Christian Viewpoint: Terrible tragedies in a hard life led to true calling

THREE times the angel appeared to Mick Fleming, giving precise instructions which he followed, writes John Dempster.

People have suggested these visions were phantoms conjured by psychosis, but what matters to Mick is that the angel’s words changed his life.

Pastor Mick has featured in national media recently in connection with the food bank and addiction recovery programme he runs in Burnley, Lancashire.

Raised in a Catholic family, Mick was traumatised at the age of 11 by two events on consecutive days – his brutal rape on the way to school, and a sister’s sudden death.

This trauma was the gateway to years of addiction and crime. But criminality and violence weren’t the inevitable consequences of the trauma. Mick admits he chose acts of darkness, at times aware of aligning himself with a malevolent presence.

But, as he tells us in his book Power in the Name of Jesus he discovers that God does amazing. In despair, he tries to take his life, but a previously-reliable gun freezes. He journeys through psychiatric unit, rehab and homelessness, and is helped and supported. He finds forgiveness and zest. He is reconciled with his family.

The inner promptings of God guide and empower him as he journeys with those in desperate need. Local agencies notice people’s lives are being changed. Mick studies theology, and is ordained. His daily life reads like the story of Jesus.

I was moved to see Pastor Mick filmed in a rehab group. “I’m a (recovering) addict. I’m lost. I struggle.”

Such humility is the measure of the man. In praying with people or discussing the Bible with them he is not the teacher, rather one of two equals, brothers encountering God together. Mick doesn’t give us the option of putting him on a pedestal as a super-Christian. For him it is the living Jesus who overcomes darkness and transforms lives. And we all need the forgiveness which can only be received as a gift from God, through the death of Jesus who died “the just for the unjust”. Jesus is the hero.

Mick describes visiting a church when he was homeless. He was kindly given a cup of tea. Back on the street, another homeless man gave him a hat, put a coat around his shoulders, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, gave him a drink. Mick says: “I felt I met Jesus in that homeless man and not in the church.” The man on the street knew what he was going through, and acted accordingly.

Now, Mick’s life is “amazing,” he says. “I’m able to laugh and cry when I need to, able to love. And most of all,” he adds, voice breaking, “I can let people love me.”

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