The God Cast - Religion - Football - Comedy - Music - Politics - Celebrities with Fr Alex Frost

Alex is the host of The God Cast purchase his book here https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/our-daily-bread-from-argos-to-the-altar-a-priests-story-father-alex-frost?variant=40158841110606Robb recently was a member of '#churchofengland #synod About Robb from his church website https://www.holynativity.co.uk/people/revdrobb/Robb is married to Ruth. In their spare time they play in a local rock band called Silverthorn and ride motorbikes. The most exotic location they have travelled on the back of them is the Rocky Mountains.When he was at university Robb started to ask all of the Christians he met awkward questions about ‘what it means to follow this guy called Jesus’? He never really stopped asking those awkward questions so transferred from a degree in Chemistry to Religious Studies. From then he felt a persistent calling to ordained ministry. Robb became an RE teacher and taught in a local comprehensive school whilst exploring his call to the priesthood. Following ordination in 2009, he served a curacy in Morley and then came to Holy Nativity in 2012.Robb and Ruth are both musicians, writing and releasing songs together. They have many years of involvment in Alt:Worship and with their band Metanoia have developed develop the Rock Mass liturgies and worship in a culturally authentic way. A regular Rock Mass takes place here at Holy Nativity to engage with new congregations and new ways of experiencing God through worship.“He’s still asking us those awkward questions about Jesus” – Robb’s exasperated friends.BA(Hons) in Religious Studies, PGCE Secondary Education (Religious Education), MA in Theology and Ministry, MA in Liturgy.

Fr Alex Frost is the vicar of St Matthew’s the Apostle, Burnley, where he grew up. He describes himself as the ‘fundamentally unemployable’ host of The God Cast, a podcast devoted to issues of faith and spirituality, which has featured celebrities such as Eamonn Holmes, Alastair Campbell, Edwina Currie, Dom Joly, George Galloway, Anthea Turner and football legend Lou Macari. Anthea Turner and football legend Lou Macari. Ordained in 2015 after a mixed career working as a football referee, manager at Argos and a stand-up comic, Fr Alex now also serves on The Church of England General Synod for Blackburn Diocese. He is married to Sarah and has three children.
Fr Alex made headlines when he featured in a 2021 BBC documentary The Cost of Covid – One Year On, which has been viewed over 12 million times since it was aired. Running a food bank from a car park in Burnley, helping the desperate amid his flock as the pandemic raged, Fr Alex’s down-to-earth style of ministry struck a chord with people of all faiths, cultures and classes across the UK in a time when the divide between rich and poor widens cataclysmically. The Church of England priest, who sports tattoos of his favourite band Depeche Mode, has become the last bastion of support for many in the aftermath of austerity measures, Government cuts and Covid 19 upon a community already ravaged by poverty, addiction and neglect.
More recently Fr Alex has been front and centre campaigning for the reclassification of Ketamine, including working as part of a Government consultation, and has featured on National Media outlets including Good Morning Britain, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live. Fr Alex has also spearheaded a campaign for more working class vocations in the Anglican Communion, and in 2025 brought a Private Members Motion to the National Church. His address received a standing ovation and in January 2026 the church unanimously supported his proposals and is now pressing ahead with his plans.
He is due to travel to Pakistan in mid 2026 as part of documentary investigation into the unexplained death of his parishioner Kelsey Devlin. Kelsey features heavily in Alex's first book, and the project is being supported by documentary maker Masood Khan and ITV.

#manchester #grooming #exploitation To understand why Marlon West is standing to become Greater Manchester mayor, you first have to understand what happened to his daughter. “Scarlett was groomed from the age of 14,” he says as we sit down to talk in Stockport.“Prior to that, a good kid, owned her own horse, loved her horse, spent all weekend with it and after school. And then she was groomed.” Scarlett, now 21, spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) alongside her father in 2024, waiving her right to anonymity to tell her story.Since then, both have spoken publicly about what happened.Her case featured in the Baird Inquiry, which examined the experiences of women and girls arrested and taken into police custody in Greater Manchester. The inquiry found Scarlett “went missing and was raped” in 2019 by a man referred to as Adult 4. It also found another man, known as Adult 5, groomed her, with Scarlett describing being driven to hotels to take drugs and have sex.It found she was made to strip to her underwear at Bury police station after being arrested on suspicion of involvement in a car robbery in August 2019. She did not have an appropriate adult with her.The report also concluded Scarlett “didn’t feel believed” by Greater Manchester Police after the grooming and that the force “did not effectively protect her” from frightening late-night visits by men to her home. The experience has shaped almost everything Marlon West has done since.Last year he was approached by Restore Britain and asked whether he would help with the party’s own rape gang inquiry. He agreed.After Andy Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election, attention quickly turned to the race to replace him as Greater Manchester mayor. The LDRS first revealed West was expected to become Restore Britain’s candidate before the party confirmed his selection days later.The experience of fighting for his daughter, he says, is the reason he entered politics.“The experience I had as a parent was horrific, so you can imagine what Scarlett went through, it was on a completely different level.“She was trafficked, raped, tortured, and when I say trafficked, not just Greater Manchester, across the country. People might be surprised to hear she’s not the only teenage girl from Manchester this has happened to, it is happening to hundreds.“What I quickly realised afterwards, I wasn’t getting anywhere with local authorities or Greater Manchester Police, and then I started my campaign. source https://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/ne...

Raised as a preacher’s son in Kansas, Will Brown arrives with Welcome To Brownsville, a debut EP rooted in vulnerability, connection and emotional honesty. It is a project that doesn’t just play, it moves. From the very first moment, it feels like stepping into a place built from reflection, where every note carries something lived, something overcome. The EP opens with “Welcome To Brownsville,” an introduction to a space that feels both imagined and deeply personal. A town where stories sit in the air, where voices come together. Backed by a choir, the track expands into something communal, something bigger than one person. It sets the tone clearly: this is a world built on connection. “Golden” follows, the track that marked a defining moment for Will Brown. It rises with warmth, pushing past insecurity and reminding you of your own worth. There is something immediate about it, something that stays with you. It doesn’t just tell you that you are enough, it makes you feel it. With “I Found You,” the mood softens into something more vulnerable. It feels like a quiet reflection, a moment of searching and finding at the same time. Will Brown sings about identity, about feeling lost, about learning to accept yourself through someone else’s presence. It is gentle, but it holds weight. “Better Man” shifts the energy again, more open, more facing forward. A song about growth, about trying, about becoming. There is a sense of movement running through it, of wanting to move beyond who you were. It carries both doubt and hope at once, grounded in honesty. One of the EP’s strongest moments arrives with “Scars and Glory.” Driven by rhythm, the track turns pain into something powerful, something visible. Will Brown doesn’t hide from what has shaped him, he leans into it. As he sings about wearing those experiences like armour, it becomes a reminder that everything you’ve been through has built you into who you are now. It is uplifting, honest, and impossible not to feel. “Mr. Turner’s Song” brings things back down to something more intimate. A story shaped by love and loss, by longing and distance. It sits in that space between holding on and letting go, showing just how deeply someone can feel, even when that feeling isn’t returned in the same way. The closing track, “Oceans Of Love,” begins almost weightless. Will Brown’s voice comes in a cappella, soft and exposed, with the faint sense of the outside world around it. It feels like standing by the water, hearing birds in the distance, the song unfolding like a quiet moment at the edge of something vast. The ocean becomes a metaphor for everything uncertain, everything overwhelming. But within that, there is calm. There is reassurance. A reminder that you will move through it.

Links https://www.message.org.uk/nomoreknives/   / messagetrust    / themessagetrust  You don’t have to look far to see in the news the devastating impact that knife crime and drug abuse is having on young people across the country. We refuse to stand by and do nothing and so we take our programme of creative lessons to schools around the UK to help inform and equip young people to make positive choices.Since launching in January 2020, we’ve delivered over 30 No More Knives tours to over 150,000 students with the aim of raising awareness of the dangers of knife crime and equipping young people to say ‘no’ to knives. In 2024, we launched the No More County Lines tour to address the increasing danger of drug dealing and exploitation and to support young people in making positive choices.Knife crime and the devastating impact it has on lives is never far from the headlines. Something must change, so the No More Knives tour is heading into high schools to show young people there is another way.Combining music with powerful stories and teaching, we deliver lessons and assemblies that equip young people with the skills and knowledge they need to say no to knives and start to discover their full value and identity.Following the schools week, we book a major venue to invite students along to a concert by the bands they’ve met in school and featuring guest speakers. And all this is done in partnership with the local police force and Councils.The Message Trust exists to passionately share the good news of Jesus with young people and urban communities in word and action.From building up evangelists all over the world in our Advance Groups, equipping and training young people on our Message School Of Evangelism, serving communities through Eden and Community Groceries, reaching those in prison with the hope of God, supporting those with barriers to employment through Christ-centred enterprise, and declaring the love of Jesus in our schools work, we are seeing lives transformed as people discover their true identity in Christ