who we are that every staff member they’ll come into contact with will be somebody that is a practicing christian that loves the lord so out of the block people know what we are some people at that point will say well i’m not interested in and and don’t come most do most will offer you you know will accept the the help that you’re offering.

[21:46] We pray every day we have a morning prayer meeting we pray every day that the lord will, not just give us opportunities to speak that we but we will be um taking opportunities to speak about the lord so we do it in that way we do speak and we will also introduce within to our our conversations, elements of God’s word. You know, sometimes there’s like conversations, we’re talking about deep pain and somebody’s in a traumatic situation and we’ll say, you know, Christ said, cast your burdens on him. Seek after him. So we will speak openly about the Lord as being the only one who can help them in their deepest need. So we do that. We have Bible studies that we invite people to, and we get a large number of people coming to our Bible studies. We write accessible bible study notes for people to take and we don’t just do that at christmas or easter we have ongoing study notes that we’re writing throughout writing throughout the year that people can access and take away so we just pray for every opportunity to speak but also we’re saying to people where there aren’t churches nearby you know we know people in a church near you let us introduce you like erin actually took a couple to a church in round a um two three months ago and we’re praying that that soul settles there and finds a home there so um.

[23:10] It’s not that it just happens it it’s that we try and take opportunities to but.

[23:17] Um there is so much hurt in the heart of so many people that actually it can take many many years for that person to then respond so one young lady i’m thinking of now we’ve been supported for a long time came from one of the most horrendous um sexual exploitation situation I can think of very angry but very bitter and only just now 14 years down the line is she now asking, there’s got to be something in why you care about me yeah and and then into that you can sort of like speak about the saviour’s love it takes a long time to gain somebody’s trust and respect you know why would they trust me or erin so you have a prayer time every morning we do we start as a staff team we start every morning half past eight a time of prayer we have a staff meeting.

[24:08] Each month where we will open the word and then we will discuss issues that are going on and pray as a team once again everything’s surrounded in prayer we can’t do anything without prayer yeah i think it when you’re praying for something obviously it’s expressing your dependence on on god which is good it’s asking god for things which he graciously answers but i think there’s another benefit in terms of um it makes you alert you you tend to if you’re expressing something in prayer it will tend to focus your motivation and your kind of goal uh and so you will be looking out for it more so than if you hadn’t prayed if you pray i’d love to talk to someone about jesus Jesus today, I think you’re more likely to talk to someone about Jesus that day, both, because God answers, but also because it’s in your mind as a thing. What’s your experience, Erin, of, this is a hard question, of kind of witnessing to people? How has that worked out ever for you?

[25:12] As Sheldon says, you know, people know what we are when we go. And so quite often I have the privilege of meeting people for the first time. And that’s in our initial conversation. We love the Lord. That’s why we do what we do. And that quite often leads quite quickly to conversations and interactions, questions.

[25:30] Oh, I used to go to church 20 years ago, but I haven’t gone since then. Or I once had someone tell me this. Or what do you think about that?

[25:37] But also it’s relationship based. So you’re building on relationship.

[25:41] You’re spending time with people. are getting to know them they quite naturally come back in conversations my job unfortunately deals with most negative parts and when i’m filling in forms the benefit forms that look at the best things about the person they look at the things that person can’t do so they can’t shower that day they’ll write about that or you know not being able to go to the toilet on their own all those sort of things and that can be really difficult but it leads quickly to relationship with trust and it also leads quickly to conversations remember one gentleman sitting with him going through the form and his health was so severe at one point he just stopped and he started crying and he goes I sound like I’m not even human and in that moment we were able to talk about how he’s fearfully and wonderfully made and the conversation that led from that was beautifully started reading the bible he’s really seeking he started heading our farm projects so yeah you get opportunities as you’re doing benefit forms and as you’re visiting the job center and last week I was at the job center with another gentleman and as we were sitting and chatting to the the work coach he goes oh by the way she goes to church and points at me the guy i was sitting with and the guy behind the counter goes well i’ve just started going to church what do you think about this and see your conversations happen quite naturally the guys know what we stand for they know who we love we know why we do this um and are quite open to talk about the lord even those who would sometimes say oh i don’t want to hear about it and sometimes i i honestly respond and say i don’t know what else to do but to pray so do you mind if we do that and.

[27:08] Yeah i think that’s relationship isn’t it it’s um trusting that actually we care and we’re here and we yeah their greatest need is to know the lord and that’s what we want to be able to share that do you get apologetic kind of questions or are they very personal why am i suffering or are they actually not that at all um i don’t know is there is a real line of questioning that often happens you do get a lot of a real mixture quite often it’s why did this happen to me yeah um it’s a big one and you know i’d say probably 80 of those that we support have experienced abuse, um of some form or other so it’s a it’s a big question there’s a lot of questions that we don’t know the answer to and it’s being honest and saying i don’t know the answer but i know the lord knows and he cares um yeah if god is a god of love why we’ve got a lot of that yeah, yeah yeah and none of us know the answer to every one of these questions as you would know points them to christ it’s the only answer isn’t it christ we’ve just had easy christ on the cross it’s the only answer it shows proves god’s love so everything we do ends up back at him.

[28:19] All the conversations you also get a lot of questions a gentleman has started supporting recently and he has a million and one questions about what we believe and why we believe and that it’s wonderful when you get those opportunities just to really dig in the god’s word and just read it in that you know all that it says here about this or and that’s so important it’s yeah where you take them elon has the words of eternal life which is really important and there is a degree of part of becoming a christian in my observation of people is that they that they stop this conveyor belt of questions it’s not actually that i’ve given them enough answers it’s just they stop asking and there’s a there’s a there’s both um an appreciation of of christ’s love and christ’s suffering which in a way puts theirs in proportion but also brings them comfort and hope but there is also a degree of i accept god is in charge um and uh and it’s not really my right to have everything answered and that’s part of that’s part of humbling yourself before god isn’t it um let’s talk about the wider church wider society um why isn’t this happening a lot more because there must be repeated certainly across all the cities.

[29:29] These this scale of need and i don’t know of many organisations as i mentioned there’s this grace advocacy which is part of a network which which we do locally but it’s very small scale um you know three or four clients at a time sort of thing um and i don’t know of other big initiatives across the country probably in less evangelical churches there might be more support networks but amongst evangelical churches bible believing gospel preaching you know jesus loving.

[29:57] There’s a bit less of it is that true I don’t know, Yeah, I think you might be right. I know there is a lot of very kind, compassionate, Christ-loving people in churches across the country in our circles. Yes. And people who, if there was something doing an element of what we were doing, probably would get stuck in that type of people. Some really lovely people.

[30:21] I think I can only speak about us. The Lord brought the challenge to our church, to my father’s foot, to his church, really. And and i think because he knew my dad would respond so um i think where you’ve got people who have a real heart for the gospel but also have a heart for people and there’s a need right in front of them so it’s not like we just created caring for life out of nothing people often say to me can’t you just start caring for life where we are and i say what’s the immediate need in front of you well i’m sure we could find one and it’s like that’s not how it is you know meet the need that’s in front of you um yes i’m sure um there could be a caring for life in every city and not just in every city you think about rural spots they’re still abusing rural areas isolation people struggling um so it could be everywhere um but i mean for us as a ministry graham i would be reluctant to sort of like if we had all the resources under the sun just to start planting and caring for life everywhere because you’ve got to keep your gospel distinctives and unless the people in that area prepare to graft for the sake of the gospel even for nothing and for no reward, through the hard times and the good times then you’ll just end up being secular does that make sense yeah it does uh i guess as well there is a question behind the question which is.

[31:49] Why aren’t lots of people with needs coming to our churches?

[31:54] That’s a bigger question. So if you say, well, you might well do it because there are lots of kind people in churches. And if…

[32:02] You know if we had 10 people who are at risk in our church that would suddenly become a very significant number yeah um rather than the kind of you know the one or two that might wander in and out it then because that’s how kind of churches work you need to have a kick don’t you to sort of yeah we need to we need to minister to these people but you know the ones and twos maybe don’t don’t always so i mean yeah i would say to that graham yeah um we’ve got to care for a start-off so if people if we do come into contact with people first of all as Erin said quite rightly we’ve got to build a relationship with them because we see that they’re valuable so so we don’t just see the doctors and the bank managers be as being the valuable ones to the church but we even see the the druggie who struggles but loves jesus and the alcoholic who keeps falling back into that terrible habit that’s destructive to his life or the person that can’t read or write as being equally valuable to christ and equally valuable to our churches that’s of minds that’s got to be a shift in our mindset to see people through the eyes of christ i think also think about how do we disciple people within our churches because yes we’ve got to see people saved but we’re also called to make disciples aren’t we yeah so how do we make disciples of people who are so chaotic that actually it’s two steps back and then sorry one step forward two steps back or Or actually, you may never see real progression ever, but they’re there and they’re confessing with their lips that they love Jesus.

[33:30] It’s like, how do we engage?

[33:32] So I think that is something we all have to tackle in our own churches.

[33:36] Yeah. You know, maybe we’ll see people a bit differently then and maybe we’ll, I don’t know, see more of a need.

[33:44] Yeah. Yeah. I think as you say, Christians are both in terms of what they’re taught, but I think in terms of who they are. They are caring and they would want to show love. Um i think sometimes we find it difficult with awkward shaped people yes um and we’re kind of used to in even in sort of slightly less formal you know modern contemporary style churches we still we still kind of want everyone to behave in roughly the same way um and if if someone comes in to start shouting or someone comes in and um you know doesn’t smell right or something it it kind It changes the vibe. And I think we do find that difficult sometimes. Yeah, we do. We get a bit uptight, don’t we? We like things to be. We want to know where things are at. I remember many years ago, Graham, and I’ll not use the expletive that he said, a guy came to faith. He’d come out of prison and professed faith in the Lord.

[34:45] And it was quite early on. And something that my father was preaching on really touched his heart. And he shouted out in the middle of the sermon. and he said uh bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep pastor and uh you know in his like joy of what was said and uh i remember i could see it’s as if i was in the service now he said and my dad looked at him and he said uh thank you thank you for that and then just carried on because it was the only way he could express his joy now after i think he said thank you for that but maybe that’s not the moment to shout out but i think we people could be offended at that it’s like you need to take him in hand you need to sort that out and that was his expression of love for christ maybe slightly inappropriate but we don’t like risk do we and we don’t like change no and to be fair it’s hard when you know we we’ve had a few people shouting in our church it’s really hard to figure do we try and take them out i know do we just keep going yeah um and so yeah it’s a difficult call, because sometimes you do have to take them out in the sense that they just need someone to talk to them because yeah if you’ve got sort of 200 people in a room it it’s hard to engage with one person.

[36:00] Absolutely who’s who’s raising stuff but on the other hand we don’t want to.

[36:04] Give them the feeling like we’re security guards and we’re just basically bundle them out and out the door as well yeah um and for so many of our guys as well going into church is so unusual too you know what church looks like and the model and standing up and sitting down and saying these words and saying amen and then a prayer that’s all so unusual isn’t it so exactly yeah well it’s a bit like a child isn’t it where um if you haven’t experienced church you don’t know quite how to to behave so why wouldn’t you call out because because that that idea um maybe with some of your.

[36:37] Um uh i’m gonna say clients but that’s like a modern way of what would you call them people we the best of the worst is beneficiary but to be honest with you if you came here and i showed you around i’d introduce you to joseph and i’d introduce you to gary and introduce you to kelly and that’s who they are they’re my friends i apologise i was searching for a collection with your beneficiaries yeah they may not have had much formal education which means that i mean church particularly church the way we do it is is in the model of a kind of formal education process so yeah um that you know there’s some participation in the singing there might be other elements where people participate but there’s a good probably half an hour 45 minutes of sit down and listen to somebody which is pretty unusual um uh you know even school now is more interactive and, he wouldn’t quite expect that.

[37:25] How can we pray for you? And then just as we round off, I’m going to just make sure we get in the website and stuff. But how can we pray for caring for life?

[37:36] Thanks, Graeme. I think just pray that we could be effective in our witness. We live in a very confused world, don’t we, over lots of issues. So pray that we could be distinctive as we share the gospel and share life with people. Distinctive in terms of we are to be the fragrance of Christ in a very messy and a dark world. So pray that we would be faithful to him and trusting of him. And just pray that the Lord would work through what we do, that souls would be one and that people would find a real home, not just at CFL, but within God’s family, Christ’s family here on earth. So I think that’s what we would pray more than anything.

[38:16] We would love to be able to do more. Pray that the Lord would provide for us that we could do more, and that we could also be a blessing to not just people in Leeds, but to other churches too around the country that we could maybe help from the wisdom that we have or certainly learn from the mistakes that we have and maybe do things in a small way to help other people in different pockets do.

[38:39] Elements of what we do so yeah i think that would be my prayer brilliant well thank you for that uh where can people find out more about caring for life do you have a website and social media or anything like that yeah we do have a website it’s caringforlife.co.uk and we have instagram and facebook the caring for life dot or was it dot co dot uk yeah and was it caring for life all one word yeah yes yeah yeah and four is for yeah not them not the digit four um that’s brilliant and uh visits that was in my head i knew there was something yeah people can visit can’t they you’re you’re on yep side of leeds yeah so we have uh so the yeah the headquarters is on the north side of leeds people are very welcome to come and use the restaurant and the nurseries or passing through come and say hello if you want a visit more of uh to understand the ministry and maybe see some of the projects we have on site plan that ahead head contact us in reception and we gladly host a visit like a vision trip um for people who receive our monthly bulletin we have a monthly bulletin that

[39:46] goes out to supporters um we have a supporters day in September, July the 6th this year. And that’s a very special day when you can go meet the staff and some of our beneficiaries who are happy to be here on site and you can chat to them and see all the projects in action.

[40:04] So, yeah, we would encourage people to come and see us because it’s all well and good us even visiting your churches and talking about the work. Unless you see it firsthand, you don’t really see how it incredibly works.

[40:17] So, yeah, come and visit. Okay we’ll try! Erin, Jonathan thank you very much uh really appreciate having you on affinity talks gospel thank you that’s great thank you so much.