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Stories from Spring Harvest
Week 1, Skegness 2008

Working In the Armed Forces

People hide the fact that they are Christians especially in the workplace.

  Why do you think they do that?   Especially in the Armed Forces - it’s not cool to be a Christian, it’s a peer pressure / acceptance thing. Armed Forces have a drinking culture as an ‘escaping’. When you say you’re a Christian people go “ooh you’re a bible basher” straight stereotyping and it’s only when you start to do little things like having a mug that says ‘stand firm’ on it or you see that there’s a book on the table saying ‘unbelieving nation’ and you pluck up courage to say “are you a Christian…” that you find others who are believers. In my last workplace there were 6 people out of a team of 2000 who were Christians and we had a little worship group on a Tuesday, but you had to find out about it by looking for little signs. It’s that whole peer acceptance thing that people start taking for granted it’s not the done thing - not the cool thing… saying actually I believe in something bigger than myself… Actually it’s very surprising, coz it’s contradictory to the core of the armed forces - to serve Queen, Country and God… it’s a greater ethos! So there’s an interesting challenge to a barrier that needs to be broken there!     How would you want your church to support you? That’s a very challenging question. The chaplaincy branch has gone through a significant change.   The chaplains were serving 5000 service personal but because of cost cutting, Sunday services had to stop and people were being forced to go out to local churches. So the chaplains are now mainly ministering to the commanders in a pastoral way but the lower ranks are having to get their support from the ministers of local churches. That in it’s own right is good because it’s integrating the armed forces within the local population. However when you go into a church and say you’re in the armed forces sometimes you come up against stereotypes.    So to answer your question I’d say empathise but also be there when people ask for the help.      (This info was spoken into a dictaphone and kept word for word where possible)
(Author: Stories from Spring Harvest Week 1)

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