Transcript: I Am what I Am
AT: I am, Reverend Alison Taylor, Minister at the Baptist Church in Potter Street, I’m also a keen gardener, a cultivator of orchids. I love to walk, and mainly I’m an extreme extrovert and like to be with people [laughs].
WW: Is that what got you into this mess?
AT: [Laughs] I think it might be. No, what got me into the mess was my health, really, in the past. I had all that health stuff and I’m absolutely convinced that God had a plan and that he revealed it through that and I ended up here as a result.
WW: Well tell us about that then. Tell us what happened, take us all the way back to your twenties was it?
42” AT: I always had health issues, and they were always things the Doctor couldn’t explain and one of the things I did very regularly was pass out. You know, when you’re a teenager they put it down to your hormomes and all sorts of other things. But it kind of went on and when I was 19 I went into nursing and, therefore, your stress levels are going up and down daily because you’re in circumstances and situations that you don’t understand and you’re expected to know exactly what you’re doing.
So, what used to happen was, is I used to pass out and sometimes I would pass out for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, sometimes I passed out for 17 hours and obviously that resulted in a lot of admissions to hospital. They used to do tests on me very regularly, all sorts of things and they then used to give me medication, which was supposed to correct the idiosyncrasies of my body.
I went to a prayer meeting at the Baptist church and a lady, who still goes to the church, said “I think we should pray for Alison and lay hands on her”. I thought: Oh no. Not a scene. We don’t need a scene. But I felt guilty about that the next day and I spoke to my friend and she said, “Well, perhaps we should pray” and that’s exactly what happened.
During it, one man was praying, a man that drove me up the wall actually, and absolutely and I just thought oh for goodness sake. He prayed and in my head came “this is the beginning of the end.”
I thought what does that mean? Am I going to die? Anyway, I did pass out and they were all really, really upset about that. But on the Monday I went to the hospital and they said, “there’s something wrong with this machine because you’ve got stuff in your blood that you’ve never had.”
Then, over the next three months I had to have tests, as you might imagine. I had to work the night shift, I had to do exercise, because all those things raise your adrenaline and it was an adrenaline metabolism disorder. After a couple of months he said, “There’s no point in you coming here because I can find no evidence you’ve ever had this illness” and this illness would’ve killed me by the time I was 30, I’m now 53, and he wrote in my notes, no evidence of chronic, life-limiting disorder can be found. Patient believes a miracle has happened. And to this day, I still believe that.
And I think as a result, when you see God do things, big things like that in your own life, that you can’t deny, then I think he said, “Right, now go out there and do my work in your way” sort of thing. And I think, because of that he led me into ministry.
You resist for a certain amount of time, but I think in time, God always wins, so there’s no point in arguing really [laugh].
3’19 WW: A lot of women have talked to me about the calling, and if you feel like you’re being called, try to run away from it, did you do all of those things?
3’25 AT: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there’s an element there that perhaps you feel that you’re not in control of this. I don’t know if it’s to do with control, but it’s not just about not being in control, it’s about somebody else controlling you. And I think if you haven’t got that sense of call and if you aren’t absolutely certain that God’s got a handle on your life, you could not do this job. There are so many demands on you. So many expectations from so many other people and so many other places that I think if you didn’t have that certainty that God had placed you in a particular place, at a particular time, to do a particular job, then you wouldn’t be able to do it. Or you wouldn’t be able to overcome quite so consistently I don’t think, because it is a job, it’s hard work, with sometimes, the most challenging of society’s people.
4’18 WW: Taking you back to that illness and the life expectancy, a short life expectancy, what was it like to face that?
4’25 AT: I don’t think I ever thought about that. I think what I did was I lived for the moment, so I wasn’t really aware that I had a restricted life expectancy until perhaps I was in my early twenties. By then I’d already trained as a nurse and I didn’t feel the need to tell anybody else about it either. I didn’t tell anybody that until I was cured of it. So I don’t really think it was a great burden to me because I just thought I had to live each day as it was given me. And perhaps I value life because of that, um, more. I don’t know because I haven’t met anyone else in my situation, but I think I hold life in high regard.
5’08 WW: What do you hope to achieve when you go out into the community, bring people from the community into the church, when you just talk to people in bus stops? What’s your end game?
5’18 AT: Whatever I do, I want people to understand that the most important thing in my life is my relationship with Jesus and, therefore, I want them to have that relationship with Jesus because it makes such a difference. So yes, I drink tea with a lot of people, yes I eat cake with a lot of people but always I invite them to church.
5’37 WW: What evidence do you have that Jesus is the right path?
5’40 AT: I haven’t experienced any other path, primarily, I was brought up in the Christian faith. I have evidence that God changes people’s lives, I have evidence that people are transformed by having a relationship with God and I follow the Bible, I absolutely believe that it says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Now that’s my teaching, that’s what I’ve been brought up with and that’s what I read. I choose to believe that but I wouldn’t undermine people who have other beliefs either. I don’t preach it to the point of, you know, “you’ll go to hell” but in the back of my mind I do believe that.
6’23 WW: How do you know that the Bible’s right?
6’26 AT: That’s something that I’ve accepted. If I’m having a bad day and I think is this right? Is this true? It is causing me no damage and no harm to do what I do. I’m only asking people to love one another and to treat each other with respect and to respect and love God. It’s there to take or leave really. I’ve chosen to take it and I believe it wholeheartedly. There’s nothing about it and nothing about teaching its values that is going to destroy anyone, it’s only going to make things better. It’s only going to bring things into society that we’ve lost in a lot of ways: love and respect, toleration of each other, whether we have the same views or not, so on my worse day when I think is there really a God out there? I’m not doing anything bad. I’m not in it for my own gain and I just think the end result is only positive, there’s no negative, on a good day, I know it’s right.
7’24 WW: How’s it been being female doing your job? Have you noticed any resistance to you anywhere?
7’29 AT: Now personally, I have never had any resistance. Now, it might be because I’m deaf and I haven’t heard it, but personally, I have never felt that being a woman has made any difference to me doing this role. But.
Obviously, I’m in conversation with a lot of other lady ministers across the region and a lot of them still, to this day, suffer from people undermining them, mistreating them, abusing them, I mean, somebody for instance, that I know was leading something from the pulpit, which we all do, and er, I don’t know what it was but she was giving instructions and she said, “has everybody got that?” and one man shouted out, “no because I never take instruction from a woman”. I do not receive that, I never receive that but there are people out there who daily have to fight their corner, even though they know God’s called them. So I’m sitting here saying, “I know God called me to do this and I’m given every freedom to be enabled to do it. There are a lot of women out there who just cannot and are thwarted at every place, if you like. So it’s not as easy for a lot of people. I’ve had it easy, in all truth. If I’m honest.
8’42 WW: It must be very difficult for those women who are called. It’s a tough job anyway and it’s not a really well defined job I don’t think, the more I know, the less I know because it’s very much dependent on the type of person you are, the type of personality you are and how you interpret.
9’01 AT: and that’s the beauty of the relationship we have with God because he just takes who we are and he isn’t trying to make us into something we’re not, so He uses who we are, which I think is the essential thing in the middle of it all. So we’re all different so all our ministries will be different. The other thing is, I never went to, I never learned how to be a Minister, I’ve just got a degree in Theology so I’m rather unconventional, I would expect.
9’25 WW: Do you think?!
9’26 AT: [Laugh] No! Not at all.
9’30 WW: Community seems to be everything to you, you are surrounded by people and you will drop everything to help somebody, we’ve heard from people about your taxi service to get them to and from church and church events, is that what makes you tick?
9’47 AT: I think if people feel part of something then they are more likely to progress in their relationship with God, because that’s what it’s all about. So, if they’re feeling isolated and they can’t get out and they’re stuck in their flat, there’s a lot of things, they’re going to lose a lot of things, not least, the fact that if you’re with other people, usually you feel better in yourself. If you are socializing with different age groups then that has more positive benefits as well.
So what we’re doing, we’re dealing with several things all in one go. We’re saying, allow people to be a part of the community, i.e. give them a lift, go and see them, make sure they’ve got recordings of the services so they know what’s going on, therefore, they are church family, therefore, they have family, they have somebody that will help them through the difficult situations that they find themselves in, therefore, it becomes manageable and I think that builds community. They then talk to their friends and what is my ultimate aim in life? My ultimate aim is that they come to find Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. And I believe that that happens through relationship. I believe that if you sit in church and pray for people to come to church, they’re very unlikely to do that. But if you go out and you invite your neighbours and your friends then sometimes they do and I think that’s the bottom line.
11’04 WW: Where do the main challenges come from, being at the centre of that community?
11’12 AT: I think the challenges perhaps come because when you’re close to people and they get ill and then they die and I’m expected to do their funerals. I’m expected to be in those very dark places. Now when you know them all as well as I do, then you are affected by that, but that’s a positive thing because if I wasn’t in the relationship then it wouldn’t affect me like that.
I always say at a funeral, you wouldn’t feel as bad as you did if you didn’t love this person. And I think being in a relationship costs and I think it’s worth doing. I think personally, that’s what prays most on me, if you like, but then there’s another side isn’t there? Where you go, well I’ll just hand it over to God and I don’t have to carry it. I think sometimes, criticism sometimes is difficult but I think that’s life and it all goes back to the very same thing: I’m called to do this, therefore, God’s given me the authority to do it, therefore he will equip me to do it, therefore I can do it.
12’10 WW: If you didn’t do this, if there were sliding doors, how do you think your life would be different?
12’18 AT: In a way that’s really difficult to answer because I do believe that God put me in this place. What do I want to do? I think I’m doing what I want to do. I wonder if I was criticized often whether I would feel quite so comfortable, but that’s life, isn’t it really. I don’t have a struggle with it at all.
12’38 WW: What do you think the struggles are for your community? What challenges your community?
12’42 AT: This community at Potter Street is an ageing community, they don’t have any local facilities now because the doctors’ surgery was closed, so I would say for the local community we’re quite on the edge of the town and without good local facilities, which is why I create the environment that I do really.
13’02 WW: I was told about your vigilante style dealings of getting people into Doctors’ surgeries
13’10 AT: I’ve done that
13’11 WW: Tell me what you did.
13’13 AT: Well. When the doctors’ surgery was open, there was only one doctor there and you could never get an appointment, and of course, I’m going in to all sorts of people all the time, so I just used to put them in a wheelchair, wheel them in the doctors’ and say I’m coming back when they’ve seen a doctor, because they need to see a doctor today and I’m not taking no for an answer, and they’d go [pause] and I’d be out the door. And I didn’t go back until they’d seen the doctor and every time I did it, they did see the doctor. So I think, my methods aren’t very conventional but they are effective.
13’45 WW: You’re an activist, aren’t you really?
13’47 AT: Yes, extrovert activist, that’s my personality but I think my nursing background helps me quite a lot because I can see if things are serious, if things are not serious, I can see whether I need to bother or not bother. I am not good with timewasters, I don’t suffer fools gladly and I can be quite straight if I think that that’s the case. Which means that my greatest strength is that I’m very straight and my greatest weakness is that I’m very straight.
There have been people leave the church because of my straight talking, but other people thrive on it because they know where they stand. So I’m not very good with those kind of, what I call weak and weary hangers on, I’m kind of not their best friend often. I can’t not be who I am and I’ll be as caring as I can for as long as I can and when I think you’re taking me for a ride, they’ve had it. That isn’t easy and it’s not good but it’s a fact.
14’46 WW: Have you had any crises of confidence?
14’49 AT: A few years ago, I started to wonder whether I was too comfortable. I’d been here a long time and there were various jobs becoming available and people were asking me to go and do regional work, and I was very resistant. I was, at the time, thinking about moving house because I had a very large conservatory on the back of the house and one of the panels kept slipping so the rain kept coming in and I needed to have it done. I also thought, ooh, it’ll be nice if I have a downstairs toilet because I had all these ninety year old ladies trying to get up the stairs every week and I thought, ooh it’ll be nice to park the car, not ten miles up the road when I come home with my shopping, you know, so all that was going in my head. Then I decided I would move. So I said to God, “if you want me to stay here, in Harlow, I’ll sell the house quickly. If you want me to move, I won’t sell it, so that’s up to you.” And I put the house on the market on the 29th April and it sold on the 1st May and I thought, ok, if that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll do. We then had a bit of a row about this house because it’s very close to the church and I just thought, that’s going to be a nightmare, but, we had a bit of a row, me and God, you know, like you do, but he won, as usual, so we ended up here.
16’05 WW: How do you speak to God?
16’07 AT: It’s a very good question actually. Obviously, we read the Bible every day and it’s almost like you’re asking God questions and he reveals himself through the Bible. I remember once, I was actually driving the car and I’d had a bit of a funny experience the day before and I felt that God had been removed from me, because of something that I felt. And I was driving along and I can’t even tell you what it was, but it was a non-Christian radio station and the person said something and it answered the question that I had from the day before. I actually stopped the car because it made me cry. I’m not a weepy person. But it did because I just thought, yeah you heard and you answered me that.
Last year I had to do three funerals in a week, different age groups and I just thought, what on earth can I say, in the midst of all this, that is going to change what these people think, you know, they’re not of faith, you know, God loves you. Yeah, but where’s my 23 year old, where’s my 11 year old, where’s my 2 year old and er, I started to reflect on that and I went to another church locally and they had obviously had somebody read a reading on the Sunday and it was still on the lectern and it was rather innocuous, a difficult passage that said, “I am who I am” i.e. God told Moses that he was I am. And I thought, oh God, don’t be cryptic, just, you know, make it easy. Anyway I sat down and started to reflect. Now what can you put on the end of I am?
I am… your savior.
I am… your Lord.
I am… your shield in trouble.
I am and you can go on and on and on and on and so as I sat there I felt God revealed that to me. So I am, what am I? I’m everything you need to be. ‘I am’ is in the present, it’s not the past, it’s not the future. It was the past and it will be the future, but I am. Basically, in my comprehension of that there, God put all that in my head, so it isn’t an audible voice, it is through the life we lead, the people we speak to, the books that we read, you know, it’s that kind of thing, yeah.
18’27 WW: And you can be cross with him, that’s allowed is it?
18’29 AT: Absolutely, absolutely and I think he delights in that, in a way, because he doesn’t want yes people. He wants people to question. It’s ok to doubt our faith, it’s ok to question, it’s ok, you know, to have days when you don’t want to look at God but I think that doubt shows that you’re thinking about it, that you’re questioning it, because we’re still in conversation with him aren’t we? If we’ve turned our back on him then where can he be? But if we’re cross with him there’s grounds to change the relationship isn’t there and for it to be something of worth.
19’04 WW: Does God ever disappoint you?
19’07 AT: I have to question him sometimes and just think what? I sometimes am disappointed in the decisions other people make, but not for myself personally. I do doubt, I do have arguments with him.
19’24 WW: You mentioned earlier that you had to do a couple of dog funerals
19’26 AT: Oh goodness
19’29 WW: Is that a time that might be a question to God as to how that’s come towards you?
19’34 AT: Well, yeah, there’s all sorts of things, well, you find yourself in all sorts of situations and I’m, I’m not an animal person. And, you know, other people would give me some very serious answers about has the dog got a soul and, therefore, will it be in heaven? And the answer is, it really mattered to the lady and the lady needed to be able to lay her dogs to rest. It’s the same lady I did it for, I’ve done two.
I think, pastorally you have to care in a way that’s sometimes beyond your own comprehension and understanding and you do find yourself flabbergasted sometimes at some of the things people ask you to do.
When I was a hospital chaplain, hospital used to phone and say, “can you come and, so and so’s died, can you come and pray?” Yes, you go there. There’s no people there, just a body, in the room, and er, so I used to think, well what’s the point in this, because this person’s clearly not listening. And I used to do this prayer that said, “Dear God, either you know this person or you don’t, I’ll leave this one with you and give thanks for this person’s life" and if someone came in I used to go “Amen”. [Laughs]
All my little secrets coming out now. [Laughs]
20’52 WW: What about when you know the outcome you want, or think is the best outcome for somebody, is not what they’re praying for? I’m thinking if somebody’s really ill and they’re praying to get better and you may be praying for them to be released.
21’07 AT: if I’m praying with them, it’s got to be what they want. So if we’re together and they’re asking me to pray for a certain thing, then of course, I have to pray for that certain thing. But when I’m not with them and I don’t think that’s realistic, I have to say, “Your will be done” and if their prayer is what’s answered, then you give thanks with them, don’t you? But, you know, I’m still human, I still have those things going through my head, idiot, you know, all that [laughs] but, you know, I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But somehow, by his grace, God uses me and, you know, most of the people I associate with and I think sometimes, one of the strongest things is my sense of humour allows me to see the ridiculous, but also to see God’s hand at work. I think that works both ways.
22’02 WW: I always ask everyone for their favourite verse, so what’s yours?
22’06 AT: I don’t have a verse, but I have a whole chapter of the Bible and it’s Psalm 139. Basically it starts by saying God knows everything about me, he knows even what I’m going to say before I say it. Now I am a very straight talking person and I say sometimes what’s exactly in my head, which isn’t always what God might be directly pleased with. So I feel that if God knows me and he’s prepared to use me, with all that, then there’s power in that. It then goes on to say, wherever you go and whatever you do, you cannot run away from me, you cannot hide, wherever you are, I am. And I think sometimes, when we’re in dark places, to know that God is there, is of significance. It also means that if there’s awkward situations or difficult situations or situations where I’ve just thought, I don’t know what to do or I’m going to do this, if Psalm 139 comes up, to me that’s God saying’ “I’ve got it, ok, it’s alright” and sometimes when it comes up and there’s nothing going on I think, oh no, what’s going to happen now? [Laughs] but yeah, that’s how it is, yeah.
23’11 WW: Is there anything that you do that isn’t anything to do with God?
23’19 AT: No.
Do I think about him every minute of every day? No.
Are there days when I don’t think about him at all? Probably.
Are there things that I do to make sure he’s part of my day? Yes.
I wouldn’t want to do anything that displeased God. I’m not always pleased I have diabetes! [Laughs]
23’42 especially not with the coffee morning cakes!
23’45 [Laughs] I don’t eat them! [Laughs]
23’48 End credit by Matilda Cox: Birds Who Pray is a Watts Where Media Production
WW: Is that what got you into this mess?
AT: [Laughs] I think it might be. No, what got me into the mess was my health, really, in the past. I had all that health stuff and I’m absolutely convinced that God had a plan and that he revealed it through that and I ended up here as a result.
WW: Well tell us about that then. Tell us what happened, take us all the way back to your twenties was it?
42” AT: I always had health issues, and they were always things the Doctor couldn’t explain and one of the things I did very regularly was pass out. You know, when you’re a teenager they put it down to your hormomes and all sorts of other things. But it kind of went on and when I was 19 I went into nursing and, therefore, your stress levels are going up and down daily because you’re in circumstances and situations that you don’t understand and you’re expected to know exactly what you’re doing.
So, what used to happen was, is I used to pass out and sometimes I would pass out for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, sometimes I passed out for 17 hours and obviously that resulted in a lot of admissions to hospital. They used to do tests on me very regularly, all sorts of things and they then used to give me medication, which was supposed to correct the idiosyncrasies of my body.
I went to a prayer meeting at the Baptist church and a lady, who still goes to the church, said “I think we should pray for Alison and lay hands on her”. I thought: Oh no. Not a scene. We don’t need a scene. But I felt guilty about that the next day and I spoke to my friend and she said, “Well, perhaps we should pray” and that’s exactly what happened.
During it, one man was praying, a man that drove me up the wall actually, and absolutely and I just thought oh for goodness sake. He prayed and in my head came “this is the beginning of the end.”
I thought what does that mean? Am I going to die? Anyway, I did pass out and they were all really, really upset about that. But on the Monday I went to the hospital and they said, “there’s something wrong with this machine because you’ve got stuff in your blood that you’ve never had.”
Then, over the next three months I had to have tests, as you might imagine. I had to work the night shift, I had to do exercise, because all those things raise your adrenaline and it was an adrenaline metabolism disorder. After a couple of months he said, “There’s no point in you coming here because I can find no evidence you’ve ever had this illness” and this illness would’ve killed me by the time I was 30, I’m now 53, and he wrote in my notes, no evidence of chronic, life-limiting disorder can be found. Patient believes a miracle has happened. And to this day, I still believe that.
And I think as a result, when you see God do things, big things like that in your own life, that you can’t deny, then I think he said, “Right, now go out there and do my work in your way” sort of thing. And I think, because of that he led me into ministry.
You resist for a certain amount of time, but I think in time, God always wins, so there’s no point in arguing really [laugh].
3’19 WW: A lot of women have talked to me about the calling, and if you feel like you’re being called, try to run away from it, did you do all of those things?
3’25 AT: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there’s an element there that perhaps you feel that you’re not in control of this. I don’t know if it’s to do with control, but it’s not just about not being in control, it’s about somebody else controlling you. And I think if you haven’t got that sense of call and if you aren’t absolutely certain that God’s got a handle on your life, you could not do this job. There are so many demands on you. So many expectations from so many other people and so many other places that I think if you didn’t have that certainty that God had placed you in a particular place, at a particular time, to do a particular job, then you wouldn’t be able to do it. Or you wouldn’t be able to overcome quite so consistently I don’t think, because it is a job, it’s hard work, with sometimes, the most challenging of society’s people.
4’18 WW: Taking you back to that illness and the life expectancy, a short life expectancy, what was it like to face that?
4’25 AT: I don’t think I ever thought about that. I think what I did was I lived for the moment, so I wasn’t really aware that I had a restricted life expectancy until perhaps I was in my early twenties. By then I’d already trained as a nurse and I didn’t feel the need to tell anybody else about it either. I didn’t tell anybody that until I was cured of it. So I don’t really think it was a great burden to me because I just thought I had to live each day as it was given me. And perhaps I value life because of that, um, more. I don’t know because I haven’t met anyone else in my situation, but I think I hold life in high regard.
5’08 WW: What do you hope to achieve when you go out into the community, bring people from the community into the church, when you just talk to people in bus stops? What’s your end game?
5’18 AT: Whatever I do, I want people to understand that the most important thing in my life is my relationship with Jesus and, therefore, I want them to have that relationship with Jesus because it makes such a difference. So yes, I drink tea with a lot of people, yes I eat cake with a lot of people but always I invite them to church.
5’37 WW: What evidence do you have that Jesus is the right path?
5’40 AT: I haven’t experienced any other path, primarily, I was brought up in the Christian faith. I have evidence that God changes people’s lives, I have evidence that people are transformed by having a relationship with God and I follow the Bible, I absolutely believe that it says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Now that’s my teaching, that’s what I’ve been brought up with and that’s what I read. I choose to believe that but I wouldn’t undermine people who have other beliefs either. I don’t preach it to the point of, you know, “you’ll go to hell” but in the back of my mind I do believe that.
6’23 WW: How do you know that the Bible’s right?
6’26 AT: That’s something that I’ve accepted. If I’m having a bad day and I think is this right? Is this true? It is causing me no damage and no harm to do what I do. I’m only asking people to love one another and to treat each other with respect and to respect and love God. It’s there to take or leave really. I’ve chosen to take it and I believe it wholeheartedly. There’s nothing about it and nothing about teaching its values that is going to destroy anyone, it’s only going to make things better. It’s only going to bring things into society that we’ve lost in a lot of ways: love and respect, toleration of each other, whether we have the same views or not, so on my worse day when I think is there really a God out there? I’m not doing anything bad. I’m not in it for my own gain and I just think the end result is only positive, there’s no negative, on a good day, I know it’s right.
7’24 WW: How’s it been being female doing your job? Have you noticed any resistance to you anywhere?
7’29 AT: Now personally, I have never had any resistance. Now, it might be because I’m deaf and I haven’t heard it, but personally, I have never felt that being a woman has made any difference to me doing this role. But.
Obviously, I’m in conversation with a lot of other lady ministers across the region and a lot of them still, to this day, suffer from people undermining them, mistreating them, abusing them, I mean, somebody for instance, that I know was leading something from the pulpit, which we all do, and er, I don’t know what it was but she was giving instructions and she said, “has everybody got that?” and one man shouted out, “no because I never take instruction from a woman”. I do not receive that, I never receive that but there are people out there who daily have to fight their corner, even though they know God’s called them. So I’m sitting here saying, “I know God called me to do this and I’m given every freedom to be enabled to do it. There are a lot of women out there who just cannot and are thwarted at every place, if you like. So it’s not as easy for a lot of people. I’ve had it easy, in all truth. If I’m honest.
8’42 WW: It must be very difficult for those women who are called. It’s a tough job anyway and it’s not a really well defined job I don’t think, the more I know, the less I know because it’s very much dependent on the type of person you are, the type of personality you are and how you interpret.
9’01 AT: and that’s the beauty of the relationship we have with God because he just takes who we are and he isn’t trying to make us into something we’re not, so He uses who we are, which I think is the essential thing in the middle of it all. So we’re all different so all our ministries will be different. The other thing is, I never went to, I never learned how to be a Minister, I’ve just got a degree in Theology so I’m rather unconventional, I would expect.
9’25 WW: Do you think?!
9’26 AT: [Laugh] No! Not at all.
9’30 WW: Community seems to be everything to you, you are surrounded by people and you will drop everything to help somebody, we’ve heard from people about your taxi service to get them to and from church and church events, is that what makes you tick?
9’47 AT: I think if people feel part of something then they are more likely to progress in their relationship with God, because that’s what it’s all about. So, if they’re feeling isolated and they can’t get out and they’re stuck in their flat, there’s a lot of things, they’re going to lose a lot of things, not least, the fact that if you’re with other people, usually you feel better in yourself. If you are socializing with different age groups then that has more positive benefits as well.
So what we’re doing, we’re dealing with several things all in one go. We’re saying, allow people to be a part of the community, i.e. give them a lift, go and see them, make sure they’ve got recordings of the services so they know what’s going on, therefore, they are church family, therefore, they have family, they have somebody that will help them through the difficult situations that they find themselves in, therefore, it becomes manageable and I think that builds community. They then talk to their friends and what is my ultimate aim in life? My ultimate aim is that they come to find Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. And I believe that that happens through relationship. I believe that if you sit in church and pray for people to come to church, they’re very unlikely to do that. But if you go out and you invite your neighbours and your friends then sometimes they do and I think that’s the bottom line.
11’04 WW: Where do the main challenges come from, being at the centre of that community?
11’12 AT: I think the challenges perhaps come because when you’re close to people and they get ill and then they die and I’m expected to do their funerals. I’m expected to be in those very dark places. Now when you know them all as well as I do, then you are affected by that, but that’s a positive thing because if I wasn’t in the relationship then it wouldn’t affect me like that.
I always say at a funeral, you wouldn’t feel as bad as you did if you didn’t love this person. And I think being in a relationship costs and I think it’s worth doing. I think personally, that’s what prays most on me, if you like, but then there’s another side isn’t there? Where you go, well I’ll just hand it over to God and I don’t have to carry it. I think sometimes, criticism sometimes is difficult but I think that’s life and it all goes back to the very same thing: I’m called to do this, therefore, God’s given me the authority to do it, therefore he will equip me to do it, therefore I can do it.
12’10 WW: If you didn’t do this, if there were sliding doors, how do you think your life would be different?
12’18 AT: In a way that’s really difficult to answer because I do believe that God put me in this place. What do I want to do? I think I’m doing what I want to do. I wonder if I was criticized often whether I would feel quite so comfortable, but that’s life, isn’t it really. I don’t have a struggle with it at all.
12’38 WW: What do you think the struggles are for your community? What challenges your community?
12’42 AT: This community at Potter Street is an ageing community, they don’t have any local facilities now because the doctors’ surgery was closed, so I would say for the local community we’re quite on the edge of the town and without good local facilities, which is why I create the environment that I do really.
13’02 WW: I was told about your vigilante style dealings of getting people into Doctors’ surgeries
13’10 AT: I’ve done that
13’11 WW: Tell me what you did.
13’13 AT: Well. When the doctors’ surgery was open, there was only one doctor there and you could never get an appointment, and of course, I’m going in to all sorts of people all the time, so I just used to put them in a wheelchair, wheel them in the doctors’ and say I’m coming back when they’ve seen a doctor, because they need to see a doctor today and I’m not taking no for an answer, and they’d go [pause] and I’d be out the door. And I didn’t go back until they’d seen the doctor and every time I did it, they did see the doctor. So I think, my methods aren’t very conventional but they are effective.
13’45 WW: You’re an activist, aren’t you really?
13’47 AT: Yes, extrovert activist, that’s my personality but I think my nursing background helps me quite a lot because I can see if things are serious, if things are not serious, I can see whether I need to bother or not bother. I am not good with timewasters, I don’t suffer fools gladly and I can be quite straight if I think that that’s the case. Which means that my greatest strength is that I’m very straight and my greatest weakness is that I’m very straight.
There have been people leave the church because of my straight talking, but other people thrive on it because they know where they stand. So I’m not very good with those kind of, what I call weak and weary hangers on, I’m kind of not their best friend often. I can’t not be who I am and I’ll be as caring as I can for as long as I can and when I think you’re taking me for a ride, they’ve had it. That isn’t easy and it’s not good but it’s a fact.
14’46 WW: Have you had any crises of confidence?
14’49 AT: A few years ago, I started to wonder whether I was too comfortable. I’d been here a long time and there were various jobs becoming available and people were asking me to go and do regional work, and I was very resistant. I was, at the time, thinking about moving house because I had a very large conservatory on the back of the house and one of the panels kept slipping so the rain kept coming in and I needed to have it done. I also thought, ooh, it’ll be nice if I have a downstairs toilet because I had all these ninety year old ladies trying to get up the stairs every week and I thought, ooh it’ll be nice to park the car, not ten miles up the road when I come home with my shopping, you know, so all that was going in my head. Then I decided I would move. So I said to God, “if you want me to stay here, in Harlow, I’ll sell the house quickly. If you want me to move, I won’t sell it, so that’s up to you.” And I put the house on the market on the 29th April and it sold on the 1st May and I thought, ok, if that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll do. We then had a bit of a row about this house because it’s very close to the church and I just thought, that’s going to be a nightmare, but, we had a bit of a row, me and God, you know, like you do, but he won, as usual, so we ended up here.
16’05 WW: How do you speak to God?
16’07 AT: It’s a very good question actually. Obviously, we read the Bible every day and it’s almost like you’re asking God questions and he reveals himself through the Bible. I remember once, I was actually driving the car and I’d had a bit of a funny experience the day before and I felt that God had been removed from me, because of something that I felt. And I was driving along and I can’t even tell you what it was, but it was a non-Christian radio station and the person said something and it answered the question that I had from the day before. I actually stopped the car because it made me cry. I’m not a weepy person. But it did because I just thought, yeah you heard and you answered me that.
Last year I had to do three funerals in a week, different age groups and I just thought, what on earth can I say, in the midst of all this, that is going to change what these people think, you know, they’re not of faith, you know, God loves you. Yeah, but where’s my 23 year old, where’s my 11 year old, where’s my 2 year old and er, I started to reflect on that and I went to another church locally and they had obviously had somebody read a reading on the Sunday and it was still on the lectern and it was rather innocuous, a difficult passage that said, “I am who I am” i.e. God told Moses that he was I am. And I thought, oh God, don’t be cryptic, just, you know, make it easy. Anyway I sat down and started to reflect. Now what can you put on the end of I am?
I am… your savior.
I am… your Lord.
I am… your shield in trouble.
I am and you can go on and on and on and on and so as I sat there I felt God revealed that to me. So I am, what am I? I’m everything you need to be. ‘I am’ is in the present, it’s not the past, it’s not the future. It was the past and it will be the future, but I am. Basically, in my comprehension of that there, God put all that in my head, so it isn’t an audible voice, it is through the life we lead, the people we speak to, the books that we read, you know, it’s that kind of thing, yeah.
18’27 WW: And you can be cross with him, that’s allowed is it?
18’29 AT: Absolutely, absolutely and I think he delights in that, in a way, because he doesn’t want yes people. He wants people to question. It’s ok to doubt our faith, it’s ok to question, it’s ok, you know, to have days when you don’t want to look at God but I think that doubt shows that you’re thinking about it, that you’re questioning it, because we’re still in conversation with him aren’t we? If we’ve turned our back on him then where can he be? But if we’re cross with him there’s grounds to change the relationship isn’t there and for it to be something of worth.
19’04 WW: Does God ever disappoint you?
19’07 AT: I have to question him sometimes and just think what? I sometimes am disappointed in the decisions other people make, but not for myself personally. I do doubt, I do have arguments with him.
19’24 WW: You mentioned earlier that you had to do a couple of dog funerals
19’26 AT: Oh goodness
19’29 WW: Is that a time that might be a question to God as to how that’s come towards you?
19’34 AT: Well, yeah, there’s all sorts of things, well, you find yourself in all sorts of situations and I’m, I’m not an animal person. And, you know, other people would give me some very serious answers about has the dog got a soul and, therefore, will it be in heaven? And the answer is, it really mattered to the lady and the lady needed to be able to lay her dogs to rest. It’s the same lady I did it for, I’ve done two.
I think, pastorally you have to care in a way that’s sometimes beyond your own comprehension and understanding and you do find yourself flabbergasted sometimes at some of the things people ask you to do.
When I was a hospital chaplain, hospital used to phone and say, “can you come and, so and so’s died, can you come and pray?” Yes, you go there. There’s no people there, just a body, in the room, and er, so I used to think, well what’s the point in this, because this person’s clearly not listening. And I used to do this prayer that said, “Dear God, either you know this person or you don’t, I’ll leave this one with you and give thanks for this person’s life" and if someone came in I used to go “Amen”. [Laughs]
All my little secrets coming out now. [Laughs]
20’52 WW: What about when you know the outcome you want, or think is the best outcome for somebody, is not what they’re praying for? I’m thinking if somebody’s really ill and they’re praying to get better and you may be praying for them to be released.
21’07 AT: if I’m praying with them, it’s got to be what they want. So if we’re together and they’re asking me to pray for a certain thing, then of course, I have to pray for that certain thing. But when I’m not with them and I don’t think that’s realistic, I have to say, “Your will be done” and if their prayer is what’s answered, then you give thanks with them, don’t you? But, you know, I’m still human, I still have those things going through my head, idiot, you know, all that [laughs] but, you know, I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But somehow, by his grace, God uses me and, you know, most of the people I associate with and I think sometimes, one of the strongest things is my sense of humour allows me to see the ridiculous, but also to see God’s hand at work. I think that works both ways.
22’02 WW: I always ask everyone for their favourite verse, so what’s yours?
22’06 AT: I don’t have a verse, but I have a whole chapter of the Bible and it’s Psalm 139. Basically it starts by saying God knows everything about me, he knows even what I’m going to say before I say it. Now I am a very straight talking person and I say sometimes what’s exactly in my head, which isn’t always what God might be directly pleased with. So I feel that if God knows me and he’s prepared to use me, with all that, then there’s power in that. It then goes on to say, wherever you go and whatever you do, you cannot run away from me, you cannot hide, wherever you are, I am. And I think sometimes, when we’re in dark places, to know that God is there, is of significance. It also means that if there’s awkward situations or difficult situations or situations where I’ve just thought, I don’t know what to do or I’m going to do this, if Psalm 139 comes up, to me that’s God saying’ “I’ve got it, ok, it’s alright” and sometimes when it comes up and there’s nothing going on I think, oh no, what’s going to happen now? [Laughs] but yeah, that’s how it is, yeah.
23’11 WW: Is there anything that you do that isn’t anything to do with God?
23’19 AT: No.
Do I think about him every minute of every day? No.
Are there days when I don’t think about him at all? Probably.
Are there things that I do to make sure he’s part of my day? Yes.
I wouldn’t want to do anything that displeased God. I’m not always pleased I have diabetes! [Laughs]
23’42 especially not with the coffee morning cakes!
23’45 [Laughs] I don’t eat them! [Laughs]
23’48 End credit by Matilda Cox: Birds Who Pray is a Watts Where Media Production