Thanks to Bekah from Restored for coming on air with us at The Gathering 2024.
Visit the Restored website for more information: www.restored-uk.org
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Andy be back here with the gathering in a field near Swindon and Christian vision for men 2024 event is absolutely outstanding. I have some more guests for you coming this way including right now Becca Helip. Hello you how you doing? Yes exhilarated. I've running out of superlatives to this place because it's absolutely blowing my mind good never done anything like this it's just it's unbelievable. How would you I've been asking this question what words would you use to try and describe the atmosphere because electric and outstanding just don't seem enough. Oh that's a fair point no it's a bit of a weird one for me being a girl in this space so and on one level it's absolutely bonkers but it is it it I tell you what I sat in the service this morning I don't even know if that you could really call it a service it's a session but I sat at the front and I just sat down whilst the men stood and sang and it was it was incredibly motive and moving so it's just a really fabulous space where men clearly just come and connect and it's lovely. Yeah chatting to a few of the guys yesterday the one thing that seemed to be kind of coming up in every conversation is what what'd you come for there's all these different reasons and 2000 men singing together seem to come up a lot because it isn't something that men would classically think of doing we don't generally sing unless it's around the the fire with a beer and yet somehow they're sort of capturing that and translating it into worship which is it blows my mind. Yeah it's really beautiful I got quite quite emotional sat at the front but it's almost like it's something of the football standards isn't it it's that because in those contexts men actually do suddenly come alive and they do start singing and they do let go and seeing that in this context of God and church is just beautiful. I think it's that letting go thing which is what for me this is doing is it is it helps guys to be in a relaxed but a sufficiently relaxed environment to just get on with being and doing and just getting stuck in whether it's the quiz or or chess or battle tanks and whatever there's all these things going on but actually it's just it's just guys being together which generally I don't think happens I think chatting to Carl Beach last year we mean probably better at wanting to do that generally I think men perhaps generally aren't which is why I think this is great but it's great to have this sort of a thing and now I've got you over for different reasons now you're not just a wife or Steve like because that's just one part of who you are the other bit which I'm also really excited to talk to you about is your day job I guess what of a better word? Yeah I mean I am the wife of Steve like and that is a big part of my life as anyone can imagine but now my day job is working for an organization called Restored and it's Christian Charity that works to speak up about violence against women and girls to quit the church to stand against domestic abuse in particular and then we work really hard to support survivors of domestic abuse which has to keep you fairly occupied most of the time what sort of work does Restored do them what's what's the day-to-day job I mean you're working against you know violence which is you know we need to do that but what are you actually practically doing how do you help people to to get on board with your message? So the two key projects that we run is we run an online community for Christian women in particular who've been through domestic abuse and that's just recognizing that actually for Christians it's a really hard thing to talk about and it can be seen as quite taboo and so therefore if you have been through that you can feel like you're all in your own so we've got this online community which people can join really anonymously just by sending in an email and then they can just access some space or they can join an online peer support group they can join online recovery groups and we just had our own very first in-person retreat which was amazing but that's an ongoing thing so we you know almost on a daily basis there is something going on that people can engage with so we need to run that and and you know help people find us as a whole load of work around that and then the other piece of work that we're doing is we know that what we do is really important and we watch it transform lives which is amazing but it would be so much better in local church it'd be so much better where people don't have to do Zoom I think we're all fed up a Zoom you know people could just access that in their local community so we've launched something called the Restored Beacon Network which is churches who've chosen to purposefully partner with us to get really well-trained really well-informed not to become experts not to start you know going out and rescuing people and saving the world but to be able to be in a position where if somebody comes and says this is my experience they can walk alongside them and be a really well-informed friend along the way and it again is transforming lives so you know that's just two really exciting things so we're training we're equipping we're writing resources we're running courses and trying to raise funds always in the middle of all of that which is the bit I don't like yeah we don't like talking about money but money is part of life and yes if you're working for God no we don't need money but we kind of do and yeah I totally get that and I guess one of the things that always strikes me and all the different people whether it's a Christian Peace Association or somebody trying to help me on the apologetics we can all do something for somebody else but so often we just need a bit more help I was chatting to a guy who helps with the doctoring and fostering you know it can be quite hard to know what what do we do and having someone say well here's a bit of training here's a bit of help here's a place you can signpost to it it just makes it easier so are you going to churches and then you're saying what is what you can do yeah absolutely so we've got three levels of training that people can engage with online if they want or we can come and run the whole kaboodle in a local church and some of us just awareness raising because the reality is domestic abuse is as prevalent in the church as outside which is a horrible truth that none of us want to be true and most of us don't realize that so there's a lot of awareness to race actually this is happening you might not think it is this is happening in your church and if you understand it and can talk about it a little and here's some simple things that you can do to just make sure your church knows they're allowed to talk about this then actually you'll be able to help people who are in desperate situations so we have our basic level of awareness but then we run through training which really digs into the theology around it because it's complex and it's sometimes we've under the scriptures to be in a way that actually can get used to and manipulated to collude with abuse which really is never constant tension and then finally we run a session that looks at you know actually how what does meaningful support look like how can we do that well and so you know people can engage that we can come into church or even individuals can just sign up online to do that I love the fact you've got these two I mean I'm hearing two strands you've got this thing of supporting people who are in the midst of the worst possible imagination you know in their lives so you're working with these people who I mean it's ostracizing and when you throw in faith into that mix yes I absolutely can comprehend just how isolating ostracizing it feels hard anyway we can kind of understand that part but throw in the faith it becomes this this other world of how what do we do here but but giving people the ability to sign both to have a voice and a bit of training that that to me is just it's such an important thing the church is engaged well or is it kind of throw bar in like hello we're here it's a bit of a mix bag so we have some wonderful church that we work with who've come to us saying that we recognize we don't know enough can you help us and we've got lots of other churches who there's on a spectrum right there's some in the middle that just like you know what we're just trying to do so much this feels like one thing too many and I understand that and although I'd say this is really critical but there we are and but then there's others on the other end ago this isn't our problem we shouldn't be talking about it you know and they and they don't engage us then then I do feel like getting the crowbar right but you know we're we're a smaller enough organization at the moment that we've got hands for the churches who are ready to hear what we have to say but it's important that around the edges of that we're working to help the other church churches hear the message of that message to start to get through because I don't want there to be women or men for that matter so you feel totally trapped and like they can't talk to somebody you can't get support because it's not something you can talk about in church no it's it's a it's a tough one um yeah but having people who can say look here's how you can help having churches that get on board that will then breed other churches who will get brought having been you know full-time ministry you think we've got these a hundred things to do how are we going to squeeze another one in but sometimes it's not squeezing something it's actually losing something because you know what this this is more important and it's taken a step back but having someone who can come outside frequently to say here's something else you can do and here's how you can do it and we will support and resource which is something so many of the exhibitors here are doing it's not just this is what you've got to do we'll help you we'll walk you step by step with what you've got to do and Becca thank you how do people get hold of what you're doing I know but they may not be so have a look at how do you so these your thing is to go to our website which is just restore type in uk.org I mean if you just google domestic abuse and christian we should pop up anyway so you should pop up and better find us but restore type in uk.org and thank you thank you for what you're doing truly uh this is handybie at the the gathering in a field near swindon i'm going back to some more music and come back with what's coming up after three o'clock in a moment did you know pure 24/7 radio has a shop well we do you can buy merchandise while supporting the work that we do here simply head over to www.pure247radio.org/shop that's www.pure247radio.org/shop
