Podcast: Seeing God at Work in our Armed Forces

Affinity podcast hosts Graham Nicholls and Lizzie Harewood sit down with Martin Gliniecki from SASRA (The Soldiers’ and Aviators’ Scripture Readers Association) to talk about:

• his history with the armed forces and how he became a Christian during his time serving with the army;
• the different ways human beings can respond to extraordinary evil;
• what SASRA does and why, as well as its amazing recent growth;
• growing individualism in Britain and its impact on and contrast with the armed forces;
• morale in the armed forces and the many spiritual opportunities;
• how churches can serve veterans as well as those currently in the military;
• how to find out more about and support SASRA.

Graham Nicholls (0:11) 

Welcome to Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast. My name is Graham Nicholls and with me is Lizzie Harewood.  Hello Lizzie.

Lizzie Harewood (0:19) 

Hi Graham.

Graham Nicholls (0:21) 

Very nice to see you and we have Martin Gliniecki who is from SASRA. Martin, welcome to the Affinity Podcast.

Martin Gliniecki (0:31) 

Thank you very much indeed, it’s a wonderful opportunity to be with you, thank you.

Graham Nicholls (0:35) 

Yeah, so we’re going to get into the work of SASRA a bit – but just tell us a little bit about yourself and particularly your own experience of the armed forces.

Martin Gliniecki (0:45) 

Yes, well I was born in Britain, Yorkshire and I went to university in Manchester and during that time I was excited by the armed forces. I’d seen things on TV, particularly Northern Ireland and bomb disposal activities and I thought that was quite exciting. I joined the army, I joined the Royal Army Ordnance School. I was commissioned in 1984 and had a career of 34 years in the armed forces, did a lot of work in the bomb disposal area, so that was my military perspective of it. I came out of a period of time where many schools had assemblies, so I had an understanding of a Christian foundation but I had no faith to call anything and it was when I was in the armed forces and witnessing some of the activities of basically people doing dreadful things to other people that I started to think about meaning and purpose. 

Martin Gliniecki (1:39) 

I think the birth of my first child with my wife Sue also had an enormous effect on me asking questions about meaning and purpose, but really I’d come to a point as a mathematician and then a chemical engineer that science determined everything and I only needed a scientific lens and if I didn’t know or we didn’t know what was the way that things worked then we’d find them out in some time in the future. But it was that search of purpose and meaning and understanding and why was I here and why did I have a conscience and having come from a sort of a Christian basis that led me back to thinking about faith and I had during my armed services some very godly chaplains who realised exactly what I was, they understood what I was and they discipled me tremendously and that grew my faith and later on in my career probably in my late 20s to my early 30s it was absolutely clear to me that there was a real person called Jesus that had lived and died and was resurrected and the evidence was stronger than the evidence for the science of evolution and history and I committed myself to Jesus at that time and I’ve been a faithful Christian ever since, trying to disciple others.

Martin Gliniecki (3:02)

I did about five years with the civil service when I left the armed forces and finishing with the Ministry of Defence, the defence nuclear organisation using my chemical engineering experience and then this role at SASRA came up as the executive director and by that time I’d not only become a chemical engineer but I’d read theology, I’d done a master’s dissertation and I did a Doctor of Philosophy at Oxford in the Faculty of Theology and so I’d become a very strong Christian. I needed that sort of education to support my belief and here I am at SASRA now leading a Christian military organisation to support the armed forces.

Lizzie Harewood (3:46) 

Okay so it sounds you’ve had quite a long and varied career and obviously we’ll get into talking about SASRA and its ministry, but I’d love to know a little bit more about your active service. You said that it provoked questions of morality, right and wrong, of harm, of evil. Can you tell us a little bit more about, maybe not the gory details, but what you saw, what made you really question?

Martin Gliniecki (4:19) 

Yeah, I mean, so the first operational theatre that I deployed to was Northern Ireland and I witnessed Christians hating Christians and doing particularly evil things in terms of terrorist activities and I felt as though I was doing some good in the world by, in literal terms, diffusing improvised explosive devices or improvised bombs. I then deployed to the Balkans, to both Kosovo and to Bosnia and saw some dreadful activities there and witnessed those sorts of things and then the wars in the Middle East that I engaged with… all those showed me that there was evil in the world and if there was evil there must be something that is better than that, and good, and again it added to all those questions of ‘What do we mean by evil? How can people consciously do this to other human beings for reasons of race or particular different Christian belief systems or backgrounds?’

Graham Nicholls (5:20) 

What’s really interesting is that for many people that would drive them away in that – sometimes Christians, when they see evil on that scale actually go the other way and think, ‘I really can’t believe God can allow all this stuff to happen.’ And you might have done that so it’s interesting that it drove you to say, ‘If things are so bad there must be such a thing as good or there must be an explanation for this. Is that how it worked? 

Martin Gliniecki (5:45) 

Yeah and if I reflect on my own father, who was a Polish immigrant that came to the UK after the Second World War – you reflect on that and what happened to him is he was used as forced labour in Poland for the first four years of the war from 1939 onwards. He escaped, joined the Second Polish Corps and fought in Sicily and so on then came back to the UK and stayed here and he would reflect on the truly abhorrent evil of the Second World War and fascism. So when you reflect upon those sorts of things and what I’d witnessed, what was it also that made ordinary men do really dreadful things and ordinary women do really dreadful things and if that was the case what is it that makes men and women do truly good things? Not necessarily for their own purpose but that it’s right and proper, that there is something inside and, as you mature, your conscience grows, you ask those questions of yourself.

Martin Gliniecki (6:49)

And those are the sorts of questions I started to ask myself, seeing those things and they drove me back to, ‘Well, there must be an ultimate good.’ And, as I said, I had some tremendously faithful chaplains who, I suppose, recognised who I was and what was necessary for a person like me come into faith. If they tried to bluff someone like me, I’d have just gone to the Bible and said, ‘That’s not what the Bible says, so I’m not believing any of that.’ But they weren’t – they were honest and said, ‘This is what the Bible says.’ And it was a chaplain in  Northern Ireland when I was serving there that said, ‘Why don’t you go and read theology part-time but taught, not in distance learning, at the Union Theological College?’ And that’s what I went to do, and so for five and a half years part-time I read the three-year degree and that was really helpful. And I had to mix and match because of the requirements of different denominations. I came back to the UK, joined a Church of England church and then was out of St Stephen’s House in Oxford – but my supervisor was out of one of the other houses which was a very evangelical house. So all those things in the mix were steering me and guiding me and making me think about what was the ultimate truth, what was the ultimate good, which I think are in a way synonyms.

Graham Nicholls (8:28) 

Because of the threat to life, because you hadn’t mentioned that particularly – I mean, obviously all armed forces is dangerous – but bomb disposal feels particularly immediate in its danger. Like, you’re standing there, did you ever think particularly before you were a Christian, ‘I might die today’ – or does that not come across your mind?

Martin Gliniecki (8:49) 

No, I think we’d have been weeded out if we’d had that sort of attitude, it was all about very safe activities and good training and the right sort of temperament to say we’re not taking any risks. What I would say before I became a Christian, however, and I say this openly, is that I thought I was great, I thought I was immortal, I thought, ‘Yes of course I can do all this.’ It’s only looking now back through a Christian lens that God had his hand upon me and I’m very grateful that I was called and that I answered that call because plenty of people have been called and not answered the call. I’m very prayerful of them and hope they see, as I did, the truth of Christ.

Graham Nicholls (9:41) 

Yeah, do you want to say a few words about SASRA and then talk to us a little bit about the state of the armed forces at the moment, before we talk about the spiritual state – just generally how things are – but tell us a little bit about SASRA on the way to that.

Martin Gliniecki (9:53) 

So I won’t go into the history of where it came from but in recent times what we’ve been doing is we share the gospel with troops, primarily the army and the air force because our history came out of the army and because the air force came out of the army, so that’s where we’re blended together. And we share the gospel with troops around in tandem with our chaplains and other Christian organisations in the armed forces and we’ve been doing that for a very long time. During the Second World War, we had 200 Scripture Readers supporting the chaplains and so on, but after the war that number decreased as the number of troops decreased and for decades now, until about 2023, we had about 13 salaried script readers – a lot more volunteers that did, say, one day a week for us sharing the gospel.

Martin Gliniecki (10:46) 

We got to a stage in between about 2019 to 2023 where we were steady on 13 salaried scripture readers and what happened was really truly remarkable. We’d been seeking to get more, trying to grow and nothing was happening for the previous five years and then in 2023 we had an enormous increase in interest of good quality veterans who knew their Bible, who wanted to become Scripture Readers and we didn’t have any extra money coming in. So we stepped out in faith and in the last two years we’ve grown from 13 to 21 Scripture Readers, salaried Scripture Readers and we’re still growing. And so when you look at things like revival then we saw it, we took God at his integrity, he said, ‘These people are here.’ We said, ‘We can’t afford them, but you’re God, you are mighty, you are powerful. We’re going to employ these people because they’re good enough.’ And funny old thing, not really, God supplied the resources and we can now fund those extra Scripture Readers as well. So that’s been a remarkable story about – if you want to call it revival, I’ll call it revival – whatever you want to call it renewal, growth, any term you want, but that’s God’s miraculous work through people who trusted him faithfully. And that would be a story or a lesson that I would share with any Christian organisation, if God is telling you something through the Bible, go with it – because the fruits will be wonderful as we’re seeing now.

Lizzie Harewood (12:29) 

Can you tell us a little bit more about what Scripture Readers do? Is it that the name defines the role, they go and read the Scriptures with troops, with those that are working in these bases, so how does it work?

Martin Gliniecki (12:49) 

We’re evangelists – that word is a bit traumatic to some people, but we’re evangelists, right and proper, so we evangelise and we disciple. We’re called Scripture Readers because, in the early 19th century when very few soldiers could read, they literally had the Scriptures read to them, so that’s what we do and we do exactly that. Now, like all these things, we engage with people, we have conversations, if it’s just general conversations in a particular area, we’ll always try and bring it to the gospel. If we have opportunities for coffee mornings, meetings, tea and toast, again, we’ll do that, we’ll run Bible studies. If people are feeling something and they’re shown to us, then we’ll talk to them about these sorts of things. 

Martin Gliniecki (13:37) 

We’ll signpost people – if people are in some real traumas, we’ll signpost them. But ultimately – and I’ve got absolutely no objection with the mental health opportunities that are available to us now and cognitive behavioural therapies, but I’m a Christian, and I believe that the heart, soul, mind and body are best covered by the gospel and belief and faith. And that’s what we do. We share the gospel with people to try and get people to build a resilience themselves and have a faith that things are not going to get much necessarily easier, but you will be able to understand it through a different lens. So that’s what we are basically – we’re evangelists that share the gospel. 

Martin Gliniecki (14:17) 

We’re broader than the street evangelists because we have more time, generally, speaking with the troops, so we can evangelise and disciple and then when troops are posted between units – if they move to another place where there’s a Scripture Reader or a chaplain – then we can signpost them to that. Otherwise we signpost them to members of SASRA, so they’re serving soldiers but they’re members of SASRA as well. And again, they can help them, disciple with them and also find them a good church, a good bible-based solid church in the area and again that’s all very helpful. So it’s a network as well of people and we’re across that network, we’re across with our brothers and sisters in the chaplaincies and other Christian organisations like the Armed Forces Christian Union and so on.

Graham Nicholls (15:01) 

Just a few words perhaps on the state of the British Armed Forces currently. It’s been quite a lot in the press more generally about the dilapidated state of it and some of us who look at military history stuff would see, okay there was a bit of a crisis when the Second World War started but, on the scale of things, we were much better equipped than we are now in lots of ways and probably not so demoralised and divided actually, so does the military feel that? Just people in general, you know, whether believers or not?

Martin Gliniecki (15:33) 

I want to be careful not to be too political. That’s always a bit of a bit of a tricky question and that’s because I’m working with the armed forces and moreover I’ve got two sons and they’re both in the Royal Navy, so I’ve got real evidence of this. What I would say is that morale fluctuates and has done over all my time. The data is suggesting that it was decreasing and the evidence is that we’ve not been able to meet the recruiting numbers for about 15 years on the trot now, so that’s through both major political parties, so perhaps that takes away the political nature of it. When parties say they’re going to invest then, we need to see the results. The armed forces have not been invested in sufficiently as we’re now noticing in terms of capability, so we’re under-recruited and the equipment is not sufficient for what we would like to be able to do. 

Martin Gliniecki (16:32)

What was wonderful was that the current government did the defence programme which set out and said, right – it was done by General Barons and Lord Roberts and other really high calibre people and the government said, ‘Okay, we’ve got that, now we’re going to put together a defence investment plan.’ That defence investment plan is really key because that’s going to say how much it’s going to cost and whether the government’s prepared to fund it. That was due out in the autumn, it’s still not out, so my fear is that the government’s not been serious about investing that amount of resource into our defence at this moment in time and I think everybody would agree that the world is not safe at the moment and our defence is the first priority of government. That’s what I say generally. Morale therefore is fluctuating, probably decreasing, but the great thing about morale and the armed forces is, if they’re called to deliver a task, they are still very well trained as individuals, they will make things happen and they will deliver for the nation. I’ve absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever and in that, their morale will increase.

Martin Gliniecki (17:45)

And the facts of the matter are that recruiting always grows after a conflict, so recruiting grew after the Falklands, it grew after the Balkans, it grew after the first Gulf War, it grew subsequently after subsequent wars, because without being warmongers, I think most people join the armed forces and say that, ‘We don’t want necessarily to go to war, but if we do go to war, we want to be part of it, we’ve been trained, that’s what we’re there to do and we want to go deliver that capability, that effect and make sure our nation is safe.’ So that’s how I’d probably summarise the state of the armed forces at the moment. We’re all – not the highest it’s ever been, but would increase if that investment is put into it and if the number of people coming into the armed forces were increased and if they were sent to conflict, they would definitely deliver, no doubt.

Graham Nicholls (18:41) 

Yeah, I mean again – go on, Lizzie.

Lizzie Harewood (18:43) 

Oh no, I was just going to ask more of a cultural question. Because we do hear a lot about a new form of reluctance amongst young people and that, through recent polls and surveys, younger people seem less likely than ever to want to join the armed forces and many even saying that they would categorically refuse to fight for their country. I mean, this is surely something, as you’re saying, you know, recruitment crises etc. And I just wonder as a Christian how we should feel about that. Because obviously many Christians may feel quite conflicted about this now and many Christians may feel conflicted anyway about defence or about armed forces itself. But I suppose that’s filtering through to create this problem, isn’t it?

Martin Gliniecki (19:52) 

Yeah, I’d say two things on that, Lizzie. I think firstly, those that apply to join the armed forces are volunteers, so they’ll always have an interest. Many of them may fall away quickly because it’s very tough and arduous, but those that continue through the training and subsequently come out as good soldiers, aviators, sailors and they’re just as good as they’ve always been – tremendously competent, fit, healthy, dynamic and I just wish that their accommodation and equipment was better, if I’m honest. As a nation and as Christians within a nation, you go down two doctrines. You either accept or believe in the pacifist view of a doctrine or you believe in a just war tradition, which is war is always evil, there’s no doubt about that, but sometimes it’s justified to overcome a greater evil. And I don’t think anybody would argue that it was justified to stop the Nazis during the Second World War or to recover the Falkland Islands from invasion. I don’t think anybody – or most people – wouldn’t argue that that wasn’t a good justified war, but people died on both sides and you had to come to an end where one side surrenders and one side won the war, so to speak. So the nature of war is unchanging.

Graham Nicholls (21:24) 

I guess the challenge is that our individualism and lack of collectivism or sense of patriotism, which I think is a factor, means previously perhaps people would say, ‘I’m not sure whether this is a just war or not, but I have a love for my country and a general trust in those in authority making decisions.’ I think probably since the First, well, the Second Gulf War, that trust has been eroded and also people feel like they’re highly informed and very individualistic and thinking, ‘OK, I might fight if I was called up but I might not. It just depends whether I think it’s a just cause or not.’ Which I don’t think my parents’ generation would have done. You know, they may have had that theological difference, but not just a preferential difference to say, ‘Well, I’d fight in general, but I’m not going to fight for this government in this conflict because I don’t like them. That may have changed. I might be wrong, but I think that may have changed.

Martin Gliniecki (22:33) 

I think within society, yes, but at the end of the day – in the armed forces, which remains similarly less individualistic because the whole aspect of it is about building teams and teamsmanship. And whilst the esprit de corps that’s built into a regiment or an organisation is a wonderful part of that moral component of fighting power, how do you get people to really fight for something? You build that up. But once war starts, you’re doing it for the man or woman to the left or right of you. You’re doing it for that small team together. You’ve already believed in what you’re doing. But once you’ve crossed the start line, you’re doing it for your mates. It’s all about mateship. And you’ve built that mateship that is stronger than probably any other organisation could ever possibly because you’re relying on each other for literally your life. And remember, there are plenty of very brave institutions or people inside very brave institutions – in the police, the ambulance service, fire service and likewise. The difference with the armed forces is that their leaders sometimes send their people to places where they know there’s a good chance they’ll die. No firefighter is going to send one of his contemporaries in if he knows there’s a chance of him dying. He’s always going to protect first. And that’s very wise. In warfare, it’s different. Because you’re trying to achieve an objective, knowing that people are going to die. You’ve therefore got to build a very, very strong trust that these people are doing the best in the best possible [way] and making the best possible decisions. Because this can be fatal.

Lizzie Harewood (24:14) 

Without wanting to state the obvious, I think there’s more of a political view of the state and the nation than perhaps there was in previous generations. I know that you can’t disentangle politics and the state. But I think perhaps there was more – without wanting to look at the past with rose-tinted spectacles – that sense of duty to our nation is now being replaced by a relationship with the state that we feel is insufficient. Perhaps younger people, they feel that they’ve been let down a little, whether that’s economically or culturally or for whatever reason. And I think there is also – perhaps, as you’re saying, Graham – a growing individualism that’s been there for decades, but is even more prominent now, whereby duty and responsibility is more to oneself than perhaps to others in our nation. But as you say, it does fill me with a bit more hope that that you say, in times of war, people do do step up.

Martin Gliniecki (25:38) 

Yeah, I think I would add another very positive thing. And that is, if you look at when the armed forces came back from the Falklands, you know, the rapturous welcome they were given by the quayside as the aircraft carriers came in. That really showed a nation really loving its armed forces, that they’d gone and done something for them. And they wanted to support the decision that was taken and the work that they did. I think if our own armed forces came back today, there would be that response by a large number of people. I think what was different then was that the nation also, as you’re suggesting, Lizzie, was right behind them at home, would be watching saying, yeah, that’s great. That’s exactly what we are – we’re a nation. We had an event where another nation invaded our sovereign territory, and we fought to get it back. Whether those people back now will be saying, ‘Well, we should do that in 2026.’ I think you’re right.  That’s the difficult question. 

Martin Gliniecki (26:43) 

But the other thing is with younger people, particularly as we’re witnessing in the armed forces, and particularly with young people asking questions much more than they’ve done in recent years, is that perhaps the tide is turning and they’ve looked at life outside as individualistic as it has been developed and said, this is not fulfilling. You know, it’s wonderful that we live with such wonderful technologies, such wonderful medicines, an abundance of food, but none of it is really fulfilling. And whether that’s because ‘I can’t afford a house’ or whether that’s because ‘I’m not achieving the status that I was told by going to university and reading this degree’ – all that I think is in the mix. So they’re asking questions about what is meaning then and coming to the conclusion that perhaps there is something bigger than me.

Martin Gliniecki (27:33) 

And moreover, perhaps I have got a responsibility to my fellow brother and sister. And perhaps actually, when I engage them, as I am doing in the armed forces, I’m finding some real joy, some real friendship, some real fellowship with my brothers and sisters. When we’ve had increased numbers in baptisms recently at primary training establishments, where we train them recruits, not only that we see, you know, 14 individuals giving their life to Jesus Christ, but it’s the contemporaries, the people that are training with them, they could go and sit in the naffy [the canteen] or read a book or stay in their room, but they come to church to watch. So their interest, there’s something that’s saying to them, there’s something in this, you know, the sarcasm is no longer as obvious as it used to be. And so that for us is exactly what God was doing when he grew SASRA. He’d foreknown that this was an opportunity to seek some revival, to see some new people.

Graham Nicholls (28:38) 

So you’ve definitely seen that in terms of more spiritual interest that you could definitely plot, not just here and there, but ‘Here’s what I could give you some data on that.’

Martin Gliniecki (28:51) 

Likewise, in 2025, a colleague of mine who writes as a freelance writer, it’s about the Royal Marine Commandos down in Limston and the number of baptisms that were occurring there, baptising them in the assault course water tanks. Their chapel was, with people coming along, was standing room only. The number of Bibles being distributed by the Naval Military Bible Society has gone up phenomenally. These are tangible numbers. So there’s the real evidence that the doubters outside would want to see. You and I know as Christians, God doesn’t work on just data and numbers. There’s a biblical revival. I like to use the example of the Welsh revival of 1903, 1904, that period was definitely, and it’s described in history as a Welsh revival. The fact that the same coming out of the pits and mines and steelworks, drinking and going into building chapels and going to chapels wasn’t replicated identically in England, doesn’t mean to say that it wasn’t a revival in Wales still.

Martin Gliniecki (30:07)

So our revival that we’re witnessing in the military, I’m hoping is replicated by people doing a similar sort of thing that we’re doing in, say, the chaplaincies to the prison services, the chaplaincies to the police and the fire services and all those organisations, chaplaincies to the students and people like that, and in the churches too. But I’m absolutely assured that unless our churches, and too many of them have gone this way, unless they come back to the Bible and back to Scripture and start preaching the gospel rather than any social justice and all the nice things and compassion trumps everything and it’s all about love, isn’t it? Well, it is all about love, but it’s biblical love, not human love. I think we’ll have problems there. And I just look at those places where the Bible is being taught, the gospel is being preached, but without compromise, and I see God working, and I see it in my own organisation. It’s a joy, it’s an absolute joy to be part of it.

Graham Nicholls (31:10) 

This is really, really encouraging and really good to hear. I’m going to ask a question about being a Christian, and then maybe Lizzie, one more question before we need to wrap up, but a question about being a Christian is: what are the particular kind of challenges? What’s it like being a Christian in the armed forces?

Martin Gliniecki (31:31) 

For me as an officer, not as demanding as it was and will be for someone in the ranks of soldier, and in a way I think we all feel that, but it’s particularly challenging because you’re in a very alpha male dominated institution, you know, robust men who are very trustworthy, very hard, very tough, and very resilient. But we know even the most robust and toughest of men break down with all sorts of stress-related illnesses, striving towards PTSD in the worst case, and even suicide. And the armed forces, as you probably know, in the younger generation are, you know, much more susceptible to suicide. And that’s notwithstanding that wonderful building up, as I say, of camaraderie and friendship, because we’re in a tough organisation. So it’s tough for a Christian to be open about their faith, not so much to hold it to themselves, but to be open about their faith and to try and share it. But, as I say, in recent years that has become less so, particularly among younger soldiers who are more open to listening to these sorts of things. As I say, it’s because God is clearly working in there, and they’ve witnessed that what’s out there is not fulfilling.

Graham Nicholls (32:57) 

Is there a particular moral challenge because of the – it feels like it’s a bit like being in a rugby team in the sense of ‘work hard, play hard’ concept and that we deserve a night out now or whatever.

Martin Gliniecki (33:12) 

There is definitely some of that. All I would say is that, if you look at the core values of all three services, you could pick them straight out of the virtues of Aquinas, or which are clearly taken straight out of the Bible. So, you know, integrity, loyalty, selfless commitment, respect for others, they’re all biblical tenets. And that’s what the core values of all the armed forces personnel is about. So you can link it in a way to, ‘Well, where’s your history and heritage from?’ And if you get involved in that conversation, that’s quite helpful to get people to at least accept that – I don’t want to use that term – they’re culturally Christian, but to understand where and why the armed forces want their core values to be like this. It’s because the armed forces came out of the Western Judeo-Christian culture. And that’s why we fight like we do. That’s why we have a moral basis that we do. That’s why we have the moral compass that we do. And that’s why we have the core values that we do. So that’s the way that we engage.

Lizzie Harewood (34:17) 

One of the things my husband and I were chatting about recently was those that are coming out of the forces. So we have a chap who comes to our church occasionally and he is an avowed atheist, absolutely. But yet he loves coming to the church because he says it’s the closest thing to the kind of the camaraderie and the family that he had in the forces. And we hope and pray that over the many years he’s been coming along that the gospel message will have got through to him. But is there anything we can do in particular to care for and seek to come alongside those that have left the forces? Because, as you say, many are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems and losing that sense of community. What can we do as churches?

Martin Gliniecki (35:13) 

Just walk with them, love them, because that’s what they miss. The reason that they go on the streets – and we’ve got so many veterans homeless – is that they go to these places and there’s a few people there. So they find and build a camaraderie with those people that are homeless, you know, living in the street corners, living in the shops and things. So the church is in a wonderful place, if it can, to reach out to those same people. And again, very softly, very slowly, let them realise that – just as they came to the armed forces and found a family community and built a family community, and then were integrated into it and then felt part of it, so they’d engage with it – church community is exactly that, and better, because right in the centre of it is Jesus Christ, which is not right at the centre of the armed forces organisation. So that’s what I would suggest, Lizzie, and they will love you for that. 

Martin Gliniecki (36:10) 

I suspect that that gentleman is coming there because, as you quite rightly say, he’s found a family. And once he sees a different lens and witnesses you through a different lens, and the reason he’s coming to you is because he looks at you and says, ‘They’re all like me, but there’s just something quite, there’s something different and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I don’t want to believe that yet, because I’m rough and tough.’ And like everything, he’s in the right place, because it’s not you or me that turns that heart of stone to a heart of flesh. It’s the Holy Spirit that will do it at his time. I think you did a great thing then, and thank you for looking after a veteran like that. It’s really important, really important to people like me, a veteran. There are three bomb disposal officers that I know myself, personally in my time, that have committed suicide, and I never knew that they were in that particular position as such. I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t. So it’s really tough. It’s really tough.

Graham Nicholls (37:14) 

We’re really encouraged by the work that you’re doing and encouraged to hear the stories. And I hope people listening to this will likewise be. Tell us where we can get more information. I guess we can sign up online to prayer points and stuff. But yeah, tell us where we can find out more about SASRA.

Martin Gliniecki (37:33) 

Yeah, fantastic. Thanks very much indeed, Graham. So you can get us online obviously at www.sasra.org.uk, and that will take you to opportunities to basically pray for us, and we run virtual prayer meetings if people want to come online and pray for us once a month, or become an advocate in your own church if that would be an opportunity for you. Likewise, we’re always keen on volunteers doing anything for us, not just volunteering in their church to promote what SASRA does, but just events, and we raise funds that way. And clearly, if people feel as though they’re called to support us, we don’t get any money from government funds or anything. We’re purely financed by supporters, churches, and trusts, so that would be very helpful for us as well. We’re on Facebook and the usual sort of social media bits, WhatsApp and Instagram, and we’d love people to be very supportive of us, but most importantly is to realise that the reason that we are in the armed forces is that we are all veterans and we can go behind the wire. If churches could go behind the wire, I suspect we wouldn’t be necessary, but we could go behind the wire in those secure areas and share the gospel. And then hopefully, we consider ourselves to be missionaries to other churches in the surrounding areas. We’re doing the work of an evangelist on behalf of the pastors in the churches and the congregations in and around the bases and the camps in UK and abroad. So, yes, thank you.

Graham Nicholls (39:07) 

Brilliant. Really enjoyed it. Thank you very much, and God bless you. Thanks for being on Affinity Talks Gospel.

Martin Gliniecki (39:13) 

Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you.