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This is a text-only version of an article first published on Thursday, 18 April 2013. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
Steve Johnson tells Jo Duckles how a heart breaking experience of poverty in a Kenyan slum set him on his journey working as a Regional Co-ordinator for Christian Aid. Steve experienced a strong sense of justice at an early age when his church youth group got involved in projects around the plight of street children in Brazil.
The 38-year-old, who works in a team of regional co-ordinators who cover the Oxford Diocese, grew up in Herefordshire.
He first went to church when he became a Christian aged 14 and got involved in a local Baptist congregation.
Although he sensed God was calling him to some sort of ministry, he studied Tourism Management in Canterbury, where he says he learned invaluable transferable skills.
There he took on the role of warden in the college chapel.
This saw him running services and doing pastoral work alongside another warden. Neither were from an Anglican background and he says the more traditional approach to services was a "steep learning curve. " On graduating Steve went home and worked in a DIY store for a year to pay off his student debts.
During that time a friend from university called and encouraged him to apply for a role as a church youth worker in Worthing. "I went down to Worthing and sat in the Sunday morning service and said to God 'If this is where you want me, give me a sign. ' During the children's talk the vicar came up to me and said 'You look like a smartly dressed guy, can you take these invitations to the young people. ' The talk was on the Parable of the great banquet. "Steve went on to spend nine years working with a group of four churches that had never previously had a youth worker, building up the youth ministry.
I worked with a really good group of young people and volunteers. They were amazing young people following God.
"It was a privilege to be part of it and to see what God was doing in their lives. "Towards the end of my time there I felt that God was saying that the young people need to be out of their comfort zone and so we went out to visit one of the parish's Church Mission Society mission partners. "Steve visited Rwanda for three weeks taking a group of 12 young people.
"It was an amazing time to see God working in their lives, to see what God was doing in his Church.
It was also sobering to see first-hand the effects of poverty as well as the legacy of the recent genocide. "He describes visiting a school, that looked normal, from the outside, but was actually a genocide memorial, where more than 20,000 people were killed during the 1994 killings. Inside there were row upon row of dead bodies.
"The bodies were there as a reminder that this should never happen again and that we should not let it," says Steve. A year later Steve joined the Church Mission Society in Oxford, as the short term mission co-ordinator.
The final project before leaving Worthing, was to take young people to Zambia. "It was great that elements of my parish role were there in the CMS role.
In particular the pastoral side of things. " During his four-and-a-half years at CMS, Steve found himself spending a month in Kenya and had two visits to the Democratic Republic of Congo with short term mission teams.
"It was a privileged role of working with people and seeing what God's doing around the world," he said. "I remember being in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009 in the middle of the Kibera slum, which is one of the largest slums in Africa and I just really felt God break my heart for poverty in quite a visible way.
I was crying like a baby as I walked around the slum.
I just prayed and asked God why I was crying and what was he doing and what came to mind was a line from the worship song that I has sung many times 'Break my heart for what breaks yours'. "The Kibera slum was made famous when it was featured on Comic Relief in 2011 as celebrities lived there for a week, highlighting the conditions many of the world's poorest people live in. Steve says his experience unsettled him and set him on a journey, that eventually led him to his current role.
"Christian Aid is brilliant in working with partners, not just globally, but also locally.
As a relational person, this is what motivates me in my work, real partnerships.
Through my role I have contact with communities in our region, with amazing people who organise Christian Aid events on a day-to-day basis, not just during Christian Aid Week (12 to 18 May). "A big part of my role is meeting church leaders, speaking at services on Sundays, midweek groups or Churches Together meetings.
2013 is an important year to end hunger and Christian Aid is part of the coalition for the 'Enough food for everyone IF' campaign.
Locally we are working on how we can get churches into the centre of this important campaign.
Steve is married to Lindsay and the couple have a daughter, Esther, two. They worship at Christ Church, Abingdon.