Luke Pollock

Luke Pollock

 

Age:

20

Favorite Color:

Green

Favorite Food:

Fish and Chips (only from England, though)

Hometown:

Preston, Lancashire, England

What we love about Luke:

His laid back personality, his innate ability to always have something encouraging to say, his wise-crack jokes about “speaking properly,” and his willingness to give his life away and serve the people around him.

        In our opinion, Luke is the definition of “all in Christianity.” Who just gets onto a plane and flies to a different country with no guarantee of what exactly is going to happen or how they will be provided for? Luke does! He is a man of selfless faith and of loving compassion, giving away all of himself just to ensure the success of the people beside him. From professed atheist stuck in the vicious cycle of rejection, to spirit filled believer that loves not only himself but everyone around him, Luke’s story is one that couldn’t go unshared any longer!

        Born with a physical disability of one arm being under-developed, Luke’s life growing up was less than a walk in the park. Not only did he have to learn to do things differently than his peers so that he could cope, at a very young age came to the conclusion he was simply “different” from the rest of his friends.

“I wasn’t able to do all the things that the other kids could do, and that made me struggle with rejection.” Luke told us candidly.

        Growing up, although Luke’s parents were split up, he saw them both regularly. He lived with his mother, and he saw his father regularly on the weekends. Luke also has an older brother who is eight years older than himself.

Luke reminisced, “I didn’t grow up in a Christian home—I [actually] would have classified myself as an atheist, because I didn’t understand how there could be a God who loved me, yet created me the way he did. I never really gave any thought to Christianity or any other religion for that matter.”

        In school, Luke always did really well and pulled straight A’s throughout his schooling career. He poured himself into books and reading, and into art as well as creative media. 

“Because there were many things I couldn’t do, I put myself into things I KNEW I was good at—[I think] that was lots of the time me making up for the inadequacies that I felt I had.”

Also in his school years, Luke had a small circle of close friends and didn’t go much outside of that with people he wanted to spend time with.

He told us, “It was always hard to accept that people actually liked me and that it wasn’t out of pity or charity.”

        Despite Luke’s opinion of God and who he perceived him to be, he begun hanging out with a young man named Jamie, who’s mother attended a local church. Although Jamie himself wasn’t a follower of Jesus, the foundation and curiosity of Christianity began to be sparked in Luke’s heart. After becoming good friends, Jamie invited Luke to come with him to a Christian conference in England called “Soul Survivor*,” telling Luke that he didn’t want to be alone “with all of those Christians.”

“I consented, not knowing what Soul Survivor actually entailed!” Luke remembered. “I thought it was mostly going to be a campout, and a hang out, but it ended up being more than that!”

        On the third of five days of this event, after watching thousands of people worshipping and having experiences with this “Jesus” that Luke had never really thought much about, his curiosity was peaked. Suddenly, he wanted to know if there was anything real about Jesus, or the experiences people were having with Him. The call to the front to receive prayer was made, and Luke responded.

Luke at Soul Survivor in 2010 with a group of his friends.

“I don’t even remember what I went forward for, or what the people that were praying for me were saying” Luke said, “All I know is that as I went forward, I kept in my own head telling God, ‘if you’re real, let me feel you.’”

Luke’s prayer was answered when he found himself regaining consciousness about five minutes later, lying on the floor. That being the proof Luke needed of God’s reality, He said, “Okay, God, since you’re real, I guess I’ll follow you for awhile’”

        At first, Luke’s Christianity was based more off of a curiosity to learn more about this God he had encountered at Soul Survivor, and of relationship with the people at the church he started attending (Jamie’s mother’s church!) rather than a dramatic life change. After a couple of months, though, Luke made the decision to go all in with God! What started as simply volunteering in Children’s ministry at his home church, turned quickly into a year long internship!

“Through that whole process, my perception of myself changed massively!” Luke recounted. “I realized that just because of a disability, it didn’t alter my worth or me being a man at all. I [recognized] the truth was it wasn’t people really rejecting me, but was me rejecting myself.”

        Also in that time of Luke’s life, he said that he started to gain the ability to care about people and in turn actually stated to love and value others—

“Because I was able to love and value myself.” Luke told us.

        In the midst of his new found salvation, the main prayer he prayed was “God, break my heart for what breaks yours.”

“Through this prayer, eventually God gave me a heart for broken and hurting people, which make me want to learn inner healing, so I began to!”

        As his internship came to an end, the church that Luke had been serving at told him that they would like to pay for him to go on a mission trip somewhere in the world. At that time, he was planning on attending university to receive a degree in counseling, so Luke wanted to go to a place where he could put his passion of inner healing and wise counsel into practice.

“I could have gone to a number of places on my trip, but through the Partners In Harvest** network, I found The Father’s House Church in Oroville, California and thought the ministry there would be a perfect fit for where my life was headed... So I decided to visit!”

        Luke was only in Oroville for a short six weeks during his visit, but that was long enough to absolutely fall in love with Oroville as well as the community of people here. At the end of his stay, he was offered a position at the church, and after going back home and talking to Jesus about coming back and serving at The Father’s House, he began to feel more and more like it was the right decision. The rest was history!

“I started to apply for the visa [to come to the US], and God provided that as well as the money I needed to be here...” Luke told us. He continued, “Then I got on a plane and here I am!”

Luke and good friend, Ryan posing it up!

        Since his move back, Luke has been made head of the media department, which utilizes his skills in creativity and graphic design. He also has undertaken lots of inner healing, which as we know is his passion. He meets with up to eight guys in our Life Recovery Ministries program (a residential, Christ-based rehabilitation program for men and women seeking freedom from drug and alcohol abuse) a week, and there are countless testimonies of freedom in people’s lives being due to the time Luke has devoted to them in inner healing.

“I came out here really wanting to grow in the healing of the heart and I asked God for the opportunity. It came in more abundance than I anticipated.” Luke confessed. “[Inner healing to those in recovery] is challenging and real!”

        But Luke is the first to say that the reward of seeing freedom in the lives of the men he ministers to far outweighs the difficulty and the cost of sometimes having people walk away from our ministry, and worst, their recovery.

“The cost is hard to put into words. It’s hard to create emotional relationship with clients just to have them leave, knowing they’re still hurting and suffering and wanting to help them but not being able to. The thing that keeps me going, though is seeing the transformation in people. Although it hurts, God has showed to me that my heart is growing and my capacity to love has increased, and that mourning isn’t unhealthy, it just shows that my heart is open.”

        How did we get so lucky that of all of the places Luke could have come, that he would have come here, to sunny but little Oroville, California? Luke is not only a breath of fresh air, but a life changer, and a trail blazer. Luke is a man that CAN be followed, and is a hero of our ministry!

        On a slightly sillier note, Luke asked that a blurb of life as an English man in America could be put into his blog. So here it is, a direct quote from Luke Pollock of Preston, Lancashire, England, himself, with words spelled “properly,” and everything.

Silly photo-shopped picture Luke made of himself and the Queen.

“Things have “flavour,” not flavor—and green is a “colour,” not color. I have never heard the words, “Hecka,” “Ghetto,” or “Bojankity” as adjectives. The word “process” is pronounced “proh-cess,” not “praaaah-cess,” and the last letter of the alphabet is pronounced “zed,” but the black and white neighing creature is still called a “zebra.”

“I enjoy immensely the American grammar and words, and find myself, to my amusement, that I’m actually starting to speak that way. Although I won’t admit it out loud, I secretly enjoy the culture I’m taking on, I just don’t see myself letting go of my English roots any time soon. My hope one day is that Southside will sound like England.”

All joking aside, Luke thank you for all you do, we love and appreciate you!

* Soul Survivor is a five day event where thousands of young people gather together to meet with God in various locations all over the world, but mostly in the United Kingdom. For more information on this event, check out their website. http://www.soulsurvivor.com/

** Partners in Harvest is the denomination that The Father’s House Church as well as Luke’s Church, The Well Church, is affiliated with. For more information, feel free to visit their website. http://www.partnersinharvest.org/