All Real Life articles – Page 2

Issues

‘My church cut my hours’

2017-01-19T00:00:00Z

At the start of summer 2011, if you had asked me, ‘How’s life?’ my response would have been, ‘Life is good.’ I had been the fulltime youth worker in my home church for almost 18 months. I had married a wonderful and supportive woman just over a year earlier and we were newly-weds creating a shared life together.

Issues

‘God called me to Russia to work with victims of trafficking’

2017-01-19T00:00:00Z

’Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am, for your kingdom’s cause…’ I remember looking around as 10,000 of us worshipped in Soul Survivor’s big top, suddenly aware of those words and how dangerous they were to sing. Had anyone actually considered what would ...

Issues

‘My marriage broke down’

2017-01-19T00:00:00Z

In June 2012, my husband and I were fully immersed in our church. I was part of the women’s pastoral team and children’s work, while my husband was involved in worship. We were also part of a life group. We had been married for three years, having met at church during our teens, and I was due to start a new teaching job in September. After much prayer I was about to take over the leadership of the 14–18s youth group.

Issues

’I had a messy break-up with someone in my church’

I had just started my second year of university, studying at Oxford CYM for a degree in youth and community work with applied theology, when my girlfriend of four and a half years broke up with me. All break-ups are bad and this one was no exception. In fact, this one was spectacularly unpleasant.

Issues

‘I ran away from home to become a Christian’

2017-01-19T00:00:00Z

I didn’t know anything about Christianity until I was in year seven. My mum always told me that Christian people were bad, so I used to think that all Christians were bad people. I studied Christianity in RE in years seven to nine - and I ...

Issues

‘We ran an Alpha course in our school’

2017-01-19T00:00:00Z

Beth and I had been running the CU at our school for a year, but really wanted to get more people involved. We had done some discussion groups in the past, which had encouraged the whole school to start talking about difficult issues; however, we felt as ...