For the last 9 years I have had the privilege under God of pastoring our church family. Our church family comprises a large range of people- different nationalities, ages, social backgrounds and struggles. What unites us all is the desire to know Jesus better and serve him more faithfully. How do I enable our church family to do this? Most importantly it’s through my preaching and pastoring. 

When people ask what my personal experience of pastoral care in the church has been like as a same-sex attracted Christian, I’m aware they might be expecting one of two things. On the one hand there is the horror story – the church that actively tells me I don’t need to live in accordance with what Christians have historically believed about sex and marriage, or maybe the church in which I’m made to feel shame for my experience of attraction.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me.’ (Psalm 23:4 NIV, 1984)

The pandemic hit people living on their own particularly hard. But gathering on Zoom provided a sense of community and continues to do so today. Recognising that at times I struggled to end the day well, I started to wonder if others had the same struggles - perhaps gathering via Zoom could be a positive way to draw our days to a close? And, so, Night Prayers was born just after the National Conference in 2021. 

I’ve had a few different jobs in my time. A call centre, a couple of shops, a supply chain manager at a theme park… and as I moved from one job to the next, the process of leaving was often the same. Sometimes (generously) there would be a leaving gift, often there would be leaving drinks or a meal out, but there would always be a card that had been passed around for colleagues to sign without me noticing.

At the beginning of 2025, my church began the journey towards becoming a single friendly church, by working with the Single Friendly Church Network (SFCN). This is a UK‐wide organisation whose aim is to encourage churches to welcome and value single people. For a while we had been working on creating a stronger feeling of family among our members. This had initially focused on families themselves, but a small number of us gradually came to see that we needed to improve our ministry to single people.