John Holmes: Passionate Person, Passionate Faith

You may have seen on television and elsewhere the advertisements promoting the North East Region.  They summarise the real attraction of the region as being Passionate People, Passionate Places. They were conceived and sponsored by the organisation that John Holmes works for, as the Director of Regeneration and Tourism of the Regional Development Agency, called One North East.

John Holmes is himself a passionate person with a passionate faith.  He is a person who cares deeply about building and regenerating the sort of community life that brings the best out in people.

John grew up as an only child in a tight-knit community near Durham and attended school in Spennymoor.  His parents attended the local Methodist Church and their faith shaped family life. They were very loving and encouraging people who worked hard to make the best of the resources that they had.

John remembers how his father, who was a toolmaker and was very clever with his hands, gave freely and generously of his time and skill to help neighbours and friends.  John’s father also loved music. He played as a bandsman and was a member of the DLI and also the Green Howard’s.  He was often to be found at the  ‘Durham Big Meeting’ playing in the band.  This kind of strong community living has shaped many lives in County Durham over the years, and is something of deep value.

John studied for a degree in Surveying in Newcastle and married in the year he graduated.  During the early stages of his career he worked as a Project Manager at Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire.  Shortly after his father’s death, John and his family returned to the North East and by chance found themselves living next door to a Baptist Church.  This move was to have a profound effect on their spiritual journeys. “Our son was going to the Baptist church and was friendly with the Pastor’s son.  Before long we found ourselves drawn into this community, recommitted our lives and shortly afterwards were baptised.”

Not long after this John and his family, along with a small group of close friends set up a Christian Fellowship in Corbridge called ‘Stepping Stones’.  “This fellowship is like an extended family and it was here that I really understood for the first time how my faith in God really could affect every part of my life and my work.  It was here I discovered for the first time that God really was interested in the things I did at work and in every other part of my life.  Accepting that reality made all the difference to me.”

Around that time, some twenty years ago, John was offered the chance to go on secondment to work in Central Government as an Inner City Advisor.  This was shortly after the riots in Toxteth and Brixton. This period marked the beginning of a strong drive towards urban regeneration and John was at the very heart of policy making in this area. “It meant I was away from home a great deal with lots of travelling.  I spent three days a week in Westminster and the rest of the time in cities around the country. This was a very demanding but exciting time in my career working directly for a government minister.”

At the end of the secondment John went back to his previous job but before long an opportunity arose as a Project Director at the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation.  This seemed an ideal opportunity for John to put into practice in the North East the experience he had gained in his secondment with central government albeit in a very tough political environment.  It also seems that this was the job that God had been preparing him to do for some time now.

“My main project was to lead the regeneration of Royal Quays at North Tyneside.  This was former dockland that had fallen into decline.  Across the road from Royal Quays is the Meadowell estate, which had itself experienced riots in 1991.  At the time this was a seriously deprived estate which had many social issues and a serious drugs problem.”  John was immediately struck by the huge contrast in quality of life here compared with his own experience of the tight-knit community in which he had grown up.  However John was also now in a position from which he could do something about the unhappy and painful conditions that he met.

“At the time my Chief Executive, made it very clear to me that I was facing an enormous challenge.  He went on to say, in a prophetic way, that if the job is worth doing then it will be against the odds at every stage … and he was right.”  John was quite convinced that he had a spiritual battle on his hands as well as the social, political and economic struggles that he had to contend with.

There was a great deal of cynicism from local people about what Development Corporations were doing at the time.  “People desperately needed to be more involved in shaping their futures and we really had to work very hard at this. It was quite usual to be out 3 nights per week, consulting and talking with groups in the communities of Meadowell, Howden and North Shields.  It was important to present the physical, economic and social benefits for the wider areas and to demonstrate that we were serious about establishing sustainable communities.”

It was at this time that John’s Fellowship Group was giving him very positive spiritual support. “There was a network of Christians around me who I knew were praying hard for me in my work.  At one stage a group from Stepping Stones came and ‘prayer walked’ the site at North Tyneside.  They prayed for God’s blessing on the land, the people who lived and worked there, and for the work of regeneration in this difficult place”

John described how in the same way that the regeneration effort was taking place with physical developments coming out of the ground, so the prayer efforts were seeking to do the same for the spiritual contaminants that dragged people down. “There were a lot of negative attitudes and hopelessness around, which we had to contend with.  We had to really hang on to a vision that things could be better.”

It was at a meeting in the Methodist Church in North Shields one Saturday morning well into the life of the project, that someone suggested that it would be good to have a biblical inscription on the site, to mark the fact that regeneration is the work of God.  John already had one in his mind that had come to him two years previously. So he suggested  Isaiah 55:Instead of a thorn bush the myrtle will grow and this shall be an everlasting sign which will not be destroyed’

And so it was that this verse was inscribed on an 8 feet high rock that became known at the time as the ‘Isaiah Rock’. Its unveiling was a really exciting community event.  This was a powerful moment for John and those who had supported him with their prayers.  “God is with us whether we recognise it at the time or not.  He is present in the ordinary and messy places of life.  He cares about His people and gives them the strength to make a new vision come to life.”

John’s continuing passion for people, for communities and for the new hope that regeneration can bring is infectious.  However John is clear that all this is only made possible through the grace of the God who brings new life out of desperate situations and calls us to work hand in hand with Him in His mission of love to His world.