Everything has Changed and Stayed the Same
Hey! Hello! Welcome! Croeso!
Thanks for clicking on some link, somewhere on the internet and ending up here on my update page. If you don’t know me, my name is Mike Thomas. I’m a Follower of Jesus, Husband of Jan, Father of 4 amazing children, a Church Leader at Rumney Chapel and I am passionate about seeing lives transformed and communities restored through Christ centered mission.
I’ve been working in full time Christian ministry since 2004, mainly supporting the Church to reach out into the communities around them, running children’s and youth clubs and working in schools sharing my Christian faith and pointing people to Jesus. (I also own Santa’s sleigh and buy 4 tonnes of sand to create a portable beach every year, but that’s a story for another time!)
For the last 6 years I’ve been working for The Message, an amazing organisation with a heart to reach the least, the last and the lost for Jesus across the UK and the world, but back in May 2023 I felt called to return to local ministry and began to explore what that would look like for myself and my family.
On September 4th I finished my employment with The Message and jumped back in to local outreach and evangelism in east Cardiff, my home for the last 26 years, and the location of Rumney Chapel, the church I lead, alongside Mike Carr. Now, I say I jumped back in, but the reality is this is something I’ve been doing for long time. Alongside my employment as an Evangelist with The Message I never really stopped running or supporting the ministry in east Cardiff!
You could say that, although everything has changed everything has also stayed the same.
The biggest difference is that I no longer have a salary from regular employment! In some senses that’s a huge thing for us as a family, but we know that when God calls you to do something he also equipes you to do that thing.
Just in the last two weeks I’ve been in schools running Faith Space lunch clubs, leading the way with the Big Summer Mission weekend in Rumney. It’s also been great to be back in Kidz Klub and supporting The Living Room and Crossroads, two awesome outreach projects at Rumney Chapel. Coming up in the next few weeks and months we’ll be launching the Faith Space Van (more on that soon!), starting our Christmas outreach, taking 2 weeks of school assemblies in Eastern High and starting a project in St Illtyd’s Catholic High School. This is all alongside leading Rumney Chapel and the week in week out Sunday Services, children’s and youth clubs and more. There are SO many opportunities to share about Jesus just in our small part of the City.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years, its that together is always better. Of all the amazing things we’ve seen happen over our years in ministry, we can look back and say that they’ve all only been possible through God’s faithfulness and because of people just like you! It’s always been a blessing to have people stand alongside us, pray for us and support us. I want to say a massive thank you to everyone that’s stood with us on the journey so far, it really means so much to us all as a family.
If you’d like to be kept up to date with what’s going on in the ministry God has called us to then bookmark this page. I’m not promising daily updates, but I’m hoping to keep this page up to date as much as possible. If you’d like to support us practically that would be such a blessing to us. You can do this through Stewardship using this link. https://account.stewardship.org.uk/gift/start/CF3outreach?donationType=OneOff (All of our support is being raised through Rumney Chapel.)
Thank you again for standing with us.
Mike, Jan, James, Bethan, Rebekah & Katie
