Street Pastors - looking out for each other

Friday night was one of my evenings to be out on Street Pastor patrol. Each Friday a team of four wander up and down the High Street hoping to engage with and care for whoever we meet. I am on the team around one week in three on average.

To see what we look like check out Orpington Street Pastors
and follow the link to the Street Pastors home page for further information.

Last night was longer and more eventful than usual. We didn't leave the High Street until after 1.30 am, and by the time we had debriefed and prayed together it was gone two.

Here is a sample of the encounters we had:

• Four lads managed to open the back door of a moving bus and leap out, one sprawling heavily onto the floor, but getting up uninjured.
• Outside one of the pubs I continued a conversation with J (begun two weeks ago), who said she was desperate to believe but couldn't because of the impossibility of the virgin birth and the resurrection.
• I was not quick enough to stop some lads pinching my cap and throw it around for a while before growing fed up with the game.
• Two lads clambered on the roof of a van about to pull out into the traffic. One stood up and issued us with the friendly challenge, "Hey, Street Pastors! Pastor this!" We did so by praying silently that the van would not move until he climbed down.
• A lady travelling home late with three children would have missed her bus if we hadn't flagged it down for her. (Four buses arrived together and the back one, having disgorged its passengers, didn't appear to be making any effort to pull in at the actual stop.)
• R and his grunger friends were pleased to see us again. They claimed to be living and sleeping in local woods. (see later post)
  
• A girl on her own opened up about all her problems in a long one-to-one chat, and then asked us to accompany her to the entire length of the High Street to where her friends were waiting.
  

The most difficult moment of the evening was when the two girls crossed the road to encounter a drunk slumped on a bench. They asked the two men to watch their backs, but we didn't realise they expected us to cross the road with them. Instead we watched from a distance and by the time their situation was growing tense and unpredictable we two guardian men had become distracted by conversations of our own. Throughout this I did try to keep an eye on the girls, but was too far away to act swiftly if needed. We discussed in our debriefing what had gone wrong and decided we needed to be clearer in expressing what we expected from each other.

The lesson I learned from this is that teamwork is vital and knowing that we understand each other is an essential part of building up trust. Normally we are very good at looking out for each other, but the occasional hiccup like this reminds us how important it is to care for fellow team members as well as for the people we meet on the street.

Postscript:
My involvement with Street Pastors continued today. After a too-brief sleep I spent the morning writing up my report on the previous night and the afternoon on duty at the Street Pastor stall in the local park. The Sealed Knot were re-enacting life in Orpington during the Civil War (which I mostly missed seeing) and we were there to raise our profile and remind people that the church is part of the community. The park today was sunny and fairly busy. The street last night was dark and largely deserted. But we had far more worthwhile chats last night than today. Alcohol and darkness obviously help stimulate deep conversations.