Saturday night's alright for ministering: English Street Pastors provide calm amid chaos

Last Saturday night, Susanna Matthan left her husband and 10-year-old daughter at their rural home in Billinghay and drove 20 miles to the county’s nightlife hotspot in the city of Lincoln. Her plan to stay out until 4 a.m. didn’t involve joining the partygoers milling in and out of bars, but instead, joining three other Christians in looking out for the weekend revelers.

Wearing long, blue jackets with reflective print blazed across the back identifying themselves as “Street Pastors,” the team strolled the streets to talk with patrons outside pubs, comfort upset club hoppers and occasionally get a lone, vulnerable person into a taxi.

“The whole idea is that Christians are on the streets to provide a calming and reassuring influence,” said Matthan, 40, a Seventh-day Adventist and part-time special needs educator.

Launched in 2003 with 18 volunteers, Street Pastors is an inter-church charity that has grown to more than 1,000 trained volunteers who take turns heading to the center of popular nightspots on the weekends. Teams now cover 22 of the London’s 33 boroughs and 24 other locations around the country.

While Street Pastors won’t get involved in violent incidences, their presence has helped reduce crime in many common trouble spots. The London-based organization cites police department figures of a 30 to 70 percent drop in crime when Street Pastors are on patrol.

“The statistics are very impressive,” said Eustace Constance, operations manager for Street Pastors.

Though a few are commissioned ministers, Street pastors are largely lay members, most of whom are female.

“That just reflects the church,” Constance said. “Men haven’t caught up yet.”

Typically a team of four meets with a prayer group at a church and hits the streets about 10 p.m. They stay in pairs, always within eye contact of each other and are in constant contact with the prayer group back at the church by mobile phones.

“We’re not shy in telling people we’re doing this because we believe it’s what Jesus would be doing,” said Reverend Ian Brown, minister of the Bailgate Methodist Church in Lincoln and coordinator of the Lincoln Street Pastors. The group launched last weekend, as did another group in Scotland. 

“We’re also quite clear when we say we’re not preaching to people, in words, but we’re hoping our actions will show what we believe,” Brown said.

The idea for the ministry was sparked by similar methods of community and church cooperation in Jamaica and Massachusetts, United States. Now, Ascension Trust, the Street Pastors umbrella organization, is “inundated” with requests on implementing the program in cities in the U.S., Africa, mainland Europe and Australia.

On October 5, the Lincoln Street Pastors met for their ministry’s inaugural ceremony at a packed-out church, along with a representative of the local mayor’s office, before heading out to talk with people who wouldn’t otherwise come to church.

“The interesting thing is when people have had a few drinks, they’ll tell you their life story in a minute,” Matthan said. “The things that are concerning them come out really quickly.”

Matthan said her training involved dealing with problems of homelessness, alcohol and drug abuse.

“One of the problems we have is when a woman goes out and her drink is spiked so when she comes out of a club she’s followed by men,” Matthan said. “We say, ‘do you know these guys?’ And if she says ‘no,’ we’ll take her to a taxi.”

Matthan said she wishes more people from her own faith make a similar commitment to Street Pastors.

“It would be nice to have some other Adventists involved,” Matthan said. Church leaders in Britain said they are not aware of any other Adventists in the ministry yet.

Without Street Pastors, some club patrons might not have any assistance. While police are still out, community officers usually “knock off” at 10 p.m.

“My brother isn’t in the church and I would want to know that there was someone that could help him,” Matthan said.