Author: Andy Dorton

Andy Dorton has lived with his family, by choice, on Hull’s outer-most Council estate for over twenty years, having been brought up somewhere rather different himself. He’s worked even longer than that for the CofE as Hull/East Riding Social Responsibility Officer. His two now grown children, now back in Hull, are both artists, like Liz, his wife. They understand low pay and simple living and the power of creativity. Andy does meetings, lots of them, though less since all the money went south. He’s a trustee of lots of things, has been on regeneration boards and the like and was a local Councillor for seven years (until May 2018). The prospect of Church Commissioners money supporting work on ‘estates’ is adding spice to his later paid-working life.

Unlock – keys to the kingdom

Unlock has a pedigree something like NECN’s. Around for a while, small, working to support and resource Christians who live and work on estates. In our case, we’re for people who know they are speaking a different language from people who live ‘on estates’. Although actually that’s an issue in all sorts of situations. You could say its about middle class v working class language.

The Unlock method is essentially very simple: get people talking about (and listening to!!!) people’s stories of their own lives BEFORE you start telling people what the bible has to say to or about them.

Unlock’s website has lots of resources that many people have developed on these lines. You might start with: have any of you ever been mugged or attacked in a public place? Things get hairy sometimes, but people are remarkably open if you’ve created the right environment. And then you trust God that people will make their own connections to bible stories. Or you might nudge that. And you can work out the obvious bible story that quite a few people know, even if they aren’t into church at all.