Clear CallThe newsletter of Manchester City Mission

Issue 7 Spring 09

or even the 50 or so volunteers who gallantly kept the whole thing going.

For me, as the co-ordinator, it was the way in which our visitors responded. Oh, we had heard about the problems and difficulties when working in such an environment each night with 20-plus homeless people, but what a joy they were.

We praise God for His provision of the necessary facilities and for the food to provide a hot supper and breakfast, but we also thank Him for His protection and for the very people who came to us. Between November and the end of January, we had 156 referrals from 37 agencies.

Their backgrounds ranged from long-term street

Narrowgate gives us so much to be grateful for

homeless to sofa-surfers, to European migrant workers and victims of our own economic recession.

Our ethos was not a ‘landing strip’ but rather a ‘launch pad.’ Everyone was discouraged from assuming that they had accommodation for three months by encouraging them to return to their referral agency which would, in turn, be actively seeking accommodation for them.

Self-referrals were encouraged to engage with the support workers at the Windsor Drop-in Centre.

Practically speaking, 25 homeless people from the Narrowgate have been helped in procuring accommodation. Seven have even found employment – one of them

being someone who has spent 15 homeless years on the streets but who now lives in his own rented accommodation.

On a spiritual level we had opportunities to share our faith, both in conversations and in prayer. It was encouraging to see one European migrant worker receive Jesus Christ as his Saviour, one back-slider return to the Lord and several nomadic Christians use our facility and fellowship to receive spiritual nourishment. Three actually attended our weekly Bible Study held at the Windsor Drop-In.

Watch this space as we now explore the possibility of providing a more permanent project.

THE Narrowgate Shelter, the Mission’s temporary, three-month, night-by-night stay facility, certainly caught everyone’s imagination.

It was not only the amazing funds donated to buy beds and mattresses, the generous donations of bedding

By DAVE BULLOCK

Christmas morning at the Narrowgate Shelter

The Director’s bit by TERRY DUROSE

Doing what the Father is doingIN John 5:19 Jesus made an amazing statement: “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing”.

In this, he gives us a profound and privileged insight into the relationship between the only begotten Son and God the Father. But He also gives us, as sons of God, an example to follow that has enormous implications for the way we live, plan and pray.

The contrast ofJesus’ vision

We all know about the importance of having ‘vision’ for our lives, families, church communities, etc. But often that vision is based on or what we want to do or what we see ourselves doing in the future. In contrast, Jesus’ vision was based on what he saw the Father doing!

For an organisation like MCM, this means that our constant prayer is “Show me what you’re doing, Lord”.

Here at MCM we are seeing God moving in all sorts of amazing ways as He helps the poor and destitute to regain some measure of health and dignity, restores the lost and broken, and gives people from across the county a chance to respond to the Gospel. We are both humbled and overjoyed by the privilege of being co-workers with God, doing only what we see Him doing.

Part of the purpose of ClearCall is to share the vision of what God seems to be doing with us at MCM. Because this is God’s work, we value your prayers as well as your practical help and continued financial suport. If you ‘see’ what we ‘see’ we know that you will want to be part of what is happening.

LYDIA Gibson (operations co-ordinator) and Mike Pennells (sports project worker) have left Manchester City Missionfor pastures new. We are grateful to them both for their valuable service to God’s work over the past months and years. Kevin Birch and Simon Murphy have stepped into their shoes, and are both enjoying their new roles.

Departures - and arrivals

AS THE professional football clubs were active in January’s transfer window so Street Soccer was involved in recruiting additional staff to strengthen the squad for 2009. Perhaps not on the multi-million-pound scale of our professional counterparts, but no less significant, Simon Murphy has joined the team after a 16-year association with Ambassadors in Sport.

Bringing a wealth of practical ministry experience, Simon will work alongside Andy Thorp and together they will continue to develop the project which seeks to help disadvantaged young men in Greater Manchester and release their full potential through soccer.

A native Boltonian, Simon and his wife, Zoe, have two boys, Joshua (12) and Callum (9). Unsurprisingly, both the boys are keen footballers and avid followers of their local heroes, Bolton Wanderers.

As part of his ministry with Ambassadors in Sport, Simon enjoyed a successful playing career, winning numerous league and cup titles, including winning the National Christian Cup on three occasions in the 1990s. He took part in many mission tours with Ambassadors, serving in countries in Asia, Europe and America. Included in these tours was a historic mission tour in 1995 to India and Bangladesh when Simon was part of a team comprising the first

missionaries to preach the Gospel openly to large crowds for over 20 years.

On his appointment to Manchester City Mission, Simon said, “It is a privilege to be joining the fantastic team at the Windsor Centre. I am excited about the challenges that lie ahead for myself and Andy as we look to further the work of Street Soccer.”

KEVIN Birch comes to Manchester City Mission after working for the past year in a similar role, working with Christians who are deaf.

His responsibilities there included the production of the organisation’s quarterly magazine, marketing and fundraising, development of video resources for the deaf, maintaining websites and growing the email list. He also enjoyed visiting groups and churches to give presentations and talks on the work of charity.

Kevin’s degree, awarded by the University of Salford in 1998, was multimedia-based, so he enjoys working with video, graphics, audio and everything to do with the internet.

Kevin’s previous work experience has included sales and marketing, project management and information technology support and development.Although born and bred in the North East, Kevin lives in Ashton-under-Lyne with his wife, Sian, and their three children, Jonathan (19), Ceri (16) and Rebecca (14).

Meet the new boys on the block

Simon and (far right) Kevin

It is great to see the prayers the children write – some deeply personal about family issues or needs – and it is our prayer that they continue to talk to God as they discover more about Him.

The effect that exploring the Christian faith has on children has not gone unnoticed by those who care for them in schools. A din-ner lady in one school could not get over how much a little Year 2 boy, who was normally aloof and unresponsive, came alive in the lunch club. The boy’s class teach-er came to us after he had been involved in an assembly and, with tears in her eyes, thanked us for what we had done for him and

others in the class. We believe that the boy had

experienced something of God’s love for him.

The starting point for many children nowadays is far removed from my own experience and also, I imagine, the experience of many of us. To quote one eminent thinker; “Society has lost it’s meta-narrative (big story)”.

The Groundbreakers team has the joy, privilege and duty to re-dress that balance. And we must take this duty seriously, because if we don’t the consequences are unthinkable.

* Mary Butt is pictured with one of her classes.

The importance of faith in

By MARY BUTTA RECENTLY published book, A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age, is the result of a two-year investigation by The Children’s Society that explored the main stresses and influences to which every child is exposed.

In February The Sunday Times published an article entitled ‘Our children’s blighted lives” which stated: “The biggest investigation paints a startling picture of lives blighted by violence, drugs and broken homes.”

Experts have spent two years sifting through reports and contributions from 35,000 people to understand why British children fare the worst of all in the 21 developed nations.

The article stated that Britain in general has more broken families and that the country’s children get into more fights with each other, drink more alcohol, take more drugs, have more sex and produce more babies. Our children tend to be less inclined to stay on to further education and the number of young people with emotional difficulties has risen steadily.

As a primary school teacher and children’s worker, I know full well about the rise in the number of children experiencing emotional and behavioral

difficulties. In one junior class of 24 children, over half had special educational needs including severe behavioral difficulties.

It is against this backdrop that we consider the importance of helping children to explore the Christian faith and to put their trust in God.

The present generation of children are not generally taken to church or sent to Sunday school, so there is a general decline in the knowledge of basic Christian truths and faith in general.

It is therefore a real privilege for Manchester City Missions’ Groundbreakers team to be able to go into schools and take to children the good news that we have a God who loves them and has a plan for their lives.

As one of our songs states: He’s known me and He’s loved me since before the world began. How wonderful to be a part of God’s amazing plan. For many children, this is the first time they will have heard this fantastic news.

In Groundbreakers lunch clubs we have many opportunities to discuss with children what our God is like, who Jesus is and how we can talk to him at any time and anywhere. As the children explore the Christian faith they are given an opportunity to develop trust in God.

childhood

Expanding into a new boroughTHIS is going to be a key year for Street Soccer as we aim to launch a project in a fifth borough of Greater Manchester.

It is a privilege to have an influence in many homeless, disadvantaged and vulnerable men’s lives

in Bolton, Stockport,Salford and Manchester.

We look forward to expanding our ministry to new areas as we now have the links in place to launch projects in Wigan, Oldham and Rochdale – but we need the wisdom to know which one God wants us

to do next.We have only limited

resources, and want to ensure that we move at a pace that does not overstretch us but which will enable us to provide a quality service in our current projects as well as in new boroughs.

They’ll make theteam-spirit countTHE Freestylin’ project at Withins High School in Bolton has been attracting about 15 pupils each week over the past year.

The youngsters know that they can play in the scheme only if they build each oth-er up by encouragement and motivation instead of having a bad attitude towards their team-mates.

The main aim of the project is to inte-grate the lads into church youth groups and subsequently connect with God. Four of the lads are now regularly attending church youth groups in Bolton.

Over the next few months we hope to see more of the school’s pupils coming to the club, regularly attending youth groups and making decisions to follow Jesus.

- Aaron Foster.

Come and joinin at Soccer 24A MAJOR event to be run by Street Soccer this summer is Soccer 24. It is to be an annual event that will act as Street Soccer’s premier fundraiser and will involve 24 one-hour football matches played over a period of 24 hours.

The event will take place at one of the North West’s most prestigious venues (to be announced) and will have professional footballers supporting the event.

Test of enduranceWe are looking for groups who would

like to enter a team into the seven-a-side event for an hour’s match against a Street Soccer all-star team. It will be a test of endurance, so why not consider entering a squad of players and taking on our select team?

For further information and appli-cation form, get in touch by using the contact information provided or by visit-ing the website www.soccertwentyfour.webs.com.

THE Windsor Drop-in Centre, a collaborative project by Manchester City Mission and Salford Loves and Fishes, continues to be busy, especially with the influx of visitors from the Narrowgate. At one point we regularly received over 100 visitors a day.The support workers of Loaves and Fishes really pulled the stops out in finding accommodation for at least 15 of the Narrowgate’s visitors. They even turned up at breakfast time on the Monday during the shelter’s final month to facilitate closures and

follow-on interventions with the visitors.

During the past few months we have seen our activities grow with the addition of reading, singing and art and craft sessions. The Bible studies are going well, too, and at our members’ requests we have increased these to two studies each week. The Lord is very gracious to us in that we have seen His kingdom and our group grow over recent months. In fact, two received Christ into their lives only two weeks before I wrote this report.

We’re pulling outall the stops

Lunch at the Drop In centre

Please continue to pray for everyone who visits the centre, particularly for those who are learning to live a new life by way of faith.

Christmas gave us an opportunity to provide a special service in the church hall as well as dinner on Christmas Day. Presents were given out, and the Narrowgate visitors received parcels containing hats, gloves and toiletries.

The prison visits are still on-going. I usually meet three men in HMP Forest Bank each fortnight as they are potentially homeless on release. We are delighted that three prisoners have been accommodated so far this year, one into a Salvation Army hostel and the other two into private rented bed-sits.

One sadness has been the temporary loss of our voluntary chaplain, Alan. He had a bad fall on ice at New Year and is still quite ill as a result. Please pray that he recovers and is back with us soon. – Dave Bullock, Co-ordinator.

CHILDREN are now learning about communicating with God in the lunch clubs that Groundbreakers are involved in. To start the topic, the team carries out a prayer survey to see what children think about talking to God - whether He always listens, answers etc. There were some very interesting results! The prayer box is being well used with children talking to God about really personal things. For example, one little girl prayed about her parents who kept falling out. How fantastic that they are introduced now to a God who will always listen to their prayers and will always answer, even though sometimes the answer isn’t what they thought or even wanted. In the school assemblies that Groundbreakers have recently organised, some of the topics have included the concept of the credit crunch and our attitude to money. The children looked at the story of the widow’s mite and were challenged to consider the true value of things and to

consider that they could be rich in lots of other ways than just having lots of money. Recently we have met some head teachers in new schools, as well as some church leaders, with a view to taking assemblies and running lunch clubs. What is particularly exciting is that the enquiries are coming from people hearing at third hand about the work of Groundbreakers. We are praying for more opportunities to open up so that the work which the Groundbreakers team has already successfully delivered in 22 schools can grow even more.

MANCHESTER CITY MISSION is based at Windsor Christian Centre, Churchill Way, Salford M6 5BU.Tel 0161 736 7959; email mancitmis@

aol.com; www.manchestercitymission.comTrustees: John Perry (chairman);

Jonathan Mounteney; Mike Ward; Helyn Uwubamwan; Richard Haworth; Ray Jackson.MCM is a registered charity (number

224626).Project logos by Oz Durose.

Youngsters start talking to God

Manchester City Mission would like to acknowledge our project partners and volunteers for their collaboration on our shared initatives.