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With Lee McDade
60 Plays3 years ago
Top Tip: If you want to start a conversation, give yourself an unusual ministry job title that gets people intrigued! Today's guest tells us about the fantastic opportunities his unique position affords him in the armed services. What is it like sharing the gospel amongst service personnel?
Lee McDade has worked with SASRA (Soldiers' and Airmen's Scripture Readers Association) for 13 years, based at Wattisham Flying Station near Colchester. His official title is “Army Scripture Reader”, an archaic phrase which he tells me goes back to the Napoleonic Wars, when the readers literally read the Bible to the illiterate soldiers in the lines. Having served in the military himself, including deployment to Bosnia, Lee became a Christian after leaving the Army in 1999.
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Transcript
Introduction to Pep Talk Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Well hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Bannister from the Solas Centre for Public Christianity up in Dundee in Scotland and I'm joined as ever by my wonderful co-host Kristy Bear coming from the other end of the country down in London. Kristy how are you doing today?
Meet Lee McDade
00:00:27
Speaker
Doing well thanks Andy yeah really excited about our guest today actually. So yeah well you've set that up before I did so who is you do the intro then who have we got today on the on the show Kristy?
00:00:40
Speaker
What a set up. We have the brilliant Lee McDade.
Role and Mission of an Army Scripture Reader
00:00:44
Speaker
Lee, thank you so much for joining us. Hey. You're most welcome. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. Lee, tell us a little bit about what you're doing. What's your job?
00:00:54
Speaker
Okay, so my title is I'm an army scripture reader and I work for a Christian charity called SASRA, which is the Soldiers and Airmen Scripture Readers Association. That's why we call it SASRA, because I don't want to be saying that every single day. We're a para-church organization and
00:01:11
Speaker
We need 200 years old and we employ all ex-service personnel, committed Christians, and we're embedded back into the military to share the good news of Jesus Christ with service personnel and their families. That's it in a nutshell, really. But the question that immediately arises, Lee, not knowing much about the kind of background and context here. So what is an army scripture reader? Is that like a chaplain? Is it something a little bit different? What does an army scripture reader do?
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, I call this Christian missionaries to the forces. So we're employed as evangelists, if you look at our website, we're there to share the good news of Jesus Christ. But obviously, we get involved in all sorts of walks of life with the military personnel and their families.
Ministry within Military Settings
00:01:58
Speaker
I could do anything in one day from
00:02:01
Speaker
speaking to a group of soldiers on camp, maybe in the fields, to doing a school assembly in the same day. We come on the chaplaincy umbrella. They look after us. But yeah, we're a separate entity. But we work as one big team, which is really cool. I'm part of the chaplaincy team in and around Colchester Essex and Wattersham in Suffolk, which is really cool.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah, Luke, tell us a little bit, as much as you can really, as you're able to, just about those three different areas. You're attached to those, you minister in those three different places, don't you? What do you get up to there?
00:02:40
Speaker
There's three areas. My main effort really is Watersham Flying Station. That's where the Apache helicopter is kept. So I work with three major units there. It's about 2,068 personnel. And it does what it says on the tin. They fly, maintain, look after the Apache helicopter.
00:03:01
Speaker
I also work at Colchester 16 Air Assault Brigade, a combat team now, they call themselves, which is a high readiness brigade. So if there's a hotspot in the world and they need British troops to go very, very, very quickly, then they're the ones that usually are sent in before anybody else.
00:03:20
Speaker
watched the news over the summer. It was a 16-era soft brigade that predominantly went out to Afghanistan to rescue people, which was a really phenomenal job.
Approach and Challenges in Ministry
00:03:33
Speaker
And I also work, which is completely different, at the MCTC, which is the military
00:03:38
Speaker
correctional training centre, which is prison based on this, but it's the military prison. So that's an interesting place to work as well. So there are three areas, so three very different sort of units, very different personnel on different roles really.
00:03:57
Speaker
So what are some of the, it's a very broad question, but I guess what are some of the sort of challenges and opportunities about working in that setting? I mean, you mentioned that last one, that, you know, that effectively, you know, the military sort of prison sort of system that you're there, you must have folks who, you know, in some ways have hit rock bottom, stuff has gone really badly wrong. They're now literally a captive audience. Are those folks who, you know, are just sort of so hard and really tough to reach? Is there an openness there because they've realized they're,
00:04:25
Speaker
They've run out of everything else. How is it ministering in those kind of settings? I'll say the MCTC, the Correctional Center, is probably very fertile. You don't have to tell anybody that they've done anything wrong, because I know that. There's a broad spectrum of personnel that go there, anyone that's served from one year to maybe 33 years in the military. So a complete variety of people that don't wear a formal uniform
00:04:53
Speaker
all the time, so I don't know what their rank was, not necessarily what they've come from. All I'm interested in is their soul, really. And so, yeah, we run a Friday session there with the Padre and I, sort of a good old-fashioned Padre's hour, which is brilliant, absolutely fantastic. We've done
00:05:12
Speaker
Christianity explore course is there and we also do a Sunday service which is really good as well so not everybody has to come that's all voluntary but the chain of commands
00:05:26
Speaker
like it because it improves the behavior of the men and women that are in there so it's got a tick in the box from the chain of command so it's a really brilliant place and I've not always been a good boy myself so I can understand where a lot of these guys mostly are coming from so that's quite helpful so yeah so it's an interesting place to be yeah
00:05:51
Speaker
That's amazing. I mean, what opportunities must like come up? You mentioned that you, that you care for their souls. That's just such a, that's such a striking sentence. How do you go about, I mean Christianity explored groups and everything, but can you show this if you can, just like what your conversations kind of like look like with the men and women in that professional centre?
00:06:13
Speaker
Well, we have an All Souls ministry. I am there because I love people. I love the military. I love Jesus. And as I quote another scripture reader, he said, I love Jesus and I love soldiers. And I just want them to meet each other, which is what we do. So with all the courses that you can do, Christianity Explored Alpha, all these sorts of things, I just find turning up every day and being prepared, as the word says, to have a word in season for weary souls.
00:06:43
Speaker
is all you really need. That's all the equipment you need is yourself. I break my ministry into a few Ps, which is prayer, presence, patrol, having to walk around, and proclamation. It's really not rocket science. You can make it as difficult as you want to, or you can turn up, pray about it, and ask God to do the rest. Predominantly, when I get into a conversation, it's very spirit-led. I prayed, Lord,
00:07:13
Speaker
help me to bump into the people I need to bump into today or help them to come see me. And that's what happens. And I think it's a day goes by where you're not at least encouraging someone, especially over the last couple of years, you know, COVID has affected everybody, including
Connecting with Military Personnel
00:07:27
Speaker
the military. And I think everyone's tired. So to have a message of hope,
00:07:32
Speaker
which Christianity ultimately gives us is absolutely phenomenal. It doesn't mean I go around the camp doing somersaults every day, but I do carry a message of hope. And ever since I've been a Christian, I've known that and I want to share that with everyone I meet really. So it's really as gentle as that. You can do all the courses and set things up, which is great. I like doing that. But my bread and butter really is meeting people where they are.
00:08:01
Speaker
if I can have a cup of tea with them, have a brew and chew the fat and see what happens, you know, see what conversations come out of that. And I'm pretty blessed to be fair. God is very good to me.
00:08:13
Speaker
One of the things that strikes me is that I guess the audience that you're dealing with there in terms of military folk, that audience is going to skew a little bit younger just because of the nature of the military. So what kind of questions do the kind of men and women who are serving, what do they have about faith? Are they very open? Are they generally sort of, do they have a lot of
00:08:33
Speaker
preconceptions, are there particular challenges that come up time and time again that you have to, you know, sort of work through with folks? What are the kind of nature of the questions that you're dealing with in the conversations you have there? Yeah, nothing too difficult to be honest with you. I mean, I think there's an element of spirituality in young people anyway, they're all
00:08:52
Speaker
They're all quite spiritual beings and some of the regiments that you work with, their traditions are quite spiritual as well. I was really blessed. I worked at the School of Infantry for seven years and even at a basic level, the British Army is still keen to include visits to the church, remembrance parades.
00:09:12
Speaker
There's a spiritual element to all of that. So the questions can vary from anything you can think of that will be asked on the street in Civic Street is the same on camp really. So there is no general question.
00:09:31
Speaker
I'm quite, I like learning a lot about the people I'm working with. I think that's important as someone who's working with people's souls, so that I'm very good at asking the questions. Even if it is, you know, what are you doing today, guys? Or even did you watch the football on Saturday? And it's amazing if you just have a general question to start off with, then you can get into the spiritual stuff. It does help that I'm called a scripture reader.
00:09:57
Speaker
because no one has a clue what that is. The biggest question that I'm asked is, what is a scripture reader? I've never met one before, and that's my favorite question because you can share a testimony straight away there. That is probably the question I get asked most if I'm honest with you, and it really helps.
00:10:19
Speaker
I like the takeaway from that. If you want to, you know, want to sort of be effective as an evangelist, give yourself a title that nobody understands because it will start. Yeah, it will start questions. It definitely
Supporting Soldiers and Personal Experiences
00:10:28
Speaker
does. Yeah. Well, we're an oddity, really. You know, we're not chaplains and we're not we're not soldiers either. We are scripture readers and that's brilliant. You know, we sort of undeniable. Should we ever change it, modernize it? I never want to because it's just such a bizarre title.
00:10:47
Speaker
that people want to know who and what you are. And they're actually genuinely interested as well. And it's amazing how many relationships are built off just because someone said, what are you? Which is a really good question. And you can share it systemally pretty quickly through that.
00:11:07
Speaker
What does that look like for you, Lee, working in particular with a high readiness unit? How would you go about, hypothetically, say they were called somewhere in the next three to four days, what would you do?
00:11:22
Speaker
between now and then. Get myself on camp. I would get myself to the places where I feel the troops are going to be. So my office is opposite the armory, which is pretty cool. You know, I mean, guys, if they're going to. So we're not pitting happens when they were getting ready to go to Afghanistan. I took myself over to the armory when the guys were drawing weapons.
00:11:47
Speaker
and the general chit chat and said, you know, that there's my office if anyone wants to come for a coffee, come over and I did I guys coming in, having a coffee, and I'm really blessed. I know a lot of the guys from when they're in training. So they know I'm the scripture reader. And yeah, I was able to pray for quite a few of the guys before they went out on operations.
00:12:09
Speaker
and keep in touch with some of them while they were there. Modern technology is phenomenal. So yeah, if something were to happen tomorrow, I'd see where the main effort would be. And I'd get myself on that particular camp and make myself available, A, for the chaplaincy.
00:12:26
Speaker
and B for the soldiers that have been deployed, which is the beauty of the job. And that did happen in the summer, so that's a reality. I've been doing this for 14 years, so my first few units were when
00:12:45
Speaker
Operation Herrick was still on the operations out in Afghanistan the first time round. So my job really was working with soldiers that were going to war on a rotation and then coming back, sometimes not coming back. I was out in Germany for five years and we were involved in a pre-deployment training services before they went out, memorial services when they came back. And literally, yeah, picking up the pieces.
00:13:13
Speaker
when young men and women come back from war. So that's the reality of it. So yeah, the summer was quite interesting, because I haven't been involved in that for a few years, because operations have ceased. So to have guys going back out to Afghanistan was quite emotional, actually. I found it very emotionally draining, as a lot of people did, that were around when it was happening before.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, obviously, you've got an incredibly unusual kind of ministry, Lee, and most of us are not called to go right into the heart of the military. They're all doing to share our faith with folks, but there may be quite a lot of people listening to this who have military friends. There's the family members who are serving on neighbors or have a military connection. Is there anything that you've learned from your day-to-day work there in the forces that is advice for somebody who wants to ship,
00:14:13
Speaker
Open up begin sharing their faith with a friend who's in one of the forces. Is there any advice you'd give somebody on things to be aware of ways to start things to things to talk around? What would you what would you say net? You know never be afraid of asking someone who's in the forces what they're up to Be interested in what they're doing
00:14:34
Speaker
Because soldiers love to talk about what they do. It's an interesting profession. So if you ask them, if they don't want to talk about it, then they'll tell you. But most of the soldiers I know are quite keen to share what they're doing day to day. And at the end of the day, the military is just normal people. It's quite easy for me to say this, but it is just a job at the end of the day. It's a really extraordinary job.
00:15:01
Speaker
But it is. So just treat people as you would normally treat people on the street, really. But I think if you ask a soldier about what they do, what regiment they're in, and just show real interest in that. And one thing soldiers will do, they will work out very, very quickly if you don't know anything.
00:15:24
Speaker
don't pretend to know everything about
Motivations and Passion for Ministry
00:15:26
Speaker
the military. You can't do that. Even I can't do that. There's no point in me pretending I'm something I'm not because soldiers will work that out really, really quickly. I think that's quite unique to soldiers. Some of the units that I work with are the fittest in the British Army. They are strong fit.
00:15:45
Speaker
And they're not weak in the sense of they don't think they're weak But so they will they will in any sort of vulnerability they will they will work that out very quickly and You've got to accept that soldiers sense of humor is terrible And be prepared for be prepared for interesting answers, you know if you if you're a shrinking violet then
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah, you probably just watch what you ask, because you'll get interesting answers. So yeah, that could be a whole new podcast, but there we go.
00:16:21
Speaker
Well, it's it's funny you say that my first job, Lee, I went five years in a medical school in London and learning medics by mean, similar, very, very, very black humor. And I think, yeah, you're right. Similar. You had to learn not to be fazed because people would say things just to see if they'd get a rise out of you. And half the art was just sort of not banging on it. Well, I suppose
00:16:44
Speaker
I suppose the last question I have, Lee, because we're getting near 20 minutes. I mean, again, broad brush question, but you've been doing this 14 years in different times and seasons in the military. Would you consider it a tough time right now? Are you encouraged right now? What gets you excited about this kind of ministry? Because what I find
00:17:08
Speaker
What I find so fascinating talking to you, I'm clearly a man with a passion for this. So I suppose maybe that's the better question, actually. What is it that keeps you going? What gets you excited about going back in there day in, day out despite the challenges? OK, well, it's remembering where you've come from. It's amazing grace that saved you in the first place. So someone asked me what my ambitions are and goals this year, and it's just to be Christ-centered. And I think if you're Christ-centered, that's where your energy comes from.
00:17:38
Speaker
I do have a passion for the military. I always have done. I come from a military background. Father, grandfather, everyone was in the military. So I've got a passion for what I do anyway. It is hard work at the minute. The last couple of years have been very difficult for everybody. And that's affected the military as well. So trying to get up every day and dragging yourself to camp.
00:18:00
Speaker
is not always easy. I cannot pretend that it's easy. There are some days where I just don't want to do it. But what keeps me going is Christ. That's the most simple answer, is keeping Christ at the center of everything. And like I said, another prayer of mine is, Lord, if I get myself there, please will you do the rest. I know if I can get myself in a camp,
00:18:24
Speaker
then God will do the rest. He will assist me. I've learned the hard way. I cannot do any of this in my own strength at all. It's got to be complete surrender, absolute surrender. It's got to be complete trust in God.
00:18:42
Speaker
you know even if you don't see fruit for your labour that you're not I call it please don't you know don't let it be a futile invasion help me to to go and make a difference what gets me excited is when someone gives you the time of day and you can share a testimony or encourage someone I love I love to encourage people I love to encourage people and get
00:19:04
Speaker
put my arm around and I just like encouraging people. And with the message of hope that we have as Christians, it's just great. And so being in the Military Correctional Center, I want to encourage people, I want them to know that this is not the end. I did the New Year's Day service or the first one afterwards and we talked about fresh beginnings, new starts.
00:19:28
Speaker
I was able to share the gospel with them and talk about my fresh beginning, my new start. But I need a new start most of the days, which is the beauty of Christianity. So it's lifting people up. I love lifting people up. If I can manage to lift someone up during the day and encourage them, share the gospel, then that excites me immensely. Lee, that comes across really clearly. Thank you so much for your
00:19:55
Speaker
I think I'm just really struck by your single-minded and just wholehearted devotion to Jesus and your desire to love soldiers well. I was really struck by that. You love soldiers and you love God and you want them
Conclusion and Farewell
00:20:09
Speaker
to meet. Thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us. You've given us such a...
00:20:14
Speaker
Just an amazing glimpse into your work as a reader. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard about this job before, so thank you so much, and be assured of our prayers. Thanks. And thanks so much for your time. You're most welcome. Well, listeners, thanks so much for joining us, for joining me and Andy today, and we'll be back with you in about a couple of weeks with another guest, so stay tuned, and we'll see you then. Bye.