From Dealer to Healer

From a terrifying drug dealer and addict operating in the violent criminal underworld of ’90s Britain, to a compassionate man of God dedicating his life to helping people on the streets of Burnley – Pastor Mick’s redemption has been nothing short of miraculous…

Pastor Mick Fleming’s life has never been an easy one. After a traumatic childhood – including being raped by a stranger and the sudden death of his much-loved older sister soon after – Mick turned to violence. “I was done with fear,” he writes. “Nothing was going to hurt me now…. My mission was to destroy. And to take.”

And take he did – becoming a drug runner and debt collector, using whatever means necessary to collect what was due to him and others. So how did an underworld fixer go from scoring drugs to scoring happiness instead? I decided to find out when I visited Pastor Mick at his “21st Century cathedral” in Burnley – not bad considering he began by standing outside McDonald’s in Burnley with a suitcase filled with butties, coffee and clothes…

In the December of 2020, and in the throes of the Covid pandemic, Pastor Mick Fleming shot to fame when he became the subject of a BBC News report watched by 50 million. After establishing ‘Church on the Street’, a church and a project that included delivering food, fridges and even beds to households in need, Mick and his team became a lifeline for families and those struggling with poverty, loneliness and mental health issues.

That was almost two years ago, and a lot has happened since then. Pastor Mick secured a book deal launching his first book, ‘Blown Away: From Drug Dealer to Life Bringer’, in September this year – becoming a best-seller within a week. His next book, ‘Walk In My Shoes’ will be Pastor Mick’s story combined with tales of the people whom he has met throughout his journey.

“If I want to write something, I have to want to write it, because I’m dyslexic and I have Irlen syndrome (a difficulty with visual perceptual processing) which is why I wear these glasses. Because the book took off, they gave me a deal to write another book. I record it all straight off my head, then put some sense in it, so for this new book I’ll find six or eight of other people’s stories and find a thread that will join it all together.”

THERE WAS A COLDNESS IN ME THAT WAS MENTALLY, ALMOST SPIRITUALLY, DEMONIC.

Oh, and did I mention he’s also the inspiration behind a new Netflix series, The Pastor? Waterloo Road’s William Ash and Gavin and Stacey’s Andrew Knott are currently in early production and are working with Mick to really understand his story. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?

They’re doing an eight-part series, with a high budget of about a million and a half per episode. It’s a lot of money. I’m hoping COTS gets some of that. The money from the book is all going to the church to ensure that it will be around long after I’ve gone which is just brilliant. The added fame will surely help raise awareness to the work of COTS, but Mick is already somewhat of a local celebrity, and with over 200 people gathering for Sunday service on a weekly basis, COTS is certainly drawing in the crowds.

“Nobody’s barred if we do communion, it’s gluten-free bread and juice instead of wine so we aren’t barring anyone,” says Pastor Mick. “The language and the way I preach makes the bible understandable to people, I do things like likening St Peter to working with the County Council on the local roads”

“In that way I’m probably the most unreligious pastor that I know,” he laughs. “It’s not the structure I’m interested in. I am under the authority of Bishop Stephen, so I have to be accountable to him for what I do, which is really good for me actually, but being out there among the people is how I express my faith. I always say you’ve never seen a stained-glass window feed anybody!”

One particularly heart-warming story that really emphasises the positive influence of COTS comes during a Royal visit in early 2022. “I had the pleasure of meeting HRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. “They were so ‘down to earth’,” says Mick.

The first thing Prince William said to me was, ‘oh Pastor Mick the main man!’. They were interested in what we were doing for genuine reasons. We had a little boy called Deacon whose mum’s funeral we did because the family couldn’t afford it, I asked him what he wanted to say when his mum died, and he said ‘it shouldn’t be like this. I’m only 10.’ So, when I knew Prince William and Kate were coming, I invited him and his great-grandma along.

William was talking to him and asked how he knew me, he said, ‘well he did my mum’s funeral, we couldn’t afford it,’ and William said back ‘well, you know I lost my mum’ and the lad had never met anybody who had been through the same as him, and William gave him loads of advice, and that was what he needed.” Prince William also wrote the forward to Pastor Mick’s recent autobiography.

As I could tell immediately after meeting Mick, COTS is a welcoming, comfortable and safe environment. Pastor Mick was eager to explain how this is important to him, “often, churches show you sympathy, but it’s the empathy that is lacking – they don’t know what to do with you. But here people have the freedom to be who they are. Staff and volunteers can come in every day. People, including myself, can confess. There’s no pretending. And because we’re all ‘ill’ together, it’s almost more like a hospital than a church. People come to get better.”

Mick describes his previous mental state as an illness, something that manifested because he stayed trapped in his own thinking. “There was a coldness in me that was mentally, almost spiritually, demonic. I’d look in the mirror and laugh. It was just horrible. I started to unravel and implode mentally. I started doing things in Burnley, in my hometown. I have only been convicted for very few things, but I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. I was just a horrible, horrible person. Of course, there were moments when I was kind and nice, I had my three children for example, but I was just lost in it all and I didn’t know who I was.

IF I COULD SPEAK TO MY 11-YEAR-OLD SELF AGAIN, I’D JUST WANT HIM TO LET PEOPLE LOVE HIM

“If I could speak to my 11-year-old self again, I’d just 11-year-old Mick want him to let people love him. I’m sure people were trying to help me, I’m sure they were trying to love and care for me, but I didn’t let them. What the public didn’t realise was that Pastor Mick was raped in childhood by a stranger, lost his older sister and turned to drugs. That led him to a life of crime, which spiralled out of control until the day arrived when he found himself waiting to shoot a man who emerged from a gym with his two small children.

Having an epiphany, Mick instead turned the gun on himself but miraculously survived. After a long road to recovery, during which he was unhoused, Pastor Mick even met the man who raped
him, a man he had long fantasised about murdering. Instead, he helped the man conquer his alcoholism, never once telling him about their horrific connection.

“At that time, I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t want to live,” he explains. “When I was in the psychiatric unit there was a lad who committed suicide, and his notion was all about darkness and mine is now all about light. I always felt there was a purpose beyond. His dad is one of the councillors who works for us now.”

What became clear after reading Pastor Mick’s book is that he now feels that the Lord, in many different guises, was with him the whole time and that it was only once Mick changed his mindset that he could see it. On one occasion, Mick remembers seeing a seven-foot angel standing at the bottom of his bed. “Either it was real, or it was God working through my illness – but really, it doesn’t matter, because the outcomes of it are most important. That is what matters. Now I’m happily married to my third wife, Sarah, I have responsibilities and I am certain I am a better person now that I have ever been!

“It was only once I really truthfully accepted there was a power bigger than me, what I call God, that I could start to see the world differently. It was like a spiritual awakening and acknowledging something bigger than myself was a sort of ego deflation.”

It is through this religious awakening that Mick explains his road to recovery. “If you follow the principles of honesty, unselfishness, purity and love then you can’t relapse. You are left with a pattern to live by – a journey to follow Jesus. I see things like shame and guilt as God showing you your sin – it’s not the devil within you, but the Holy Spirit guiding you on where to improve. If I say it is all God, it becomes rather dangerous because then you don’t do anything to try to recover, but if you work with God, if you understand him and follow those principles, I see it as impossible to drink or take drugs.

“I think that is why I would say Samson is my favourite Biblical character.” Mick fondly recounts the story of the legendary biblical warrior, renowned for his immense strength, “he turned to God right at the end even though it cost him his life. He was full of pride and arrogance, yet God still welcomed him back. I like that story not because of Samson’s strength or power, but because he got it wrong. And he was still able to do what God wanted, even right at the very end.”

Pastor Mick’s work is more important now than ever. “As my life gets better, there’s more tragedy outside of myself because I’m interacting with people who are really struggling. The average day for me can be a rape victim, a starving child, a pensioner who hasn’t eaten for four or five days, someone who wants to kill themselves, a parent who cannot afford a funeral for their child. And it’s far worse now than it was during the pandemic. Far worse.”

Since the continual hardship thrust upon us during Covid, Pastor Mick has noticed an increase in people reaching out for help. “During the pandemic, people,generally, had an excess of money as there was nothing really to spend it on.” The sense of communal suffering Covid brought meant people were very forthcoming in giving their extras to charity. He contrasts that to now, during the cost-of-living crisis, when people have no choice but to keep what they’ve got out of fear that they won’t be able to manage without it. “Simply put, there’s more people needing help, but less resources to give those people the help they need.

“We’ve set our stall up to deal with it. There’s been new hubs set up here and there, but we’ve been doing it for years. There’s been a need for it for years. It’s not new. Here we have NHS workers who help us. We have the Hep C and mental health team that come in as well, along with our own councillors that we pay.

“Everything is free. We don’t charge for anything. We have hot food served every day and a foodbank too. We have washers and dryers, we have a clothes bank, we have showers for people who can’t afford their gas and electric bills. We even have a hairdresser who’s always inundated when they come in!”

IF YOU FOLLOW THE PRINCIPLES OF HONESTY, UNSELFISHNESS, PURITY AND LOVE THEN YOU CAN’T RELAPSE.

Following his BBC News report in 2020, stats were revealed that found, in January 2021, Burnley residents were 60% more likely to die than anywhere else in the country. Death, Pastor Mick explains, is linked intrinsically to poverty, and with poverty rising at an alarming rate this only looks to be getting worse. Mick explains that with this increase in poverty comes and increase in exploitation, manipulation, and evil. “I’ve never known evil on the scale it is today,” Mick says, “the things I am dealing with – things like child trafficking, children being schooled, groomed and manipulated into selling drugs, sexual abuse, rape, people having guns put to their heads – it’s just pure evil, and I have never seen it on this scale. Never. And it is here in Burnley, here in Colne, Nelson, Barnoldswick, all over the place. All of this appears hidden, it’s underneath the surface, and whilst people think they see it, they really don’t.”

Well established in Burnley, Pastor Mick also has outreach centres in Preston and Barnoldswick. “We’ve got three shops in Barnoldswick,” says Pastor Mick, “it’s the best way to interact with the community rather than a church. We have the Loaves and Fishes café; the charity shop and we’ve recently opened a children’s shop.” The fact that Pastor Mick can offer that warmth and belonging to people through COTS is certainly what Jesus would have wanted. He even recalls how he has frequently received death threats from those experiencing a kind of ‘spiritual jealousy’. “It is odd that someone doing good is seen as a threat. Though to be honest it doesn’t bother me,’ he jokes, ‘as after all I have God on my side! But the fact that I get hate from doing what God wants tells me I’m doing it right though, because I suppose that’s what Jesus got in his time.”

It is hard to overstate the sheer difference COTS’s work has made to the communities in and around Burnley.Around 15 million people are living in poverty in the UK at the moment, and with this number only growing larger, charitable support is needed now more than ever. We can be assured that the rigorous work of Pastor Mick and Church on the Street will continue, but in times as trying as these, support is always needed.

For those wanting to get involved, to support, donate, or buy Pastor Mick’s latestbook – visit cots-ministries.co.uk

NorthernLife Nov/Dec 22