37% of kids in Manchester live in poverty.

Recent data revealed that 9,589—that’s 1 in 61 people—in Manchester are homeless. Of that figure, 4,678 are children.

In 2019, Manchester ranked 6 out of 326 local authorities in England, where 1 is the most deprived.

My family and I moved onto a council estate right on the edge of the city of Manchester in 2024 and planted Manchester Lutheran Church. A few months later I started sharing the Gospel on the street. It didn’t take long before one of the largest demographics of people I was talking to were those living on it.

And it was talking to homeless friends where I quickly had to learn to translate my “theological” language.

“You’re justified.”
“You’re forgiven.”
“God loves you.”

Again and again, I said these things to friends who’d been sleeping rough for months. People having all sorts of very varied histories, but—because of a series of difficult events in their lives—now all shared common experiences. Don’t camp on that street. Sleep during the day and keep moving once it gets dark. Keep your phone well hidden.

I told these friends that God genuinely loves them. That Jesus died for them. That God has forgiven them. But almost to a man the reply I got was that God must be against them—and their circumstances prove it. “He may love me, but he’s obviously angry.” “He may have forgiven, but I’m still being punished.”

That was the spur for us, as a church, to start translating the theological clarity of our Lutheran heritage into every day, down to earth language.

Isaiah the prophet assures everyone:

the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Which means that—whatever is happening, no matter how awful—it is not God punishing you for your sins.

In every day language: God’s attitude toward you does not change with your situation. It was settled at the cross. This truth, carefully revealed in the writings of the apostle Paul, and articulated with exacting precision by Luther, Melanchthon and Chemnitz, needs to be communicated to people clearly.

God’s objective goodness is not qualified by a changeable attitude. As Luther writes in the Large Catechism: the difference between true Christians and all other people is simply that Christians know God’s attitude toward them is fixed and positive. This isn’t because Christians are any different to anyone else—God’s attitude to everyone is fixed and positive in Christ. The only difference is that Christians know this, and so enjoy its benefits.

“I did everything right—why am I still broke?” is a question so many people in Manchester struggle with day in, day out. There are infinite reasons, it seems, people end up on the street: a marriage that collapsed, a career that failed, or just one knock too many that drove someone to a bottle—or worse.

In the midst of all this, people need to know that God is for them not against them.

They are not being punished. God is not venting his frustration. He is not giving people “what they deserve”.

God is in a good mood with them. Living on the street, you cannot see that by looking at your circumstances. But—and here’s the reality—no matter how you live you cannot see God’s attitude by looking at your circumstances.

Only as we look at Jesus, hanging on the cross for us, do we see God’s heart towards us. His positive attitude. His genuine, heartfelt, love and desire to pour out goodness and grace upon us.

It’s here that a conditional Gospel becomes most tempting, but also most dangerous. “Repent and God will be pleased.” “Reform your life and God will be positive toward you.” — Conditional love like this provides no real comfort, only more crushing Law, more pressure to perform, and more reason to feel despair at a terrible condition.

Because “I did everything right—why am I still broke?” is a fair question. For every messy divorce where one man falls into life in the street, another lands in a bed of roses. For every person who ended up homeless after one bottle too many, there’s another drinking too much, but still head over heels in money. The reality is: this life isn’t fair. The circumstances we live in are not just. And almost always there seems no rhyme nor reason to what happens.

But whatever our subjective circumstances, there is an objective truth God wants us to know—that he genuinely is in a good mood with us because of Jesus. As the apostle Paul writes:

I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

God wants us to know this. To be assured of it. To enjoy and take comfort from it.

But, because we cannot see and be assured of God’s love from our circumstances—God gave us a place where we can hear and receive it clearly.

This is what church is. Not a place to be told “Do better!” But the place where God gives us Jesus on the cross clearly, objectively, certainly. So that as we see him hanging there for the whole world, we see and know he hangs there for us. Come along any week, to receive exactly this:

• Sundays in Manchester at Manchester Lutheran Church, or
• Wednesdays join from anywhere online for just 30mins a week with the Confessional Lutheran Church.

Image: Matt Harrop