The Pastor Who Leads Prayer For The Red Devils!

While Paul Hallam encouraged Manchester Lighthouse church’s congregation to engage with different spheres of the community, he didn’t expect God to lead him to a rugby league dressing room.

- Paul Hallam

It is a franchise name you would not necessarily associate with the Church, but Salford Red Devils have welcomed Paul Hallam right into the centre of the club.

Paul – who is the senior pastor of The Lighthouse, an Elim Church in Manchester – was invited to take on the role by a regional leader within Sports Chaplaincy UK as they sought to fill the vacancy. But with such a busy diary as pastor of a growing church with an international ministry he didn’t immediately jump at the idea.

“It started really with me having no interest whatsoever, if I’m honest,” Paul tells Direction. “And then a request came into our office asking us to find a sports chaplain for a rugby league club, which wasn’t the Salford Reds, it was another club.

“I put a couple of names forward and Paul Johnson, who was at the time the regional co-ordinator for Sports Chaplaincy UK, came to see me and spoke to me about this post at Swinton. But he also told me the current chaplain was about to leave the Salford Reds, a professional Super League club, and I started telling him I wouldn’t mind heading to Swinton to see the lads there a couple of hours a week.