Written Transcripts of all Faith at Work interviews found on YouTube and on the DVD
WELCOME
Christopher Lowson, Bishop of Lincoln
I’m really grateful for Lincolnshire Chaplaincy Service for taking responsibility on for us, for producing our Diocese at Lent course for 2014. Lent is a special time of the year in which we invite people to focus thoughtfully on the spirituality of their lives. The material that Lincolnshire Chaplaincy Services have produced will really provide some thoughtful and engaging ways for all of us to reflect on our spiritual lives in the context of life in Lincolnshire.
It’s a clever title because it actually works at two levels doesn’t it? It works at expressing our Christian faith in a work context but actually also more subtly, and this applied to all of us whether at work, at leisure or whatever the implications for working our faith in our context of family, community, whatever.
Bruce Thompson, Chair of Lincolnshire Methodist District
I’m really excited by the Faith at Work Lent course being organised by the Lincolnshire Chaplaincy Service. Excited because everybody, right across Lincolnshire, who is involved in the church lives in the lives of the church communities, have an opportunity to consider what it is that they are doing as Disciples in their particular area.
Sometimes, over the last 50 or 60 years or so, the church has faced lots of criticism, and as a consequence, has lost some of its confidence, and of course, it has faced all sorts of challenges over that time. The end result has been that we have sometimes underestimated how important we are and how significant we are in what we do and what we say, and how we behave in the community where we work, where we live, where we play, where we teach or where we learn. In all of those places, we can have a tremendous impact upon the community.
WORD
Karen, CEO Hill Holt Wood
When I first met my husband, Nigel, on a blind date and he told me he was going to buy a wood, I thought it sounded really interesting and I really didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. And it is funny at times in your life when, if you looked on paper at what buying a woodland, moving into a caravan with two children, one 12 months, one eight, was going to look like, you would probably just bolt and run away from it, but the human soul has got an amazing capacity to cope, and one of the things that Nigel has always said is that there is too much emphasis on skill and not enough emphasis on talent. I think that’s hugely important because innately we all have a talent to do something, and I think what I brought to the project was a sense of communication probably, I love people, I love connectivity with people and I love helping people to find what is their talent, and what in life, no matter how small it is, of how life really can be beautiful and wonderful, without having to go to any great extremes to achieve that.
Mark, Railway Booking Office Clerk
It was obviously an exhilarating moment for me to think that I have got there, and I was on the road to promotion as well. I was a Supervisor Driver as well, I had a group of supervisors beneath me that I was having to assess at certain intervals and making sure they were OK. I was in a classroom giving them briefings as well, safety briefings, so, my career was on the up, and then it all came crashing down around me, because of my ears, and then I was depressed for about a year. I went through a hard time. You know, it was sort of a ‘everything’s just gone and I’m on a scrapheap’ sort of thing, so it was a hard time for a couple of years maybe, when I knew I was in a job that I wasn’t going to get on, I wasn’t going to go anywhere, it was a dead end job, the pay was awful, but I was protected, and I am still protected now, I still retain my driver’s rate of pay, so I am one of the highest paid booking office clerks going. But, it’s not what I would, I can’t wait for my five, well I’m hoping that I can finish in five years. I keep thinking to myself ‘it’s another five years, just hang on another five years Mark’. You know, that’s my thinking with that.
WITNESS
Wes, General Manager, Just Lincolnshire
There are several things that motivate me to do the work. I think that, from my personal point of view, that my faith instructs me to be involved in this sort of thing. I think secondly that a more just and more equal society is better for everyone, when everyone becomes more of a winner, when the gap between injustices is narrowed. And I think some of the work that Just Lincolnshire is involved with is helping to narrow that gap.
David, Chief Superintendent, Humberside Police.
Personally speaking, the job is a vocation, policing is a vocation, some would say it is less so now than it used to be, because years ago, Police Officers lived in police houses, they socialised in the Police Force and social club, they worked anti-social hours which meant it was different for people to sustain friends and activities outside the job. That has changed an awful lot; police houses are history, we don’t have to ask permission to marry any more, and people live further away from work than they used to, so typically, we would live next door to the police station, I’m going back to a few years before I joined. So arguably, it is less of a vocation now, but when I see young Police Officers today, that sense of excitement, that sense of purpose, that send of mission is still there.
EXTRA RESOURCES
Mark, Railway Booking Office Clerk
I try and keep things separate. I regard my faith, to a certain extent, to be very private. I go to Church on a Sunday and I’m involved with the Church, I was a Church Warden for a while and stuff, but I try and not get my job and my private life, my faith if you like, involved together. They overlap every now and again, there are times when I think to myself “Oh, I was a bit sharp with that person, that wasn’t very Christian like”, but I don’t generally talk about it very often. I have the odd discussion with work colleagues at times now and again, but we don’t talk about scriptures or anything like that, it is generally what my faith is and how I perceive myself.
Roger, Dentist
There isn’t a clear separation between my life at work and church, I think the two are very closely integrated, so when I’m at work I’m really living out what I’m supposed to, what I’m supposed to be as a Christian.
Vera, College Chaplain
I suppose for a lot of people, faith and daily life seems to be a separate thing, but I think that is about the depth of your faith and what does it mean to you? I’ve learned that my faith is absolutely paramount to the way I live my life, and obviously being a Christian is not just about going to church on a Sunday, it’s what I do from Monday to Saturday that’s as important to me as anything else. It’s living my life out there, a life of faith, in the things that I do, in practical ways as that’s the kind of person I am.
And I don’t know how we’d make a better connection with people to say that actually it’s not just about going to church on a Sunday, but maybe responding to that if we get the opportunity to, when you’re speaking to people to say ‘Well actually, being Christian is not just about going to church on a Sunday, it really is about how you live your life, what you do with the time that you have, and that really is most important for me, and I think it’s a growth thing really.
I’ve grown as a maturity thing in terms of my Christian faith that I’ve grown, and so I don’t see any difference at all between my working life and my faith life, at all, though I do understand that some people will make that distinction, and maybe that is something I need to think about when I am talking to people to try and put forward the idea that actually there shouldn’t be any distinction between the two.
David, Livestock Farmer and Auctioneer
I always regard myself as being one of the lucky people in life, I have been in a job which I have thoroughly enjoyed all my life, that is why I’m not retired now, and people say: “When are you going to retire?”, I say: “When I don’t enjoy it”.
Kevin, Airport Hygiene Assistant
All sorts of different jobs, I mean our main job is cleaning, keeping the airport clean and tidy, but there’s a lot of other jobs that are tagged onto that, i.e. looking after the wheelchair passengers, escorting sometimes, snow clearing when the weather’s bad, that’s mainly about it. When the car park runs short of tickets, that’s another part we do, or if the ticket boxes need emptying, the only time it is not our problem is an electrical problem. Another department has to deal with that. The one’s that really nag us a bit is the escorting because you don’t often have an Airport Cleaner escorting do you? But that’s life, I’m grateful, I’ve been here 11 years and I’m grateful for a job
Jeanne, CE, Development Plus
Mainly, certainly quite a few of the people we work alongside do not believe they have skills. They don’t believe that they can give to other people, and I think that is what motivates me more than anything, seeing people turn around when they have gained their own self-confidence and motivation back, and I think that’s probably due to us believing that they can do it, and then they realise themselves that they can. I had one lady on the course stacking shelves in Tesco, and that’s all she did, she didn’t think she could do anything else at all, but by coming on this course, she started to believe that she could do something else. And then a couple of years later, we heard that she had her own shop, and that her and her son had set up a clown business, they did parties, they did costumes for hire. We don’t know what else happened in her life but she changed on that course.
WELCOME
Steve Faber, Deputy President, East Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church
Yeah, this idea of the challenge and trying to remain faithful despite everything else that’s going on around us. There are times that any one of us will face when the last thing we want to do is actually behave like a Christian ought to behave when there are particular pressures on us with difficult work colleagues, awful neighbours, whatever it might be, and still we have to find within ourselves that integrity of character and honesty in our Christian faith that will carry us through those very trying circumstances.
If we don’t grow through these sorts of challenges and difficulties then I’m not sure we’re alive at all. We have to allow ourselves to grow through these challenges.
Bruce Thompson, Chair of Lincolnshire Methodist District
When we consider those saints who are now in stained glass or perhaps covered through the text books and the biographical accounts of their lives, we think that everything was swimming, everything went forward in such a way that there were no elements of doubt or lack of confidence, no long dark night, no struggle, no wrestling with the issues, when nothing could be further from the truth and so when we struggle and look at our faith and consider whether or not we are worthy of the title disciple, we sometimes feel…well, we under-estimate what it is that we are achieving. We are lacking in confidence, we don’t seem to be able to sort of strive forward with the confidence of those who went before us, but so it is that God works with us in the wrestling, in the struggling, in the doubt and the dilemma, in the long dark night. Life isn’t such that it is filled with amazing experiences and so on and so forth, sometimes we have to simply just accept that we go through barren periods.
WORD
Jeanne, CE, Development Plus
The basis of the work is community development and it’s rooted in values and principles, and we work to those values and principles, and they are social justice, participation, working and learning together, self-determination, and sustainable communities. And it’s more challenging now, I think, than what it was when we started working, when the organisation was created 15 years ago, and it’s worse now because of the economic situation, I believe. There are more people who are excluded from taking part than there ever has been. There are more people who are living in poverty, so I certainly am finding it quite challenging.
Paul, HR Director, Siemens
I don’t think you can ever switch off, I definitely find them one of the more challenging aspects of the job. I think that whenever I have to deal with a situation, which involves either the livelihood or the career, or I suppose the individual’s sense of self-worth, it does strike a very strong chord. My personal belief is that unless I can operate in a role and an environment that allows me to bring my personal values and beliefs to the forefront, then I would find that very difficult, so therefore I do feel very strongly when I’m dealing with these very sensitive issues, that I do in a sensitive way that has got integrity, and fundamentally in a way that’s fear to both the individual and the employer itself and the company.
Phillip, Publican
I suppose, I like to see people enjoy themselves, which is quite difficult now. It used to be easy but it’s more difficult now because there’s far more challenges, far more things for people to do than when I first come into this game. You have Sky, you have internet, I’m amazed there’s any pubs left, you know in a way, especially real pubs because there is such a lot for people to do now. There will always be a place for our pub now but it doesn’t seem as a necessity for young people like me when we was growing up, or when I was growing up.
Interviewer: Would you say that purpose has changed?
It’s more difficult to form teams, the average age of my pub has gone that way rather than that way, I could go on forever.
Interviewer: You used to put on events didn’t you?
Well that’s got to the point where it’s become too expensive to do and not well enough sport, you know I’d love to do that, I’d love to do it, but you can’t stand the losses without getting too in depth when you’re a tenant. You pay high rents, you pay more for your beer, so theoretically you have to be probably a third busier than the guy who stands aside of you in a free trade to be on an equal standing with them.
Jess, College Student
So I think that can be a struggle for young people, trying to be just who they are instead of what the world says.
EXTRA RESOURCES
Jo, Owner, Red Herring Games
I think, in business, it’s very cut throat in general, and I think as a Christian coming into that, I wouldn’t say I’m nice, but I think I am nice, and I think as a Christian you come into this very cut throat world where you expect to be charged for everything, and people are always telling you “No, you should be charging for that”, “Oh, you’re being too nice here and you’re being too nice there and you’re being too nice here.” But that’s not me, my faith dictates that I try and be nice in each situation and I try to not overcharge, and what’s excessive profit? Where to pitch? To have your Christian ethics I suppose within business, it’s quite hard to ethically put yourself in business.
I suppose most people find the same thing, self-employed is a bit different because you set your own boundaries, but in business you don’t set your own boundaries if you are employed by somebody, and we had this discussion the other day because I’m trying to set up a pension for the girl who works with me, cut a long story short, she’s got a pension and I might end up putting money into her pension, but if I do that and they’ve invested the pension in unethical bits, where do I sit as a Christian? How do you invest your pensions for your staff? Do you invest it in ethical products or not? It was just another thing that came up and I was like “Oh, it’s just another can of worms” when you start looking into that. Who do you bank with? Whether it’s a Christian bank or not, where should you be putting your money? Especially my business because it’s killing people for a living, it doesn’t really fit well with the commandments.
A lot of it’s, you know, some people like to have a homosexual, I mean I’m writing again at the moment for a group of homosexual boys. Well I’m quite comfortable with that but some people might not be, and it is constantly challenging, constantly challenging all the way through life. Who do you supply to? We have a raffle prize request the other day from a boxing association. Well, I don’t really agree with boxing so I said no to that one, but equally another charity I might say yes to it, a cancer research charity, but then where are they… yeah.
Ethically, it’s a minefield continuously, all the time, where Christian ethics cross over what you’re doing, and when you’re employed, you’re just employed, and in some respects you deal with that because you’re employed and you’re sub-serving your master which is your employer, so you have to do what they tell you within a certain level. They’re your boss and they tell you to work on a Sunday, you work on a Sunday, but when you’re your own boss, do you work on a Sunday or not? Where do you set the levels? I think being self-employed, I find it harder than my Christian what was when I was employed, because when I was employed, I dealt with the employed side and that was that. I wasn’t allowed to talk about this, that was fine. I couldn’t talk about my faith with the patients unless they asked, that was fine. But self-employed, you can talk about your faith if you want to and I do talk about my faith with some customers, but equally some customers you don’t. And do you supply to mosques or not? It’s a whole minefield, a whole minefield of things, but it is just that constant ethical balance that you are responsible now for, that you never were before.
WORD
Mark, Stall Holder, Freeman Street Market
Sometimes, obviously there’s a bit of empathy with people, and sometimes it goes a little bit further than empathy, and there’s a cost to that, and it’s a cost to yourself, and that, I suppose, sometimes my faith wouldn’t allow me to walk away from people when they do ask a little bit more, but what they’re asking is your time, and I’ve stood many a time out of the stall, into the aisle, listening to people’s… You know, sometimes I don’t know what to do, I can’t help them because I’m not part of their lives in that way, but sometimes they just want someone to listen to, and that gives them that space, that somebody will actually listen to me. But ultimately I can’t, so it’s good to have that moment with them, I think they appreciate that, and sometimes it actually runs very deep, actually feel it yourself. There’s a cost sometimes, a cost of time, and a little bit of myself, but then, there’s a draw to that, I have to do that, there’s no sort of get out now.
Maybe there was a time I did, I just felt that was my life where I live, outside the community, maybe 10 or 15 minutes drive to the village, but we’re holistic aren’t we, so sometimes you can’t separate it. It crosses over and probably my faith is that common denominator that drives me on, to be part of it. So you know, if we want to be whole in ourselves, then our life is whole, it’s a holistic way of living.
Andrea, College Lecturer
You know, it can be, normally, and everybody will tell you this, you know you’ve got that last day of working, that goal of get to the end of the day and then it’s going to be the weekend, and it’s going to be great. And you get to that where you think, “Shall I just check my emails before I go home? It might be important, it might not.” And you can get an email where you think “Oh I really don’t want to reply to this”, and you do, and you think “Go on then, I will do”, and you get an almost instantaneous one back, and you realise that someone has been sat waiting for that, and that will either, that will help their weekend in some small way, but your positive reply about how marvellous you are, or what a good job you’re doing, or don’t worry I’ve done that, or if you haven’t marked this work, or finished off these assignments, don’t worry, you can leave them until the following week. And I think sometimes we’re so busy with emails coming at you all the time, rather than us physically getting up and walking to someone, you just fire off an email because you think “Phew, that’s gone”, I can fire off five, 10 emails in the time I can walk to somebody.
But it’s then that you realise how important you are to somebody else, and they will need to feed off you a little bit to get something back, some positivity, which again creates a challenge because it means I always make sure I leave on time on a Friday. It’s the one day I think, I’m going on time, and I always say to the students, you know if you want to hand any work in, make sure you hand it in before 4 o’clock on the Friday because if you do, I will run you over in the car and I’m off, that’s it, I’m going, and we have a bit of a joke about it. But it’s a rule I set myself, but again things happen that you have to deal with, and somebody wants to talk to you, and you think “Oh, go on then”, and you see how positive your kind words or your suggestion can be, and you think I’ve actually made a difference here which is quite good. But again if it’s a one-off it’s ok, but some of the issues, I think, especially when a business is going through a change, or a person’s going through a change, and their priorities are changing, the business is changing, one of the thing’s you’ve got to be careful of is that you don’t get sucked in because you have to be selfish, which is a thing we don’t like admitting we are, I am very selfless, but sometimes you have to be selfish.
If you don’t, your timings go, your priorities go, and you end up used, lots more spent than what you can give. And I think sometimes then, although you’ve helped that person, now that’s actually finished me off. If you do that to the extent of your own health, or your own sanity, then perhaps you haven’t really helped, because all you’ve done is maybe solved their problem in the short term but you’ve created another for yourself. There are times when you have to look at realising how important you are to others, but realising there are boundaries where you have to go “I can do this for you, now, but if you want any more than that, can we arrange to meet next week, or is there anyone else that can help you do X, Y, Z because I can’t.” And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s not something that, I think as a mum, it’s not something that you like to admit, that you have to sort of go “Hang on, that’s enough for me”, because I think as a mum, you like to think you’re a bit of a superhuman, kind of superhero that can do it all, and I think again, these days, you can’t.
And I think anybody who looks as though they have it all, doing it all perfectly, they’re probably the ones, and I know from experience now, they’re the ones you admire and you think “Why can’t I have my hair in place and my nails done, and the children and the house is perfect, wow.” And it’s a facade. So, I think that when you get to that point where you feel comfortable yourself and you go “Yeah, so what the grass needs cutting, or we’re going out for tea because I can’t be bothered to cook”, there’s nothing wrong with that. Sorry friend, I can’t help you anymore.
Vera, College Chaplain
Well, we live in a world that is so immediate today, there’s not a lot of time for reflection and things like that, and people are so busy about doing so much, you know, more families have full-time working lives, and they’ve got children at school and the pressures of sorting all those things out. I don’t know, we make ourselves really busy, and I’m not sure thats a really good thing.
I think, if we could take a step back a little bit and take more time for reflection, our days would be much better. I mean for me personally, having a quite time very day and reflecting helps me to go onto the day and do the things that I need to do, and as I live alone now, I do have more time for that. Although having said that, I am very busy with lots of things.
WITNESS
Clive, College Deputy Principal
So often in the communities I’m involved with, people say they haven’t got time. I guess they haven’t got time until it’s reality that something has to be addressed, whether it is around drug issues around young people, or health issues in young people. We see things coming our way, and don’t do anything about it until there’s an issue, and then we have to decide and have a committee, a group, an action plan.
EXTRA RESOURCES
Andrea, College Lecturer
And, it’s the timing of those and knowing in my own mind that I have to have time for me, and its certain things that, I think “Do you know what, it’s half past nine, I’m tired, and I haven’t done A,B,C, but I have done D, and F can wait some other time”, and you think you’ve got yourself sorted, you think timing, I’m organised, I know what I’m doing, and then you get phone calls, you get an email, I can see someone in the supermarket petrol station, and it’s the change. You have to sort of re-plan, re-do your timings, and that’s quite difficult. And you always think “Well, who do you prioritise? Who comes first?” And I think the challenge sometimes is that it’s often yourself that comes last.
WELCOME
Thomas McGovern, Vicar General, RC Diocese of Nottingham
I’m absolutely convinced as well that, it becomes part of one’s personality if you actually believe in Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you will reflect of that in the values which you grow with and share with other people. And other people, well other people will come to question, perhaps you have got something in your life that is special, and has given a sense of purpose and meaning to your life, and because of that, they may well ask to have some knowledge of that.
But, I also have met many people of many denominations who are Christians, and live out their faith in a really extraordinary way, and I have been better having met them, and having shared some of that experience. At the end of the day, as a Christian, I believe each one of us is called to holiness. God made us to know him, to love him and to serve him on this earth, and afterwards.
Stuart Bell, Senior Leader, New Life Lincoln
I tend to think very often, and this is the case for all of us, that if we’re not careful, there’s kind of a private life and a public life, and therefore I think the issue of having some kind of moral compass, some guidelines or boundaries, as to how we are in the work place is very important. It would be a very sad thing for instance, to be known as a person who goes to church, but actually in the week, things like behaviour, time-keeping, commitment, language, those kinds of things as a Christian, I think its important that there is kind of integrity, and I think integrity is the kind of glue that holds the Christian glue together, where the same in public and private, and you know, that we are people that are kind of integrated people, and therefore the workplace becomes the opportunity to live out and to demonstrate our witness for Christ.
I suppose when the church is looked at, and particularly Christian leadership are scrutinised, there are kind of key issues that are looked at, but I think I’m more interested in everyday issues of loyalty, dependability, you know, if you say you are going to be there at nine, you’re there at nine, how you deal with the attacks, all those kind of issues of behaviour and integrity, those things I think are very important. And it’s not always the big things that people see and notice, it’s those things that can happen behind closed doors, and I just think it’s great when Christians are able to keep their heads held high, live a life that’s meaningful but is also very attractive, you know I don’t think its about going to work, keeping our head down and behaving ourselves, I think its about living life to full with excitement and enjoyment.
WORD
Nev, Trade Union Regional Representative
You meet others during the course of your career that have that same feel, that same belief, and, you know, want to help people, want to make life easier, don’t tolerate intolerance, but speak out, and some speak out in a very quiet way, but a very effective way to ensure the people of minority groups get support, and to stick up to the individual, or individuals threatened by authority unfairly.
Joanna, Council Waste Minimalisation Officer
I think there’s definitely a connection with all things really with your faith is leading by example, and yes we have only got one planet, and yes we are living as though we’ve got three planets’ worth of resources, and it’s not going to be able to last, so you know there is a direct transfer between not only love your neighbours, but also if you’re going to love your neighbours, then you need to provide a world that they can live in, you know providing for the future generations as well, and there’s got to be a way that we can lead by example, and I think in someways the church has been a little bit slow on the uptake, especially when you think about trying to get people to use reusable products instead of disposables, it’s a way of life that people need to stop and think about and go “Ok, so why are we using these, what impact are they having and what can we do that’s better?”, and often people just get stuck in their ways and don’t change.
Interviewer: Do you find as a person of faith who thinks that the environment and looking after the environment is an important part of that faith, do you find that you get more irritated with other people of faith who don’t want to listen to you or follow your example, than you do with people who aren’t faith, most of the people you’ll meet in your work perhaps?
No I don’t think so, not really, because I’ve always got to think about where people are coming from and their experiences they’ve already had, and like I just said, it’s not usually really that people are so opposed to being more environmental and more green, because actually it gives you the feel good factor and it gives you the buzz, it’s more that people just don’t think about what it is they’re doing and why they’re doing it, and then they’re often not prepared to make the change, so I can’t say I’ve come across many people either in the church or of a faith that aren’t willing to listen, it’s just whether they make that change and stick to it really, that could be a slight irritation.
Interviewer: And of course for some people in this area, though I guess it’s true in lots of places, there’s that argument that to be environmentally friendly costs you more.
Sometimes, yeah.
Interviewer: And that’s a problem for some people isn’t it?
It can be yeah, but I think often the main problems that we come up against is that it is just not on people’s radar, they’ve got so many other issues going on. I went to visit a lady a few weeks ago and she has 10 children, the last one has just been born with a heart condition, she’s just struggling, you know, she’s really up against the odds, and her husband’s just been made unemployed and you think “Ok, she’s got all this to deal with, and I’m coming in and trying to get her to do something else”, and yes it might be something that you or I could do quite easily, like popping the cans in the recycling box instead, but she’s got toddlers running around, they might get their hands in it, they might get cut, she’s got everything else to think about so sometimes it is quite hard to just get over those boundaries and say “OK, well let’s get into perspective here, what does she actually need help-wise, and what can we provide?” And yeah, it can be quite tricky to get the priorities right.
Mark, Stall Holder, Freeman Street Market
I mean, I suppose in some ways my faith is a moral compass on a surface level, obviously there’s guidelines within that framework of where my faith is.
WITNESS
Vera, College Chaplain
And to be really controversial, I also feel that the church, as a whole, does not stand up and be counted out in the community and it doesn’t speak up as much as it could for things that are really important, you know in life, issues in terms of working life, leisure, and the things that, you know, religion and politics don’t mix but actually I do think there are things that we should be willing to stand up and be counted as, as Christians.
EXTRA RESOURCES
Paul, HR Director, Siemens
I think that, not only would it be very difficult for, I think, for people in my role to carry out their job in an effective and a responsible way if they did not adopt any ethical with integrity attached if they didn’t adopt that approach, but the reality is, it wouldn’t be what that company wants. In my experience, I’ve not come across any companies that want their personnel function to operate in anything other than fear and responsible manner with its employees because, at the end of the day, whilst it may be often seen as a cliché, the employee is your most valuable asset, and you know by taking care in how you treat your employees and how you work with them both through the good times and the not so good times, it just shows that you work in both the interest of the employer and the individual itself.
Jo, Owner, Red Herring Games
I think being self-employed, I find it harder than my Christian what was when I was employed, because when I was employed, I dealt with the employed side and that was that. I wasn’t allowed to talk about this, that was fine. I couldn’t talk about my faith with the patients unless they asked, that was fine. But self-employed, you can talk about your faith if you want to and I do talk about my faith with some customers, but equally some customers you don’t. And do you supply to mosques or not? It’s a whole minefield, a whole minefield of things, but it is just that constant ethical balance that you are responsible now for, that you never were before.
Jo, Owner, Red Herring Games
I find balancing times really difficult anyway, and financially, form working in the NHS where you get a regular salary in, from a Christian point of view, trying to work out tithing, when you’re self employed, I find that really, really hard. I meet with a friend for bible study regularly and I’ve mentioned this to her in Bible study, and I said: “You know, I find it really difficult, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to tithe, what to tithe. I don’t want to be like Ananias and Sapphira. I don’t want to tithe the wrong amount and feel like I’m tithing the right amount, and I feel that is a struggle as a self-employed person, there’s not guidance on that, you know, do you tithe with all the net profit coming in, do you tie with all the gross profit, do you tithe with anything? So you know, I find that really hard.
Julian, Owner, Freewatt
I decided to take the plunge and set up my own business in renewable energy. My wife, who was a Teacher at the time, thought I was crazy, but it was abundantly clear that something had to be done. I have always been very conscious of dwindling fuel resources and also the impact that we as a population have on the planet with the disruption of natural habitats and the depletion of those resources, and also the issues of rising CO2. So for me really, it was an obvious choice to make. It was literally a leap of faith, I thought the writing was on the wall, it was obvious financially, as far as financial security and strategically, I thought it was the right, a reasonably safe thing to do.
But luckily the timing was right, so here we are four and a half years later, we now employ 24 people locally, we’ve got involved in things like the Future Jobs Fund, helping people to get into work who are underprivileged and gaining new skills. And also we’ve created jobs and brought people in from all industries locally. Freewatt is a family company, I employ various members of my family, and also quite large parts of other families, it’s a very close-knit company, but we all have the ethic that it is the right thing to do, not only commercially and strategically in terms of the likely rising costs of fossil fuels, and the problems arising from fuel poverty, but I think globally and environmentally it is the right thing to do. We very much run, established a company that I’m very lucky to surround myself with people that we believe it is the right thing to do, and I suppose a moral start to the company in trying to do the best for our customers as well.
Terry, Farmer, Free-Range Pig Production
It’s very difficult, extremely difficult for anybody (inaudible…) unless they can see a big increase in the pig prices, and none of it will stack up, meat prices are going to be very, very high this year, and hopefully when the harvest is in, they might ease up slightly, but it’s not looking good because of your draughts, and again you’re talking about it’s a world market now, not just in this country, it’s global, so with the drought in America, prices have just gone through the roof, and Russia’s apparently had a very, very poor harvest, so its extremely difficult. Although there will be a surplus of corn in this country, prices will still be very high.
Interviewer: So food prices are going to go up?
Food prices have got to go up, yeah. People are just, I think, people have really got to make the choice of eating better quality and less. Everybody is used to buying this very cheap, low grade food, at bargain prices, but it’s got to stop. People are starving in the world yet some people are consuming twice as much as they need, it’s a strange situation.
WELCOME
Bruce Thompson, Chair of Lincolnshire Methodist District
I sometimes receive a call at the door, or at knock at the door, or the door bell rings and I go to it to find two people standing there with pamphlets from their particular faith community. They sense that it is their calling to pass on the news that they have received and bring people over to their particular community. Research shows that only 0.1% come into that faith community through cold calling. The other 99.9% come through personal contact, schools, hospitals, where they are visiting, where they are working, the factory floor, wherever they may find themselves, the golf club or wherever, 99.9% who come into that faith community come, not through knocking on doors, but come through personal contact, relationships that are built up over a period of time.
Now sometimes, of course, we find it especially difficult to convey the message, to share the good news to whom we are closest. But, it is when we’re there at the times of joy, at the times of great sorrow, simply listening to what they have to share, being a shoulder to cry on, offering a cup of tea when it’s needed, just simply being there is an opportunity for us to exercise ministry, chaplaincy if you like. So I think that we find thousands upon thousands of chaplains, already in placement right across the county. Wherever they teach, wherever they work, wherever they play, wherever they rest, wherever they live, on a dog walk, at the bus stop, in the shops, whatever we are doing, we are Chaplains of the Gospel. It is important for us to recognise the impact therefore that we have in what we say, think and do.
WORD
Mark, Stall Holder, Freeman Street Market
Well, working in a retail environment for so long, there’s a lot of relationships with customers and colleagues over the years. And it’s almost a family thing, there’s an experience of, and you experience that with people who come to you as a customer relationship. But it sometimes starts to go more than that, not beyond I’m going round their house or anything, but over the years they do share with you, and sometimes they haven’t got anybody else to share it with. So actually if you’re there, and they feel they know you because years of “Oh that’s Mark off the market”, and they chat and then you get to know about their lives, when they lose mum, dad, grandparents, “I haven’t seen your parents in a while”, “Oh, they’ve passed away”, they share that with you. Sometimes they get divorced and you don’t see them anymore, sometimes there are tragedies, one lady I know lost her daughter seven years ago in a car crash, she was 20/21. So you know, you feel that with them, when you see it in the papers, when it’s gone on and you know that people, it’s real because you know them. So, there’s the highs and the lows in that because they share the highs with you, and a little bit you share your life with them as well, and they ask you how your children are even though they’ve never met your children, because you feel like you do know them and they feel like they know you. So there’s highs and lows in both of that, but it is about a relationship.
I don’t think it would be the same in a supermarket. I’m judging unfairly there however I think an independent place and somewhere like a market, that’s what people want, because actually then it’s more informal, there’s a personal kind of thing, you’re not a number, you’re actually a person and you matter, and I think that’s important, that every person matters and every person is known. It’s that kind of, very much a relationship that, especially when people know their names and you know their names, I think that’s important, and people’s names, it matters.
Alison, Project Manager, Lincolnshire Rural Support Network
Now what I do within LRSN is so much, and what I do in the family as well, is so much emotional help, emotional problems, that unfathomable ‘How did I get to this place?’ ‘Why can’t I make it better?’ that she felt ‘Why couldn’t we? What help is there out there?’ Not an awful lot, and I guess that has defined me and in finding LRSN, I have found a way of using all of the experience and that understanding to be able to help people with, maybe not such severe problems, but yes sometimes suicidal problems, that I’m not scared of it.
Roger, Dentist
I know God is gracious to us, I know God is one who blesses us in many ways, I know God is one who heals, I just tend to think of myself as God’s extension to his healing process, or maintenance process of sorts, as saying as human beings as far as the mouth in concerned so I think it’s my job is a huge privilege in that sense.
Reddy, Teaching Assistant
The more that we’ll try and show love to the other, that’s my mission.
EXTRA RESOURCES
Kevin, Airport Hygiene Assistant
My lowest point was about three/four years ago when I had my accident, when I was off for four months, I was at home and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t drive my car because my hand was in a plaster cast, but that was my lowest thing that’s been here. I was stuck in my own flat, not being able to drive, I mean, people were good, certain people did come round to see me in my flat but other than that I couldn’t get into the airport to see them. I was putting a bag of rubbish into the escape, and I put it in and there was a tin lid in the black bag and it sliced right through my hand there and I ended up having a three hour operation at Grimsby hospital to have all my tendons repaired. You know, there was a big inquiry but you have to put it down to one of those things, it can happen to anybody, unfortunately it happened to me. I’m a bit like that I think, accident prone.
I work with some very good people, in our team there is some very good people. I’m very good friends with Dennis, who I was with this morning, and Debbie, Jenny and Sonia, she’s a good friend, because I had a few problems with my landlord about four or five years ago when he sold my flat, and until I got somewhere else to live Sonia, who I work with, her and her husband put me up for so long until I got myself sorted.
Unfortunately, when I lost my mam 12 years ago, my family basically disowned me, not through anything I’d done but that’s the way of life. I gave up my job, I actually worked for Caistor council on the bins and I had to give up my job to look after my mother. I mean, I’ll be perfectly truthful with you but from that day to this it’s one thing I never regret.
Interviewer: How long did you look after your mum for?
Six months.
Interviewer: On your own?
Yeah but, she was at home but my sister and my dad weren’t a lot of help so, you know, and I cared for her 24 hours a day for six months. It was hard work but I mean, when the end came, Mary, it was hard for her to take all of her tablets and that, and she knew what was going to happen, and how do you force somebody to do something that doesn’t want to do it? And I was getting terrible stick off her family because she wan’t taking her medication, and she had a good friend and he took me to one side that day and he said: “You can’t make somebody”, not nastily but “She’s not going to take them Kev, you’ve done your best, you can’t force somebody to do something”, and that was that. You know, it cut me up a lot that.
Ruth, Mother
Hi I’m Ruth, I’m a stay at home mum with Suresh, who’s nearly three, and we have another one on the way who is due on his 3rd birthday in January. The high points are, it’s great to spend the time with him, to be at home and see his new achievements, we’re bringing him up bi-lingual so at the minute it’s great to see him trying to repeat the words at last, he’s trying to repeat the Tamil words which is hilarious. At last after the third attempt, we got him potty trained. Steps that, when they are a big achievement, it certainly is a high point because it can be stressful. He gets awards for his achievements, so after he was fully potty trained, he got a scooter as a reward, and yes, we do like to celebrate everything, to make him feel positive about it and realise it’s a good thing, that he’s achieved potty training even though it was difficult to do it.
Particularly since we’ve moved to Lincoln, we have only been here about two and a half months, it’s not really knowing that many people with children, and even though I’ve been going to toddler groups, I’ve not made that many connections yet, so when we don’t got to groups, we don’t have anyone to meet up with, you know, he hasn’t really got any little friends yet. And it’s also challenging to include being pregnant, it’s exhausting, so I’m finding him even more exhausting, and anything he does, I find i’ve got less patience, if he doesn’t listen, or he takes forever to get to sleep at night, or he’s not eating his food properly, I’m finding it very stressful.
WELCOME
Stuart Bell, Senior Leader, New Life Lincoln
In the church, we did a whole series that we called Sunday Church, Monday Church, and the thought there was that obviously our Christian faith isn’t just to be confined to Sundays, it’s very much, the whole week is ministry, and so we’ve done quite a bit of thinking about that over the last number of years. I suppose historically our boundaries are tended to be, we thought, in boxes, the secular and the sacred, but increasingly we are saying: ‘Well, everything belongs to God so therefore the workplace is just as important as the devotion and commitment to Sunday worship”.
Christopher Lowson, Bishop of Lincoln
I went to a wedding quite recently which the Preacher quoted quite a bit of C.S. Lewis which said: “Love is not a feeling, it’s a decision”, and I think we’ve got to move from faith being an idea or a feeling into actually being outworked in our lives, in our relationships, in our work, in our leisure, in places where we have influence in the life of the community, or does being a Christian mean, in this context, do the values of the Kingdom of God work as a nurse or a dinner lady, a banker, a farmer or whatever? What do they mean for the work that I do in the community, or my voluntary work going into schools to listen to children read and so forth. Sometimes I think that Christians kind of compartmentalise their lives; they have their holy bit, and then they have their unholy bit, not in the nasty sense, profane part, their engagement in the secular world, and sometimes they don’t see that they things they do in the life of the world, are expressions of our life as a Christian person, energised and resourced by Christian worship.
WORD
David, Chief Superintendent, Humberside Police
For my own personal sense of vocation, that particularly steered the way I see things over the last few years, going back to 2006 when I was working at Scunthorpe as Superintendent Operations, I volunteered to chair something called the Acorns Neighbourhood Management Board, which was endowed with quite a sum of money, but it involved professional agencies, elected members and community workers, working together for the benefit of the community and parts of Scunthorpe, Westcliffe and at Manor Farm. And that was a profoundly fulfilling experience, because of, almost back to the roots in a way really, talking to lovely people in an area that was facing hardship, and the spirit of optimism and sense of what could be achieved was really, really strong, so it was a great team building experience, it was a very developmental experience for me.
Actually, the biggest thing was the sense of how we all need to work together because everything is joined onto everything else. If the level of crime is high, people are dissatisfied with their area, businesses can’t prosper, it’s not an attractive investment opportunity, so they take their business else where which means there aren’t jobs, which means people lose their sense of purpose so they don’t prosper in school, so they hang around on the streets and crime is high. It is a vicious circle, but you can turn that circle around, and I think not just locally but all over the place, that is what the country is doing quite well at the moment.
As part of that, I did an Investment of Excellence course which is a private sector thing, and I suppose the biggest disadvantage of it is that it is quite expensive to run. But I qualified as a Facilitator as well, and I got involved in actually delivering this to real life residents, and I was so struck by their lack of belief in what they can achieve, a lack of aspiration, and how that’s conditioned to some extent by the environment around them. There’s a real sense of mission there and a sense of purpose, and if I can help the collective journey along that road, then I think I will have achieved something.
Marcus, Restorative Justice Champion
My life is predominately one of peace of people and one of absolute reality, responsibility, taking full responsibility for one’s own, ultimately one’s own victory or defeat in life itself. I’m a practising Buddhist so my life really is one of absolute equality and desire to fulfil my maximum potential as a human being. My work, which I pray for every day, I chant for that everyday, my work is, you know, you’re trying to build a restorative borough, and engaging in organised dialogues and also looking after community groups.
I want a seamless life where my work, community, society, my life itself is one thing, and to a large extent, I feel as though I am achieving this. If my life is the motor, then my work, in a sense, is the motorway. If my life is the gym, then my work is the obstacle course and the training mechanism, so they are one in the same. The obstacles that I encounter in my life, are all food for personal growth, and also the obstacles that I encounter just in my life often have an impact on the way in which I work and overcoming them and challenging them, and facing them and growing because of them, both areas benefit.
EXTRA RESOURCES
Jeanne, CE, Development Plus
Yes, I think seeing people change, and seeing communities come together, it does motivate me to carry on, and I think the people I work with motivate me, and the organisation is nothing if it hasn’t got a fantastic team of staff, and seeing them working with people, and with the knowledge that people can move on, people can do things as long as they believe in themselves.
Clive, College Deputy Principal
The most important is about a relationship, a relationship with a significant other that believes in them, and gives them the opportunity to express their fears and their doubts. That’s not always easy to do, and creating a climate where that can happen takes a lot of subtle and sensitive work. The journey from 14 through to 19 and 21 is not a straight line, it’s a zig zag, and any point of twist and turn in that, immense support is often required.
Some dramatic issues appear in people’s lives and their emerging adulthood, and you need skilled staff to work with them in those settings. At the same time, you’ve got to have highly qualified, competent teaching staff that will be able to help them attain the performance required for their progression, and certainly those who come through Franklin, there’s a significant number that (inaudible) at Higher Education and during demanding professions, and they need the highest grades they can get. But alongside passing exams, the personal growth is important.
The phrase I’ve used recently ‘How we go from me to we’. I don’t understand who I am on my own in the context of others, that’s a journey I have to take. Earning a living in the end means doing something for others, it’s not doing things for yourself. From moving from mine to ours, having a sense of identity where I live is more than my own territory, it’s shared by others, the streets, the communities, the pubs, the clubs, the activities I’m involved in, is moving away from mine is a concept I’m thinking about is my territory to our territory, and that’s just not in the context of physical space, it’s also about technology. If you think about, we look at Youtube or we look at Facebook and all the users that appear for that, all I say and all I do has a resonation, an impact on others. From here to the world, my street is connected to the rest of the world, if you write your address for long enough, you end up with universe, and the question then becomes, who becomes my neighbour? Now, is my neighbour the next door neighbour, the next village, the next town? Or by the internet, the person that I am talking to or can see in Sudan, in China, in Brazil, they are my neighbour, and in serving each other, my neighbours are all around the world. Just look at the shoes you wear, the car you drive, the phone you’ve got, the food you eat, you find that your neighbours and your training partners are in the same place as you, that they are also neighbours of yours but you are also neighbours of theirs as well.