22 March 2024
Mike Tricker, Licenced Lay Minister (LLM) in the Parish of Wickford and Runwell is also a Street and Rail Pastor.
Street and Rail Pastors are trained volunteers from local churches who care about the safety and wellbeing of their community. Mike is part of a team who patrol Essex towns and cities on Friday and Saturday nights and our rail networks during the week to care for, listen to and help people in any way they can. Sometimes directly, sometimes through signposting other agencies and sometimes through prayer.
Mike shares more about his ministry as a Street and Rail Pastor: “I consider my role as both an LLM and a Rail/Street Pastor to be a core part of expressing who God made me to be as a Christian. I love to preach and work within our churches and I have always felt called to the fringes of our community to bring Gods Love to our darker places outside the church walls. Preaching and Rail/Street Pastors bring the Good News by means of practical theology and the only difference is where that conversation begins.
There are roughly 11,000 Street Pastors in the UK, bringing an expression of God’s love to our communities. There are also School Pastors, that help in our schools, and Rail Pastors who are licenced to patrol our rail networks. All of these are supported by Prayer Pastors who pray for all of the situations we could meet.
“Street Pastors are established and welcomed by our communities. Working together with the police, local authorities, local businesses and often local bars, pubs and clubs and railway networks; we are universally seen by all our agencies as a positive - both financially by releasing various resources and as a calming influence on our streets.
“For me, the pastor network is practical theology in action. I have at times felt closer to Jesus on a cold night talking to someone in need of help than I have at the Eucharist. These are truly the thinnest moments of my life, where the divide between heaven and earth is very thin indeed.
“We offer help in so many ways, from offering flip flops to the tipsy person who’s lost a shoe, to speaking with the victims of county lines, to talking with our homeless, the lost, the lonely. I have been trained by the Samaritans to offer support to those who are suicidal, to recognise mental health issues and drug abuse. I know all the bouncers in our high streets and I’ve had many fun nights out being among our communities when they are having fun, at fairgrounds, seafronts and bonfire nights.
“I love the Street Pastors and all their offshoots. We pray before and after each patrol, and the Lord brings us those that need our time and attention in ways that can’t possibly be predicted.”
