I reached a crossroads and found the path of life

From Sunday School kid to Senior Pastor — Steve Reilly’s full-circle story

The kids team on Steve Reilly’s estate would never have imagined the wriggling seven-year-old in front of them would one day be their pastor. Yet Steve has spent 38 years leading the church that planted his childhood Sunday school.

As the parents of five young children on the Gipton estate in the 1960s, Steve Reilly’s parents had it tough. Poverty blighted their Leeds council estate. His dad was in and out of work, and money was tight. So when Bridge Street Church planted a Sunday school there in 1968, the couple seized the chance for some peace and free childcare and sent the kids off to it fast.

“I would have said the leaders needed their heads read for starting something on Gipton, but we liked the Sunday school,” says Steve.

“The most striking thing was the love and care they showed week in and week out. The hope and direction they gave us was life-changing.”

Among the team that launched it was Colin Wilson and Louis McGowan. Louis supported Steve and his family each week, having met him when he gathered kids on the grass to share Bible stories.

“It was generous of him because we weren’t always in a sit-down-and-listen mood!” laughs Steve.

For a lad who’d barely left his estate, Louis’s invitation to attend Bridge Street’s youth group in the city was an adventure for Steve. It was a faith-builder too and he came to faith at twelve.

Five years later, he left school to begin an engineering apprenticeship. His wages opened a new world and his faith took a backseat for a while, but he kept attending the youth group. The turning point came when the group went to an Elim conference.

“The guest speaker was Paul Walker. He preached that someone was at a crossroads, with one foot in the world and one in the church. That was absolutely me! He said now was the time to decide, so I responded. I went back to work and knew everything was different.”

Steve got involved with youthwork, joining the church team, launching school Christian Unions and volunteering to take assemblies. When his first stab at one went well, word got around the neighbouring headteachers. Before long he was working with 18 schools.

Half time

“This was 1986 and it was then that the Bridge Street elders said, ‘We can see God’s got his hand on your life. We’d like you to become our full-time youth pastor,’” says Steve.

The move meant halving his wages and giving up the engineering job he loved, but Steve knew God was calling him into ministry. He held the youth role for ten years, later becoming associate pastor in 2010.

In 2000, Steve helped found a project to support families on tough estates just like his — which bears all the hallmarks of the youthwork that brought him to faith.

Kidz Klub was birthed when the UK trend for afternoon Sunday schools shifted to morning lessons integrated within church services, and the focus on unchurched families was lost.

“A couple we knew came back from a conference full of the heart to start a bus ministry, alongside another couple who had a passion for reaching unchurched children,” he says.

“We hired a bus and began bussing kids into church from different estates – before bussing kids around was a thing anywhere else.

“Twenty-five years later it’s still going as a partnership between 25 churches here. Once a month on Monday evenings we send seven double-decker buses across the city to the most challenging estates, with the highest deprivation and poverty levels, and bus in around 400 children.

“One of my favourite things to see on those evenings is when the team ask who has prayer needs and seeing all those hands go up. Kids in their teens who have become helpers sit and pray with the other kids alongside the leaders.”

Home visits

Just as Steve and his family once benefited from home visits from Louis, more than 1,000 families are cared for in that way now too – with visits made every single week to each family.

The Kidz Klub’s team of eleven staff and 80 volunteers made an incredible 27,285 visits in the past year, maintaining a consistent presence on the streets. Increasingly, they now meet adults who used to attend Kidz Klub as children.

Kidz Klub also runs community-based outdoor and discipleship groups called Hub Klubs in nine areas across Leeds. Here, children are asked how they think they could make a difference in their area and have come up with all sorts of suggestions, from litter picking to a children’s choir that visits local care homes.

In the school holidays, community activities have included tree planting and Happy Tea street parties, while summer holiday trips include summer camps and seaside days. Meanwhile, food hampers are distributed to 300 of the poorest families each year and a café for parents is the place to come for support and help with benefits applications.

In every activity the gospel is shared and hundreds of children — and some parents — have come to faith.

“If there’s a church in someone’s area we encourage kids to join the youth work there,” says Steve. “Two years ago we even had a church planted in one part of the city just to take in the Kidz Klub families.”

As Steve now looks ahead to retirement in two years, he is thrilled to be investing in families in the life-changing ways he once experienced himself. And a particular joy is the fact that Louis and Colin are still members of Steve’s church today.

“I can’t imagine when Louis met me as a seven-year-old while trying to tell us stories on the street in Gipton that he ever thought I’d end up as his pastor,” he laughs. “I thank him every time I see him!”

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.