Street Pastors

I’m sure you will be aware to some extent of the work of Bristol Street Pastors (BSP) in providing pastoral support to night-time revellers. This hasn’t been a big issue for a while for obvious reasons, but as we come out of the current pandemic things are already starting to open up again. Prior to the pandemic BSP had a team of around 20-25 drawn from local churches, and were looking to increase this number both to maintain the current commitment, but also to try and increase the provision over weekends.

The work of Street Pastors – which is of course a national, and indeed international movement – is hugely well respected and supported by local authorities, businesses and the police, and this is very much the case in Bristol.

A good number of you were on the Zoom breakfast meeting call two weeks ago to hear an update on the work of Street Pastors. It was great to have the Founder of Street Pastors, Les Isaacs, on the call, along with Simon Thomas who heads up training activity for Street Pastors nationally, and Andy Bennett who until very recently was Bristol’s police Commander.

It was an inspirational time, and an important reminder of the work of Street Pastors in Bristol and the need to raise awareness across the church community. There’s an urgent need for more volunteers. Martin Gunther, who heads up Bristol Street Pastors noted that there are currently around 20 or so volunteers signed up in Bristol, compared to over 100 in Glasgow.

Please share this across your congregations. To help you in this task we’ve produced a short extract from a recent Zoom call which draws some of the highlights together – just 4.5 minutes long. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aow-8058hQ4

Martin, and others from the team, would love to be able to come and share more about Street Pastors.
Do get back to him if you can, and let’s both encourage the team and also add significantly to the volunteer cohort.

You can contact Martin on the following email: martin_gunther1 a_t yahoo d_o_t co d_o_t uk