Sharing skills, community and Jesus
Mission partner Garry Ion reports on Carlisle’s Community Shed, from seasonal crafts to a former prisoner sharing his faith.
Photo: Garry Ion and a shed member making a wishing well planter
Mission partner Garry Ion reports on Carlisle’s Community Shed, from seasonal crafts to a former prisoner sharing his faith.
Whether being productive in the shed, nattering over a coffee or enjoying a Garry’s chicken burger special butty, we remain very busy.
Unlike other Men’s Shed projects, the Community Shed is open to both women and men who’ve usually been referred to us through social or mental health services and associated organisations and charities.
We also increasingly welcome new members through probation services and their Rebuilding Lives programme.
Care-full and prayer-full
What also sets us apart from most other sheds is our desire to care holistically for body, mind and spirit.
Endeavouring to tread carefully and prayerfully, we share our faith through conversation and life experiences.
The seasonal crafts are also a talking point about the gospel message: the planter and the seed of faith sown that flourishes, the bird box and God’s love for his creation, and Christmas decorations and the coming of Emmanuel. Last year during our run up to Christmas we enjoyed fellowship in the shed using our Christmas tree decorations as a backdrop to Bible readings by candlelight.
Welcoming space
As winter approached, we started a new programme called Community Space. You may recall previous Warm Space initiatives across the country that came about due to the cost-of-living crisis and isolation after lockdown.
By request, our Community Space is an offshoot of this where we meet in the evenings, in a warm space adjoining the shed, for a more in-depth chat, cuppa and access to indoor games including table tennis, pool and darts.
It is nice to see several of the lads who have struggled previously with alcohol or drug addiction coming along. This is a problem which often increases at this time of year.
It has also been nice to fellowship and see friends be transformed and grow in faith as we build friendship together.
(Creative) freedom for prisoners
Two new members recently joined us on remand from prison. With a probation officer and tags secured to their ankles, we were initially concerned about their attendance. But both quickly settled, getting on very well with the rest of their groups. They are talented and creative; having gained these skills while inside prison, they now share carpentry skills with members of the shed.
One of these new members had become a Christian while in prison and has begun share a little of his testimony – from violent gang member, stabbed, fighting for his life, and then presented with the gospel by a prison chaplain. This seed of faith has grown and his charisma in Jesus is clearly seen and heard in the shed.
Last week he invited me and a few other members to a Men’s Breakfast at Carlisle Cathedral where he has started fellowshipping. In the few months we have known him his tags – “shackles” – have been removed from his ankles, he no longer needs to be chaperoned by an officer and is now encouraging shed members, including me, to church activities.
Read more about our work bringing hope where people have given up on God and the church.
