Founder of Street Pastors visits borough

Rev Les Isaacs MBE attended an Information Breakfast event in New Mossley Presbyterian Church.

Les is in Ireland, along with other members of his team, for a sponsored bike ride and to support the work of Street Pastors across the island.

The event gave Les an opportunity to outline the work of Street Pastors locally, nationally and internationally and also covered the development of the work involving School Pastors, Response Pastors and Rail Pastors as well as future developments. A number of elected representatives, church leaders, business people and other representatives attended the breakfast and enjoyed an opportunity to chat with Les and members of his team.

Antrim and Newtownabbey Street Pastors are celebrating their fourth year of operations and they operate every Friday and Saturday night from 7:30pm to midnight in Glengormley, New Mossley, Mayfield and Rathcoole. Last week saw a team operating in Ballyclare and further teams are planned to patrol there in the coming weeks. It is also hoped to start operations in Antrim in the near future.

Ronnie Pedlow, Chair of Antrim and Newtownabbey Street Pastors said it was a great encouragement to Street Pastors in Ireland to have Les visiting. He said: “Les is an inspiration to all of us and he has been very supportive of Antrim and Newtownabbey Street Pastors through a number of visits to us. Street Pastors exists because of the vision and faith of Les and the other founders and the many thousands of street pastors throughout the British Isles and internationally are a testament to Christians responding to the call of God to take their faith onto the streets to help.”