My past experience gives me a unique part to play

Chris Rolfe reports

Sid Thurlow was once a heroin addict, drug dealer and all-round rotten egg. He is now pastoring the recovery community alongside daily duties at his church in Southend while completing his MiT.

“With my background in addiction I have found that God can use me to reach people caught up in drugs and crime or who have been in jail, probation or rehab,” says Sid Thurlow.

“I have a key to a part of society that maybe some other pastors aren’t privy to because of my past experience.”

In his role as pastor of Southend Christian Fellowship (SCF), Sid gets to minister to the unique recovery community at the church and the city as a whole.

This all began while he was serving as a bivocational assistant pastor at Ingatestone Elim. He ran a Believers in Recovery group at Leigh Elim Church, his background in addiction, crime and drugs before finding Jesus in jail helping him build rapport with the last, the least and the lost.

When several attendees, many living in Southend, wanted to try church they flocked to nearby SCF, and when its leaders saw Sid in action they invited him to join them as a full-time pastor in 2024.

Believers in Recovery

Sid, alongside his wife Laura, continues to lead Believers in Recovery, every Thursday providing meals, 12-step/biblical teaching and discussion for up to 50 people who are struggling with addiction.

The couple, together with many faithful volunteers, support and encourage those new to faith and recovery through this ministry.

“Southend is tough and addiction is rife,” he says. “These guys draw hope from seeing me get clean and turn my life around.

“This makes it easier to share the Gospel with a group that church has traditionally struggled to reach and accommodate.”

Believers in Recovery supports those directly impacted by addiction but also those indirectly impacted, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents and all those less often noticed in the field of fire.

“So often our loved ones get forgotten in the scramble to focus on the addict and their recovery. We want to offer encouragement and hope to them too.

“In Christian circles, we get excited about people like me, the bad boy made good, but my wife Laura was part of the painful journey of my addiction for 15 years too, and probably suffered more.

“I was self-centred and to some degree oblivious. She was very present. The memories are very real for Laura and others like her.”

Sundays at Southend

Many of the Believers in Recovery group come to SCF’s Sunday services.

“On any given week, we have a diverse congregation of up to 200 adults with 30-40 from Believers in Recovery,” says Sid.

This means the church offers a service with a difference.

“Most people’s experience of church is coming in, standing for worship, then sitting still for the message, except if you need the toilet maybe.

“Here at SCF, people arrive early to find community and fellowship in our café area. During the meeting, there’s people running around, dancing and worshipping with flags.

“While the main body of the church worships others are moving around and having conversations, greeting one another, praying and building family.

“It’s a cultural shift to accommodate a society that doesn’t find it easy to sit still. Some struggle with the change, others love it.

“These guys find solace in seeing others who look like them in church. They love it and the turnarounds we’re seeing are incredible.”

Faith in fractured lives

Sid says one of his big privileges is one-to-one ministry, where God moves time and again.

“It’s often the people you’d least expect, big, shaved-head guys with tattoos on their necks, or women who’ve had really tough lives, coming to faith and going through the waters of baptism. It’s astonishing the way God moves.”

In 2025, SCF saw 54 salvations, 40 of which took place in Sid’s office or in the main hall.

“Holding hands together, more often than not, tears flow as the Holy Spirit brings new life to dry bones.

They don’t all stay, Sid admits. Some have fallen away by choice or have returned home to another part of the country after going through their recovery in Southend.

“That’s just part of the journey, especially with the broken lives that many of them come from.

“I just trust God with them.”

24/7 faith life

Sid recognises that supporting people means offering opportunities to connect throughout the week, so he works hard to facilitate relationship-building outside of Sunday services.

At the church’s café, for example, you’ll regularly find people completing homework before or after a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, which draws others in too.

“You’ll see the guys in recovery talking to older people, or people with learning difficulties, all interacting,” he says.

Then, once a month, the church’s “Let’s Talk” evening brings people together to navigate key topics, everything from Ouija boards, yoga, sex and relationships to whether Christians ought to get tattoos and how they should handle money.

Sid has encouraged some more unusual discipleship friendships too.

He has launched a discipleship programme which intentionally pairs people from the recovery community with mature Christians.

“We encourage them to meet once a week for a coffee, a walk and Bible study to make friends. Around 18 of them are now in discipleship relationships that never would take place otherwise.”

All this creates a welcoming place for the recovery community to find love, acceptance and a home in church, says Sid.

“We’re all far from perfect and we’re all walking this journey of life together.

“The more together we are the better we’ll be, and the more we’ll find Christ as we go.”

Ephesians 4:2-4 says: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Sid says: “Unity in the Spirit brings life, freedom and a togetherness found nowhere but the kingdom of God. This is our call. The Spirit empowers us to walk in His fruit; we do our best and leave the rest to Him.”

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