Eastleigh Street Pastors are Here!
The commissioning service for the new Eastleigh Street Pastors was held on 3rd July 2009 at Eastleigh Baptist Church. On the 10 July the first patrol went out onto the Streets of Eastleigh. A document with a report of the first night is available as a link on the right hand side of this page. A photograph taken after the commissioning service and of the first team out have been added to the photo album.
We currently have 19 people trained as Street pastors. At least four will be out every Friday night from around 8.30pm to 12.30am.
We are planning a new training series to take place in two sets of Saturdays at the end of this year and the beginning of next. The first session will be on 24 October 2009. If you are a member of a local church in the Eastleigh area and have felt challenged about being a street pastor and would like to do the training please give the co-ordinator Steve Smallwood a call. To whet your appetite, a short video montage of the first training series can be found below. We would also welcome more prayer pastors. Again please contact Steve.
Eastleigh Street Pastors came into being following meetings between the churches in 2008, and the success of Street Pastors in our neighbouring area Fair Oak. Our launch event took place on 30 January 2009 at the Litten Tree pub (see video below). This venue was chosen as it is at the heart of the town centre, to be neutral so that the project is not seen to be driven by any one church, and to demonstrate our commitment to being out in the community. Finance is in place with many thanks to the generous support from our partners Hampshire Police and Eastleigh Borough Council, as well as from the local churches involved. Do contact us if you would like to know more. |