Jon Bellamy spoke with Lloyd Cooke

Lloyd Cooke

Stoke-on-Trent, the home of Cross Rhythms HQ, is celebrating its centenary in style this year. It's the hundred year anniversary of the federation of Stoke-on-Trent, when the six towns came together. Already we've had a visit from HRH Prince Charles and Camilla and now over the next few months there are two very special citywide events taking place. To find out more Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Lloyd Cooke from Saltbox.

Jonathan: Now two events coming up. The first is May 19th. It's called the Inaugural Civic Prayer Breakfast. What is that?

Lloyd: It's the first time ever that we've had a citywide prayer initiative, which in a sense is being hosted by our city council. We're used to Christians meeting together for prayer. Sometimes it's a challenge to get Christians to get together for prayer; but on this occasion it's the city council who is hosting a prayer gathering. It's under the auspices of our Lord Mayor, who will officially host it; but we will have together hopefully a couple hundred, what we would term the great and the good, whatever that means. We'll have some Christian leaders there; some other faith leaders; we'll invite leaders from the different parts of the city; so health and education and politics. We bring them together, simply as an opportunity to eat together, to share together and to pray God's blessing on the city. What's really important about it Jon is that again whilst it's been promoted by those of us who are Christians, this is actually the city civic political leaders who are saying, yes, we're very happy to engage with Christians, we're very happy to engage with prayer. So I'm really excited about it as you can tell. I think it's a very significant opportunity; we've got a guest speaker coming and whilst we'll be very careful to make sure that the prayers are accessible to all, this is our opportunity to pray God's blessing on the city.

Jonathan: Now I don't know if this happens much in other cities across the UK, but what's the context in the journey of Stoke on Trent in recent years that brings us to a point of looking to do this?

Lloyd: Well over the last several years I think God has challenged Christians to come out from within the walls of the church and not only to just pray for the city but to engage with the city. Not to just pray that God will bless it, but to actually say, ok let's go and shake hands with city leaders. Let's go and engage with them. Let's go and bless them and let's connect with them. Over the years I think God has opened some very significant doors here in Stoke on Trent for Christian leaders; people like you and me and others, to actually be people of goodwill and to show that Christians aren't just people who are concerned about singing hymns and songs and reading the Bible and praying; but we are actively concerned about seeing the transformation of the whole of the city. Yes we want to see people individually transformed, but we want to see our health service transformed, our education transformed; we want to see crime and law and order transformed. Therefore this journey of engagement has been really exciting and at times a bit challenging because it's outside our comfort zone. But I think this civic prayer breakfast is a sign of God's blessing on all of that engagement. If we want a theological reason for it; you know I'd take us to the Old Testament to Jeremiah 29, where God says 'pray for the welfare of the city'; where basically he's saying to the people of God, get involved, don't hide in your holy huddle, get involved. Whenever we think of people like Joseph and Daniel and Esther and Nehemiah, these are people of faith who actually expressed their faith by engaging in political and civic life. So for me that is why we need to engage - the apostle Paul said to Timothy, whenever you pray, pray for all those in leadership, all those in authority. Don't just consign your prayers to Christians and to us. Engage with everyone. I think the prayer breakfast is a sign of why we need to and hopefully it will be a cause of great blessing.

Jonathan: Now in amongst the bacon and eggs and for some others, Special K, you've got a guest speaker, a man called Russ Parker. Who's he?

Lloyd: The Reverend Russ Parker runs something called the Acorn Healing Centre. You can get it on the website if you Google Acorn Healing Centre. Russ is a fantastic guy, originally from the North West, from the Wirral and the Merseyside area. He's an Anglican vicar. God has used him to go all over the world in what we call reconciliation. Often bringing together individuals, families, but often churches, and communities; to say, why is it that we don't work better together? What has been the reason for us to be perhaps separated, hurt, and wounded? He's been used by God to bring together communities for what we call healing, for reconciliation. He's just an outstanding speaker and when I first thought about this event I thought, yes someone like Russ, who just tells great stories, would be ideal. So he's going to talk about how you heal wounded history, which is a fascinating subject. I think every town and city all over the world has parts of their history where there are wounds, there are hurts and often that means that problems keep reoccurring. So I'm hoping that as he speaks people will begin to think ok, where are we wounded in our history; where do we need to seek God's blessing, in order that the past mistakes don't simply keep on repeating themselves? So it should be a fascinating event.

Jonathan: And I understand there will be specific prayers that get said on the day from the civic centre.

Lloyd: Yes, that's right. We're going to be praying for God to bless the city and the different bits of the city's life. Different leaders in the city's life will be asked to come up with some prayer topics. We are saying give us a one year prayer topic. Something very specific and measurable, so we can come back in twelve months and see if God's answered the prayers. So it actually puts us all on the spot.

Jonathan: Fantastic. That's May 19th here in Stoke on Trent and Cross Rhythms will be broadcasting that live as well; so putting out that message by Reverend Russ Parker and also the prayers live across the city. Looking forward now to 23rd July, another visitor is coming to the city; also quite well known, the Archbishop of York.

Lloyd: The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, originally from Uganda I believe. We were blessed in the city about eighteen months ago to have Archbishop Desmond Tutu and that event was such a success. Again the civic leaders - the politicians were so blown away by how good an event it was, that when the city started to think about some celebrations in 2010 for the city centenary, because Stoke-on-Trent is a hundred years old this year; it's not quite a hundred but its close enough. There's a story behind it - but we're celebrating this year our centenary. They said we'd love to have a faith event similar to the one we had before. So I suggested the person we ought to ask is John Sentamu; and anyone who has ever heard or seen the Archbishop of York will know he's a larger than life figure, very charismatic, sometimes controversial, but we've invited him. He's coming and we've asked him to speak about hope for the future. We'll be thinking a little bit about hope from the past; and Robert Mountford who's a good friend here in the city will be highlighting some of the ways in which we see God blessing the city in the past over the centuries; but hopefully John Sentamu Archbishop of York will be helping us to think about the future. Again, that will be an occasion Jon where we bring together not only Christian leaders, but leaders of other faiths as well; and we'll be bringing together leaders from the different aspects of the city's life. It will be a glittering occasion; we hope some nice food as well. We'll be entertained by young people from the city; so some children from the city as well as some young people and youth groups. This should be just a fabulous celebration event. Again for me, it's just such an encouragement that people in power don't see the church as simply the thing that happens on a Sunday, but actually we're increasingly finding ways of working together and engaging.

Jonathan: So John Sentamu is going to be talking about hope. Finally Lloyd, what are your hopes for Stoke on Trent as a city in the coming years? As someone who's tracked it for many years.

Lloyd: Transformation; the glory of God. We think about the glory of God as God blessing us in our church meetings. I want to see the glory of God in our health, in our education, in politics, in our media. I just want to see a city transformed. All over this world there are cities that are in transformation. We don't have any of them in Europe yet, they're all in the other continents. My hope is that Stoke might be one of those cities in Europe that experiences the transforming power of God.