Join the Leaving Egypt community on Substack: leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com
In this episode, Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair meet Ian Williamson. Ian is a man of great courage whose life was transformed after being dominated by heavy drinking, cocaine addiction, gambling debts, and self-destruction. When he encountered Christ, he chose not to leave but to stay on the council estate where he grew up - and recognised that discipleship there required a distinctively relational approach. He now mentors fellow working class pastors, encouraging them to let their lives speak and to dwell among neighbours as fellow travellers. Ian speaks frankly about the deep alienation between many working class communities and mainstream churches. He names the collapse of moral leadership and the failure of many middle-class leaders to connect with the concerns of poor areas. He also describes the catastrophic damage done to family life and how globalisation has eroded community-centred ways of living. He sees an urgent need for spiritual rebuilding, one relationship at a time. Ian is “the genuine article” — an ordinary man living an extraordinary vocation, through whom the love of Jesus shines.
Ian Williamson is a working-class pastor and church planter from Middlesbrough. Raised in a single-parent home, his early life was dominated by violence and addiction and shaped by work as a nightclub bouncer. After meeting Jesus, Ian’s life was transformed. He was led to plant and pastor New Life Church, and with his wife Rachel, to co-found SixtyEightFive, a ministry supporting men and families affected by fatherlessness. Now, as Executive Director of Medhurst Ministries, he equips pastors for contextual mission, evangelism and relational discipleship, planting and supporting churches in the UK’s most deprived places, especially council estates.
For Ian Williamson
www.medhurstministries.org
In Context Podcast:
For Alan J Roxburgh:
http://alanroxburgh.com/about
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books:
Forming Communities of Hope in the Great Unravelling: Leadership in a Changing World (with Roy Searle)
Joining God in the Great Unravelling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
Substack: https://t4cg.substack.com/s/from-jenny-sinclair
Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/
Get full access to Leaving Egypt at leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/subscribe
