Leigh Park Initiative

(Registered Charity 1112936)

"Planting Kingdom to Grow Church"

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Tribute to Ken Goodman b 7th August 1942 - d 2nd June 2005

Over the last couple of years our church has been involved in a partnership with St John's church, which has taken shape in what we now know as Leigh Park Initiative. Over the years Christians have been concerned to demonstrate and proclaim the good news about Jesus in Leigh Park in various ways and various Christian initiatives have come and gone, with varying degrees of success.

One of these initiatives, which could in some ways be seen as one of the "parents" of Leigh Park Initiative, was the charity "Footsteps". Footsteps was Ken's brainchild and at its heart was a practical outworking of Sermon on the Mount. Ken grew vegetables on allotments and distributed them to people who for whatever reason, had difficulty budgeting for food. He worked in partnership with the local medical practice helping wean addicts off drugs, often taking them into their home. He would take people's rubbish to the tip for them, or help decorate their flats. He gave very down to earth help and, if pressed, would explain that he was motivated by the love of Jesus. Having been brought up in a children's home where he was badly treated, Ken would never turn anyone away, but he expected also them to make the effort to help themselves, and was not an easy man to fool!

Footsteps proved too much for one man and the charity eventually was closed. Ken was however, delighted at the advent of the Leigh Park Initiative and threw himself wholeheartedly into the work. Most of our early projects, especially the practical ones, were the result of his local knowledge, his vision and his determination to get on and DO something. He was a very practical man, with a flair for innovative design. Give Ken a box of rubbish and he would build something useful out of the junk. He made candle lanterns out of jamjars, broom handles and plastic waste pipes, he made electrical cable conduits out of hosepipe, and a beautiful herb garden out of railway sleepers and recycled compost. He got residents recycling their kitchen waste and digging flower beds around their apartment blocks and his efforts were recognised with a variety of awards, from the Daily Echo, East Dorset Housing Association and Wimborne in Bloom to name but a few. He seemed to be able to charm money and gifts in kind, from all sorts of local businesses, councils and voluntary organisations to get his schemes off the ground.

Ken was not a great churchgoer - I think he could never quite see the value of singing and praying and preaching while there were practical jobs to be done, but he nevertheless had a very real faith, and it was undoubtedly centred on Jesus, who was his inspiration and motivation. He did what he did because he feared God - in the old fashioned way, and because of that - he was motivated to go and share the love of Jesus in practical ways just like Jesus did. He sometimes got irritated with institutional religion in the same way that Jesus did, and in his time, ruffled the feathers of churchgoing people in Wimborne. His was very definitely a church without walls. He will be missed by many holiday-makers who enjoyed his singing in pubs, clubs and holiday camps around the south coast, where he was not averse to throwing in the odd song about Jesus.

As I write this, Ken is fighting the final skirmishes of his battle with cancer, in a hospice at Lymington, and by the time you read it I imagine that battle will be over. (Ken died on June 2nd 2005). I will miss him both as a friend and fellow labourer in the kingdom vineyard. He will leave an enormous gap on Leigh Park, and my prayer is, that in his passing, he will inspire others to see the very real need to take responsibility for their neighbourhood and environment. Last night I read to him from Matthew 25.31-40. I know he is one of the sheep. What frightens me about this passage is what it says about the goats. I know that only as I seek to DO what Jesus did, in the way that HE did it, can I make any claim to be on the ovine rather than the caprine side of the fence.