Just over a year ago, rock singer, musician and non-Christian, Jim Johnson, had a flyer put through his letter box from the new vicar of St Oswald's in Bidston, inviting people to church. Upon reading it, Jim was very moved and felt compelled to go to church.
The day he chose to go was on Christmas Eve, for Mass. He took his wife and children and while there he introduced himself to Revd Joe Smith, the vicar, saying "I'm here because of your silly flyer." Jim also explained that he was going through a difficult time and that his mother had died earlier in the year. It was a busy evening, but Joe vowed to get back in touch with Jim, which he did.
The two have been meeting regularly ever since. Sometimes they talk about God, sometimes they talk about their shared interest in music, and sometimes they just shoot the breeze and put the world to rights.
Jim comes from a family of Christians and also hardened atheists and doesn't profess to be a Christian himself, but this hasn't stopped Jim from becoming good friends with his local vicar and taking an active interest in helping the church. Jim says: “Joe had been really kind towards me after my mum died last year and we stayed in touch and became friends. Being relatively new to the Merseyside area, he was looking for ideas to raise awareness of the Warm spaces project on the Wirral supported by Wirral Borough Council and I mentioned that my band We’re All Aliens were planning to record and release a new version of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘The Power of Love’ in time for Christmas. And maybe if we created an info video about the project with the track over the top that we might be able to share it on social media. The music video can be seen here.
In the video below, Joe and Jim chat about how Joe's flyer sparked something in Jim to walk into his local church. While Jim is non-comital about his faith, both he and Joe recognise that each of them is more enlightened for having met the other.
Jim's band is called 'We're All Aliens' and their music is available to stream on Spotify
