I’ve had people worry that the work of the London City Mission might be exploitative. Elderly people can be ripped off by someone pretending to be a friend; a homeless person could be exploited by heavy shepherding whilst they are weak.
That risk has been used by some to suggest that we should avoid evangelism amongst children and vulnerable adults lest we are accused of spiritual abuse. And yet I can think of no greater abuse than to know the good news of Jesus and to willingly hold it back from someone in desperate need. The vulnerable need Jesus!
Mike grew up on one of the estates close to our Battersea centre where Jason Roach leads The Bridge church. If there’s a single word that summed up his life, he’d say ‘forsaken’. On his 18th birthday he became father to twins. One of them died at birth and the other at the age of five. A downward spiral of being out-of-control, with a mental health condition and addiction to drugs and alcohol, got Mike shot once and stabbed on three occasions. A relationship breakdown led to him becoming homeless and sleeping on the streets. ‘I was horrible. I didn’t care who I hurt, what I stole or what happened.’ At the same time he felt isolated, convinced that he was the only one who felt like this. He once went into the kitchen and took three months worth of sleeping tablets. A neighbour, concerned about something he’d said the night before, jumped over the fence and caught him just in time. Mike hated God and blamed Him for everything.
