Many of you will know I am taking up a new role as Director for Partnerships and Mobilisations with Medhurst Ministries. Not long ago, I wrote an article for their magazine and I think it is good to share to explain a little about what I am planning on doing. The full text is below.

Where the Mills Still Stand

For the past 12 years, I have been the pastor at Oldham Bethel Church. In the Victorian era, Oldham was among the richest towns in Europe with a fortune built on cotton spinning. Large mills, the ‘dark Satanic mills’ referenced by William Blake in his poem Jerusalem, still dominate the skyline. These days, however, Oldham is materially poor and was named the most deprived town in England a few years ago. The last cotton mill closed in the 1990s and no industry replaced them. Many mills remain, largely abandoned and dilapidated. They are a reminder of what the town was and symbolise its current state. For a US equivalent, the story of Oldham is like Detroit in miniature.

Oldham Bethel Church sits in the Glodwick area of Oldham. The area is one of the most deprived parts of the town and almost exclusively South Asian Muslim demographically. But as a highly segregated town, within walking distance of the church is a predominantly white working-class estate whilst another sits the other side of a municipal park, a few hundred yards from the church building. The church reaches into these disparate communities.

Many Nations, One Gospel

Although Glodwick is mainly Pakistani, Bethel is multicultural. We have people from all over the world, but our three main groups are: (1) white Brits from middle- and working-class backgrounds; (2) West, Central and South Africans; and, (3) Middle Eastern asylum seekers, mainly from Iran. Our operating language is English, but we translate as much as possible into Farsi.

Over the years, the church has run drop-ins for the homeless and addicts, conversation classes for those with English as a foreign language, and a food security programme serving the local community. Though we want to meet the physical and material needs of our town, our desire is to address their deeper spiritual need of the Lord Jesus. All our ministries are means of sharing the gospel and reading scripture with those who come.

However, we also run more direct gospel outreach. We have gone into the town centre and engaged in street preaching, giving out literature and engaging people in gospel conversation. We run regular Dialogue Events with Muslims where an imam presents a Muslim view, and I offer a Christian perspective on a given topic. Whatever the topic, we always clearly and directly present the gospel. We include time for Q&A, where anybody can ask anything without fear of offence, and share food together afterwards to continue conversations.

The links we built up locally, and the trust we earned in our community, led to members of our church being invited into a local Independent Muslim High School to teach. They were specifically invited in to offer Christian perspectives and were given license to freely share their understanding of the gospel. We also receive class visits to the church from local schools, including Muslim-majority ones, where we have further gospel opportunities.

In all this time, the Lord has been very good. He brought us supporting churches as well as people who want to be involved in this ministry with us. We’ve had workers from both the UK and USA join for several years simply because they saw the great need and opportunity. It has been a real privilege to be involved in the work that the Lord is doing here. Though Oldham Bethel Church is small and relies on external supporters to exist, the Lord has blessed the ministry.

From Oldham to Medhurst

Having built links with churches, funders and other supporters in Oldham, I was led to a new role with Medhurst Ministries. As of September 2026, I will be serving as full-time Director for Partnerships and Mobilisations. What we did in Oldham, we want to do in other churches in deprived places facing many of the same challenges.

The story in Oldham can be replicated many times over. The North is more deprived than the South of England, both materially and spiritually. There are fewer churches in the North and those that exist tend to be in affluent and aspirant areas. If a church exists in a deprived area at all, they tend to be smaller and financially less stable. They often have limited support and face significant challenges that the majority UK church rarely meet and, if they do, have the resources to easily address them.

Replicating what we have learned

I want to take what served the church in Oldham and replicate it in other churches in deprived places. We want to see financially well-supported churches replete with gospel workers so that the overlooked and forgotten areas of our country might be reached with the hope of the gospel.

My role will be generating partnerships between network churches and those with greater resources to help them become financially stable. I will be looking to increase the number of churches in our network, build partnerships with supportive churches and individuals and develop links so that gospel workers can be moved to serve in the neediest parts of England.

If the story of Oldham tells us anything, it is that gospel ministry in deprived places is both deeply needed and richly worthwhile. Across the North, the Midlands and beyond, there are churches serving overlooked communities that need encouragement, partnership, gospel workers and financial support if they are to become healthy and sustainable for the long term.

Through Medhurst Ministries, we want to stand with these churches, strengthen their leaders, and help them reach the forgotten places of our country with the hope of Jesus Christ. Would you consider partnering with us—through prayer, giving, encouragement, or sending workers—so that more churches like Oldham Bethel might be supported, strengthened and equipped for the mission God has placed before them?