Premier Lifeline listening, praying and fostering hope
Inspite of it being such a difficult year, Premier Lifeline has listened, prayed for and fostered hope in massive numbers
Every day from 9am until midnight people can phone the National Christian Helpline on 0300 111 0101.
In the 12 months to March 2024, our amazing Lifeline volunteers have answered 23,390 calls lasting just over 400,000 minutes – that’s nearly 7,000 hours of pastoral conversation.
Indeed since Lifeline was launched on June 10th 1995, there have been 1,726,859 answered calls
Before Premier Lifeliners can answer their first call, they must first graduate from an extensive training programme. Taking the calls from their own home is made possible thanks to some very clever software which diverts incoming calls to those Lifeliners who are ‘on call’.
During Covid, Lifeliners didn’t need to attend a central office with all the associated COVID risks that would entail. We are so grateful for the dedication of our 120-plus volunteers who agreed to cover additional hours during the pandemic to help cope with the record numbers of incoming calls.
The value of the Premier Lifeline service was recognised by the Coronavirus Community Support Fund who gave two grants to support Premier initiatives to alleviate isolation and loneliness during lockdown.
Call5 was a campaign to encourage everyone to keep in contact with people they know who might be in need of human contact and a friendly voice. It also funded the Call and Care project, an online training resource with videos and written material to equip Churches and Community Organisations to train volunteers to support people in need through regular telephone contact. ‘Our video resources have now been watched coming up to 230,000 times. The network of people helped during this time was immense – callandcare.org.uk
Premier Lifeline is a confidential service – this means we are unable to give specific testimonies from grateful callers. However what we can tell you is, thanks to your gifts and prayers, over 80,000 people calling in for a very wide range of reasons have been listened to and where appropriate prayed for and/or referred to other agencies. Reasons for calling have included; mourning the loss of a loved one, mental health issues, contemplating suicide, addiction to alcohol or other drugs, requesting a prayer for healing, eating disorders, worried about debt, loneliness, issues of guilt and shame, and many other issues.
Would you like to explore becoming a Premier Lifeline volunteer, or could you give a gift to help us train even more Lifeliners?
Contact: Jonathan Clark, Director of Lifeline.
[email protected]
“We are currently recruiting new volunteers with a view to double volunteer numbers and thereby double the answer rate over the next year..”
Key questions that producers, presenters, editors and contributors across all Premier media channels weekly grapple with include:
What are the spiritual, emotional and physical needs among our audiences and what part can we play in building up more prayerful engagement with international, national and local needs?
How can we encourage daily Bible reading among our audiences?
What new technological breakthroughs should we invest in to reach new audiences who need to hear the life-changing message of the gospel?
What timeless classic hymns and what new contemporary music songs are going to best engage with and encourage our existing and new audiences to worship God?
What stories are out there to gather and then share with our audiences that will inform, challenge, encourage and resource?
Whether it is providing resources for Sunday school teachers or Christian youth and children’s workers through Premier NexGen, offering a listening ear to the lonely through Premier Lifeline, helping people to worship from home via one of our three radio stations, providing intellectually stimulating discussions through one of our podcasts, getting our audience to engage with ethical issues on social media, or giving free daily scripture based devotionals through one of Premier’s various print or digital offerings – Premier has been busy offering hope.