Channel 2 - Interviews
Interviews from Flame CCR live times and prerecorded "Chat Room" programmes. Part of programmes broadcast on Flame CCR (Christian and Community Radio) in Merseyside and worldwide via www.flameradio.org.
Channel 2 - Interviews
CHAT ROOM - The Bogside Artists part 3 (Tom Kelly, Wellspring church, Derry) October 2018
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"TOM KELLY was born into abject poverty in Derry, Northern Ireland and into a staunch Catholic family and community. He sought meaning and new life by travelling, especially to Dublin and also London - where he was questioned by Special Branch and sent back to Derry. There, a remarkable conversion to Jesus led to Tom becoming an evangelist within his community in the middle of a low-level civil war. Tom recalls what The Troubles were like, the times when he witnessed to masked-gunmen at IRA check-points, the death-threats he's received and how he went on to start up the Wellspring Church with a simple five letter word GRACE. Tom is also part of The Bogside Artists, whose work is now recognised world-wide but ignored by Derry Council. Parts 1 and 2 of this trilogy of programmes on the Bogside Artists are also accessible via Flame CCR's LISTEN AGAIN".
And now is the time on Flames Easy R to take a look behind the studio's green door and to find out who is in today's channel. And now are you listening?
SPEAKER_06You're listening to Flame Radio on 1521 Medium Wave and online. Today I find myself in the beautiful city of Derry on the other side of the Irish Sea from Merseyside. And we're in a cafe with a couple of the Bogside artists Kevin Hasan and also Tom Kelly. And it's Tom whom we're going to be hearing more from today. Our special guest from the Wellspring Church in Derry. And Tom, just for a couple of minutes, can you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
SPEAKER_05Well, first of all, hi Merseyside. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my story and take an interest in our work. I come from the Bogside in Derry. I was born, bred there, and brought up and come from a family of uh six children. Uh my father, so there's eight of us all together. The Bogside artists are three artists, um, and unfortunately now we're two. We lost uh one of the artists uh just over a year and a half ago. He was also my brother Will, and Willie passed away, which has just sort of set us reeling, you know, after working for over coming up to 25 years now of painting murals and doing art here in the city of Derry. Um we had a rhythm and a way of working, you know. So myself and Kevin, you know, had a lot of talk and debate and discussion among ourselves, and you know, we could have easily just thrown the toil in and says we've done enough, but decided, you know, both in his memory and uh because we still have things to say in the artwork, then we decided we would keep on going. Uh that brings us up to today, in a sense. We grew up through the conflict, we lived right in the middle of at once age, we didn't think it was anything abnormal. We thought everybody lived this way, but looking back now, it was pretty abnormal. Everything from bomb explosions to all-night gun battles to knee capins to assassinations to house arrests to British Army kicking down doors, taking family members away, police force being brutally and openly sectarian, all of that we witnessed, all of that we've seen. I could go into all the gory sort of dramatic details, but I don't lean that way. We prefer, as agreed by all of us, to let our work tell the story. And again, not in a shock and awe, which seems to be where art is today, but not in that vein. But by way of a cathartic experience. So the 12 large-scale murals that you would see in Derry around the bogside uh that have become very much a tourist attraction, not that we set out to do that. I'm sure most people have seen them on the television, usually out of their context and usually misrepresented, but nonetheless, there's 12 murals that we painted and given the best years of our lives to not only paint but to constantly restore because it's a voice for a community, it's a voice for the voiceless, it's telling a very human story, it's not in support of any political organization. We the artists are fiercely independent and we paid a very high price for that, but nonetheless, we're still here today, and that's basically who I am. More importantly, in all of it, I'm a committed Christian. I guess that's I think the best way to describe it, although it conjures up all sorts of ideas of what that is. Sometimes I prefer to say a follower of Christ because that's more a statement than some sort of label. Very much in the Celtic vein of things, you know. Again, another cliche probably is to see new life breathed into an old well, is to acknowledge the Celtic uh missionary monks and monastic settlements, the Celtic saints of days gone by. But at the same time is to um see some fruit and some growth in the seeds that were planted centuries and centuries and centuries ago. And um we're beginning to see that. That's our vision, that's our goal for Wellspring, our little community Christian Celtic church in the Bogside in Derek.
SPEAKER_06Born and bred in Derry, maybe in the 1950s. What was dairy like when you were growing up before the troubles?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, again, home is home, and what you do as a child is uh you know your own imagination compensates for what you're unaware of. We lived in abject poverty, two families living in the same house. It's a three-bedroom house, outside toilets, no central heating, no double glazing, nothing of that. And it was rat-infested and damp. But every house was the same, just underlooking the dairy walls. It was funny enough called St. Columb's Wells, which might give some indication as to why we're called Wellspring. But it was home and we made our own fun and I didn't really realise just how poor we actually were until later on in life. But we did all the things that all our kids did. We had a wheel from a bike, we had a stick, and that kept us amused for a while, running after the wheel and steering it and guiding it. We had the lollipop sticks when it rained, you know, running down the side of the sidewalk and we'd have races. We did the the Conkers thing and the 15th of August was a big deal because that's when the local bone fires happened, and each street used to compete with each other as to who could have the biggest bone fire. Things like that. School was basic education. I went to a school commonly known as the We Nuns, which was basically run by nuns. And funny enough, that's where we actually meet today, Wellspring, in that very same building, you know. A lot of kids from the Bogside in particular would have used that and went to that school, you know, for generations.
SPEAKER_06And so Tom, I'm presuming therefore your background would be very much Roman Catholic if you're growing up on the Bogside. Was church attendance compulsory on a Sunday? Was yours a very Catholic household?
SPEAKER_05Well, my mother would have been a nominal sort of Catholic, you know. She would have lived under the fear of, you know, missing mass on a Sunday and being damned to hell if she did. Confessions was something that you were pushed out to every two weeks, you know. There was a lot of good things about the Catholic Church, you know, there was that sense of community which had fostered, you know, it made a big deal out of St. Columbus Day. You know, it certainly added to the community. But at the same time, there was no real mention of the love, grace, mercy, kindness of God. It was all about the rules and regulations. And there was a propensity among the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to have more favoritism towards the middle class Catholics. Obviously, because if they died, maybe they would leave their house to the church. So there wasn't really much Christianity, but there was quite a fair smatten of Catholicism, let's say, you know. At an early age I'd rejected it all. My mother would have pushed me out to mass on a Sunday. My father, he was actually um he was a thinker, you know, and he I'm sure he had his own faith of some description, you know. He was a highly disciplined and moral sort of upstanding sort of character, you know. But he enjoyed a pint at the weekend, he was a member of the community. He was a former um warrant officer in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, which is ir ironic, you know, given where we would grow up and the things that we would witness at the hands of the British Army. This would have a big effect in him just before he passed away, of natural causes, and that would have a big effect on me as well, because we were also given a fair smart of the old films on TV, you know, and as kids we would have bought our commando books and we would have gone to a little shop called Wee Johnnies where we would have swapped comics and we had the Victor and the Valiant and the Hornet. So we've always getting the whole Second World War of how the British won the war and you know, and all of that, you know. Of course, we were a bit confused when John Wayne came on the scene because then it seemed like the Americans won the war, you know, but uh we weren't really sure. I think I was in my 40s when I discovered it was actually the Russians that got into Berlin, you know, but that's another story.
SPEAKER_06Okay, Tom, you said that you rejected Catholicism and all of that. I'm presuming this was probably in your teens, by which time the troubles had begun. In the midst of all of that, when did you begin to find out about the person of Jesus? Not Catholicism, not religion. When did you first start to get closer to the person of Jesus?
SPEAKER_05Oh, I was uh just over twenty years old. I'd never heard anything of that nature that there could be anything like a personal relationship with Jesus. Even now, thinking about it, it sounds completely, you know, very, very hard for people from a religious background or even an atheistic background to grasp at. It sounds like touching on schizophrenia, you know. You mean you actually hear voices. God actually speaks to you personally. I mean, who do you think you hear voices? God actually speaks to you personally. I mean, who do you think you are? Think you are, you know. So I'm a wee guy from the bog side, you know. By the time I got to 20, I had already gone through the whole communist socialist sort of thing, which sort of ties in with republicanism, which is very much on the rise in the bog side. We had the IRA patrol in the streets, they were in control. We had free dairy, uh it was completely cut off from the rest of Ireland and Britain, more commonly known as a no-go area, but the upset was free dairy. So our our heroes early on in our teens became people like James Conley, Patrick Pierce, and even Martin Luther King and people like that, you know, uh depending on what direction you were going in. But as a young teenager full of adrenaline and and dorphins and the riots were our form of entertainment, so we were commonly rioting just about every day, and if that a riot appeared at all, you made your way to it, you know, and that was our sense of fun, you know. Not really setting out to kill anybody, but you know, when you hear your battle or your stone crashing against a sarcastic or a what we call a sixer or a pig, then um you know you had a sense of achievement. So that was um my teenage life. Um around about 15 discovered drink, discovered drugs, ran into difficulties there with uh nursing uh uh self-developed drink problem. Around about the age of 15 and a half, tried to escape this place, you know, went to Dublin, ran away from home, ended up coming back, got a job in a local butcher's which was soul destroying, you know, wrapping mints. Around about the age of uh 19, started getting the idea of maybe going to the big smoke like London. Ran into difficulties in London, typical Irish person got a job within the first week in a building site, digging holes. After a while, had this crazy idea about going to um a kibbutz in Israel back in 1978. The idea appealed to me because I was sort of hankering for some sense of community, something that was socialist, something that was not about careerism, making money, and and the idea of a kibbutz was uh very popular at the time as well. Sort of echoed the commune, which we were never ever going to get in touch with, you know, in California. But a kibbutz was sort of like second best, you know. But I went to the Israeli embassy in London, uh they gave me um all the forms to fill in. They were very encouraging. Got the forms, turned out I needed a passport, never had a passport. Went and forged the documentation, got surrounded by a special branch in the London passport office and was interrogated for a number of hours and then basically kicked out of England and sent home. I came back here not knowing who I am, what I am, where am I going. Is there a heaven, is there a hell, is there a god, is there anything? What is it all about? Began to ask the big questions that most people avoid in their life. And then I bunked on a team of Christians in a little holiday village near the Irish border called Bunkrana and thought they were completely off their head. Bumped onto them again and began to ask questions that most people asked, you know, what about evolution, what about science, what about the social aspect, you know, pitting white shirts and black kids and making them into little conservative members for the Conservative Party. All of that was sort of like going through my head, you know, giving my background, giving my education on the streets and dairy. My education basically ended when I was about 13. I did have questions, but a guy began to show me from scripture, you know, not his opinions, not his ideas, not his thoughts, you know, not what he garred up and not cliched uh quotes from whoever, but it began to show me from the word of God, just exactly about Christ, about what he really came to do, what he actually did, and how personal it really was. And uh I came along to those meetings then myself and began to ask more questions. There's an old saying, when you come to the end of yourself, you come to the beginning of God. And in a situation in the bogside, in my little house, having witnessed and seen life and death, you know, at very close quarters, and aggression and uh hatred and bitterness and all of those things, you know, both vented upon us and also returned. I've just sort of reached out and asked, you know, if you're really, really, really true and this is really really right, and if you actually really did die for me personally, and it's that personal, then I've been gonna one-way streets all my life here, you know, and uh I just sort of handed control over. It was a step of faith. I can't even say it was a prayer, but I guess it was, you know, it was from the very depth of my being. And uh I was filled from head to foot. I hadn't a clue what was happening, what was going on, but I was completely knocked out.
SPEAKER_13I knew I was gonna be able to do it.
SPEAKER_05Not only did I make a commitment here, my nickname used to be Tommy the Commie. My friends would have cracked a joke about that, you know, I was just so red, it was unbelievable. Even though I couldn't really spell communism, uh my brother actually became a communist, and he I actually read all the volumes of Kard Marx's. Well, I had done all that, you know, the dialectics, I picked it up from him, you know. But not being educated, I liked the identity and uh and I like thinking in terms of international revolution, you know, and the middle class and the rich were the enemy, you know, and uh all of that nonsense. And it was nonsense for me because the basic human nature was not being addressed, and this was. I was transformed and I knew that to be a Christian in the bogside, as opposed to being a Catholic, was tantamount to being a Protestant.
SPEAKER_06Would your life have been in danger?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, but at the same time people thought I'd just lost the plot. First night I became a Christian there was IRA checkpoints in the area. I lived right in the heart of the bogside. I mean, right smack in the middle of all of us. And they gave me a big top and chain reference bible the first night I went, and I remember walking through the bogside, coming through of an IRA checkpoint. The first night I had actually been to a Christian meeting as a Christian, and uh just been full of the Holy Spirit and coming across the center of the bogside. And the IRA guys, who I would have known like with their masks and their guns, began to see me as a holy joe, and they'd even crack jokes, you know, when I was going to the meetings. I'd seen it as a point of pride, you know. I think it was just legalistic pride, you know, but I I wasn't for hiding my Bible, you know. I had this big reference Bible, I carried it with me everywhere I went, you know, and uh used to say to me at the checkpoints, you know, uh, oh you wait or we meeting, and I would say, absolutely, praise the Lord, and they would say, Hallelujah! You know, it was crazy, you know. But uh just looking back, though, it was surreal. But yeah, I became well known around the area for being a Christian. I differentiated between that as opposed to being Catholic. Um even back in the day, there was the priest speaking from the altar about born again. I didn't label myself a born-again Christian, you know, but guess that was a popular priest speaking from the altar about born again. I didn't label myself a born-again Christian, you know, but guess that was a popular term. All I knew is I had an encounter with the real person of Jesus Christ. My life was transformed. I was filled from head to foot by the Holy Spirit. The love of God just took a hard heart out and put one of flesh in, you know, and I knew I had that experience. And I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this, you know, when you underline just about everything in the Bible, everything's making sense, everything's speaking to you. I probably make a mistake of trying to hanker back after those days as opposed to walking. By faith today, you know, and not so much leaning on feelings or experiences or divine appointments. You know, it's a day-to-day walk, you know, and uh keeping that faith when that great big thing is not around, you know. Grace is the most wonderful word and understanding that a person can grasp in in human life. To me, it is the most important word ever. And it's a beautiful word. As a Christian for the first 15 years, I didn't know that either. I mean, I was introduced to basically a street ministry. I became a Christian on a Tuesday night. On the Sunday, I was standing giving testimony in the middle of the street, along with the group that I'd become involved with. That's what they did. That's what I must do, so that's what I did. So in the early days, I became a street preacher, and that's basically what I am today. I'm a more a preacher than than anything else, you know.
SPEAKER_06Tom, how did you go on from there to end up leading what in some circles would be regarded as a charismatic fellowship, a seemingly Protestant one. Right in the middle of the box side.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I began to ask questions as a Christian about Irish culture, about Irish identity, about this whole Prozent Catholic thing, and I began to blur the whole Catholic church, and soon discovered that they were neither Prozen nor Catholic either, that they were following hard after God and trying to be obedient to whatever they were called to do. And even if that meant jumping on a boat and going out and not knowing where you were going, but they were going anyway, and so I soon began to see, yeah, there's a place here, there's space here where you could be a Christian community, and that it could be a community where people accept and understand the contradictions, you know. Our neighbors were members of the IRA, you know, they would be gun ho for Brits out and let's do as much damage as we could and freedom for Ireland. But then they would go down to the local news station and buy themselves a a Daily Mirror newspaper and walking up the street and they would be fanatical about Manchester United, you know. So I began to see these contradictions. So for Wellspring, right from the outset, I felt the Lord saying the gospel message stays the same. It's good news, not bad news. It's not laws, rules, and regulations, it's not condemning and judgmental. It is good news, it stays the same. Put the emphasis on grace because Ireland is knee deep in religion. Northern Ireland in particular is knee deep in religion, and a Christianity that sometimes leaves out the goodness, the mercy, the kindness, the love, and the acceptance of God. For me, it was the opposite. God was saying grace and love. If you love them, they'll come. If you love them genuinely, they'll come. So Wellspring was born out of that sort of thinking. And I'm trying to share the goodness of God and the grace of God. So the first thing we said was look, if you want to pray in English, you want to share in English, you want to read the scriptures right in English, feel free. But if you want to sing in Irish, you want to praise an Irish, you want to worship an Irish, Gaelic, if you want to share an Irish, feel free. That's basically the foundation that has been laid for Wellspring.
SPEAKER_02Thou win me, and thy worth.
SPEAKER_05But how we express that is in keeping with who we are as a people.
SPEAKER_06Tom, am I right in thinking that the Wellspring Fellowship used to meet in a pub called the Bogside Inn, right in the heart of the Bogside?
SPEAKER_05It was a little center adjacent to the pub, just directly behind it. Yeah, we met there for a long time. When the Bogside Artists began at the same time as Wellspring in 1994, we ran the risk of uh being three artists that were completely independent. We were trying to document our experience, we're trying to paint what we had witnessed, what we had seen, and what we'd come through ourselves. I mean, all three members of the Bogside Artists have all lost family members in this conflict. We were trying to create a narrative that would be a cathartic experience for the viewer. But we painted it first and foremost for our own people and our own community. It is their story, that it's saying, and it also gives voice to the community so that they have a voice. But unfortunately, that didn't sit well with the politicals, you know, ones that wanted to see more propaganda going up there, or ones that wanted to see their ideology going up there that was sympathetic to them. We weren't painting the murals as politicians, we were painting the murals as artists who lived through it. So there's no flag waving, no beating of drums, there's no support of this, that, or the other. We also deliberately discussed among ourselves, all three artists, that it would have an international dimension to it. So looking at our murals, young people from any conflict zone could readily identify with our work because there's no big shamrocks and no big tricolors or whatever in the murals. There's no IRA ballyclav figures. Our work was going to be distinctively different. That would create a problem also for the tourist board when the murals became very popular. Unofficially they wouldn't recognize it, but they would make vast amounts of money on the back of it. Our work is not supporting anyone, it's simply telling a very human story. And it's unique. Where else in the world would you see the crucible of a conflict where the conflict is actually graphically depicted right there in situ for the community first and foremost, and for the visitor, secondly? I guess to nutshell our work, Will put it best. He says our work is there first and foremost to edify our own community and secondly to educate the visitor, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_06And Tom, a Celtic, almost charismatic Christian fellowship, meeting in very much a traditional Catholic area with artwork that really depicts the truth of what went on during the Troubles that makes all sides uncomfortable. Does it sit comfortably with you?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I that doesn't bother me at all. Basically, I knew that getting involved in murals, which has the name for being like tribalistic street markings, for a Christian to get involved in that was gonna cause problems for their big Christian fellowships or evangelical Christian fellowships, um both the Protestant churches and the Catholic churches. I knew that from the start. But I felt led that way, I felt to go in that direction, and it was the right thing to do. Secondly, with Wellspring, it was the same. It was going to be misunderstood, it would be misrepresented. But you know what? At the end of the day, it's what I was felt I was called to do, and therefore I was obedient to that. If you live your life very concerned with the opinions of others, then um you certainly shouldn't be a Christian.
SPEAKER_06Tom, I think you've received a lot of opposition, both as the wellspring and also as the bugside artists over the years. I think your your own gallery or art studio was attacked, and I think you received death threats at the post as well, going back to the 1990s.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean opposition is something that we've experienced from all levels, from all established institutions and non-established. Yeah, we've all been listed for execution by uh the UDA. We we received a letter from Belfast, pretty authentic. We were opposed by the politicals, as I said, all the way down the line, which is ironic. In the city council, we champagne as a party challenge the bogside artists, basically question our motivation, you know. The best way to take something off someone or to take something off a community is to demonize the people first and foremost that created it. There was a lot of lame objections. The murals shouldn't be permanent, they should be transient, which brings into question Free Dairy Corner, one of the big landmarks in the city, which is very much permanent, and that's a mural, so nobody's problems with that. Also, stupid things like the murals should be less safe and more showing the blood and the gore and all of that, but we're not in the business of trying to shock. But then you also had the establishment. I mean, we've never been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, even though the bogside artists outside of here have enjoyed great acclaim. The fact is, we were invited to paint a mural for the European City of Culture, while at the same time our UK City of Culture here completely marginalized us. You heard nothing of the bogside artists, you see nothing of our work involved in that whole year-long celebration. But then the real deal, the European City of Culture, has us over in Maribor in Slovenia, with four Nobel laureates and the Dalai Lama waiting to unveil our mural that we would paint for them. Um we were invited to China as part of the Shanghai Expo. We painted a mural there, we were painted a mural right there on the mall in front of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. We even give a lecture in the Capitol building. But meanwhile, back here, it's almost like our work is really being dumbed down deliberately by the politicals, by the tourist board. Who are a little bit embarrassed by the success of it all. They've never been marketed, they've never been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ernest. I mean, this is an arts group in the city of Derry who had three exhibitions in three different continents at the same time, whose work was being photographed, fulumed and acclaimed, who featured in umpteen documentaries. The latest one actually just premiered in Rome called The Bogside Story, and yet never been supported. So it's round about now that in Northern Ireland housing executives who actually own the buildings that the murals are on, and the local city council, given scant support down through the years, have actually decided to illuminate the murals 14 years after everything else has been illuminated, like the city walls, a peace bridge, the town hall, the guild hall. But right now they're actually putting the lights on. So there is a bit of a change, a wound of change, but again you can see some of the murals are in a very sad state of disrepair, and there's been no talk or no thought given to that. So that's our next job is to try and get some support so that we can go and fix them up. So when they're lit up, that they are showing in their best light. So that's our goal this year to restore all the murals again.
SPEAKER_06Tom, I think it was Jesus who once said a prophet is welcome anywhere apart from in his hometown. Does it feel like that a bit for you at times?
SPEAKER_05Well, when it comes to Christianity, let's just say that the narrative or the Christian experience is usually very much from the over Protestant denominational background. So if you already switched on television or the news and there was a Christian from Northern Ireland, they're usually from that background and you would hear something of their story. The same applies to a Christian from Catholic background. I've been a Christian now be 40 years this year. As to our story, how we view it, the way we've seen it, how we experienced it, what our understanding of it, growing up in a very staunch IRA backyard, let's say, and walking that walk in the middle of that and understanding the sensitivities there. That's very rarely asked for. The same being that's just say for a young Palestinian Christian right now today in the heart of Ramallah on how they're walking with God and continuing to walk with God, and yet maybe the majority of people in their community or their city is Muslim or whatever. How are they faring? How are they doing? And how do they view what is portrayed as Christianity when it just seems to be so one-sided and support and yet sometimes unrecognized? They're suffering, their pain. And it almost seems that we stand by what Jesus said, you know, we must turn the other cheek, we must love our enemies, we yell with great guts and preach sermons about the good Samaritan, you know.
SPEAKER_01An expert in the law of Moses and asked Jesus a question to see what he would say. What must I do to have eternal life?
SPEAKER_07Jesus answered What is written in the script? How do you understand them?
SPEAKER_01Love your neighbours.
SPEAKER_07Leaving him going down the same road, but when he saw the man, he walked by on the other side. Later came to the same place, but when he saw the man who had been beaten up, he also went by on the other side. A man from Samaria then came travelling along that road. When he saw the man, he felt sorry for him, and went over to him. He treated his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them, and he put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next morning he gave the innkeeper two silver coins and said, Please take care of the man. If you spend more than this on him, I will pay you when I return. Then Jesus asked, which one of these three people was a real neighbor to the man who was beaten up by robbers?
SPEAKER_01The teacher answered, the one who showed pity.
SPEAKER_07Jesus said, Go and do the same.
SPEAKER_05We stand by what Jesus said. What if the good Samaritan was actually the good Palestinian, you know, or vice versa, the good Jew, if you were to tell that story in Ramallah? What if I was to illustrate that story and say was passed by by a Catholic priest, passed by by a Catholic bishop, was passed by by a good uh upstanding Protestant politician, but he was actually helped and put up and his injuries cured by a former Republican prisoner? What if the Good Samaritan was actually a former Republican prisoner? However, that's it, you know.
SPEAKER_06As somebody who has studied theology himself, I know how controversial the parable of the Good Samaritan is, beginning with the very name, the fact that Jesus chose to make the Samaritan. The despised Samaritan as the hero of the story. I think it would be true to say if Jesus had told that same story for the first time today, it's the most unlikeliest person, the most despised person in society who actually does the godly thing. Not the trained religious types, not the religious types who have got big dog collars or big parishes, but it's actually the most despised in society who do the most godliest things.
SPEAKER_05Again, you also have to challenge your own community, you know, and the gospel challenges people. I mean, uh you could reverse a number of stories and probably get yourself hung in the process, you know, but but what if you were to say that the uh centurion soldier was actually an officer in the British Army and he came up to Jesus in the middle of the bogside, and Jesus turned around with all the local people standing around, you know, listening to the wonderful word of the Lord and um armored by what he's saying and supportive of the poor and almost want to make him like the new leader of uh Derry City Council, you know. And then he turned around to uh a British army officer from the Anglican regiment, let's just say and say, Faith, like this I have not heard in the whole of Derry. You know what I'm saying? So if you want to be liked, if you want to be accepted, if you want to be loved, if you want to be lauded, if you want to be lifted up, don't be a Christian. So but at the same time I would say there is nothing else. Without Christ, there is no hope. And I've found that hope right in the most unlikeliest of places. I think it was Cory Temboom said there is no hole too dark or too deep, that Jesus isn't even deeper still. And right there in a little house on the boxide back in 1979, at the end of my teller, not knowing who I am, completely lost, I have my own experience and I will take it to my grave and beyond.
SPEAKER_02Pays me what Christ has earned and lets me go free. Washes away the stains that once coveted me, and all that I have, I lay at the feet of the wonderful Savior who loves me, wonderful love that helped in the face of death, breathing its latest breath, forgiveness for me, wonderful love whose I can break every chain, giving us life again, sending us free.
SPEAKER_06My name is John Cheek, you're listening to Flame Radio on 1521 Medium Wave and online. Our guest today has been the church leader and the artist Tom Kelly. And Tom, one final question as time is marching on. You've alluded to it a lot already. You are a man of God, and you've been a man of God throughout a low-level civil war. You've had to be a Christian during the troubles in Northern Ireland. But Tom, this God, what's he like?
SPEAKER_05This God is a God who says, Cast your cares upon me because I care for you. And I think we give a lot of concentration to our cares, but if we stop and think, he cares for me? For we me in this place. And if you discover that to be true, which I have, then it is life transforming. What's he like? He is again it's back to that word grace. That's the most faithful, the most caring, the most tender-hearted, the most loving, the most gracious person that anyone can ever encounter. To me, it is all about Jesus. Everything is about Jesus. Everything.
SPEAKER_06Yes, you are listening to Flame Radio on 1521 medium wave and online. Our guest today has been Tom Kelly. Tom, thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00For more from Green Door Studios Chatroom.
SPEAKER_09Green Door!
SPEAKER_00We hope you enjoyed this program, which is under the copyright of Rural Christian Media Limited. Details of the Flames DTR broadcast and webcast are on our website www.flameradio.org. Thank you for listening.