My story in short
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EVENTS in Johnny Kinch’s life read a bit like a soap opera. There are scenes depicting alcohol and drug addictions. Gambling. Homelessness. Time in prison for violence. All of which led to a suicide attempt. Then came the twist in the story. Johnny found God. His life was turned around. Today Johnny is a happily married man, a proud father and a committed Christian.
‘God saved my life,’ he says. ‘He changed me beyond recognition. He forgave my mistakes. Today he means everything to me.’ Johnny’s passion is telling people about the love of God. He shares the story behind his conversion in his book Johnny be good. And in 2009 Johnny established Sunday Night Live; evenings of ‘live entertainment with a twist of faith’ in Costa coffee, Starbucks, Caffe Nero and best indepenant coffee shops across the UK.
‘My wife and I set up Sunday Night Live because we wanted to introduce people to God and inspire them to live better,’ he says. ‘But the format is not preachy. Sunday Night Live is not church held in a café. We are Christians who recognise today’s coffee culture and try to fit into it.
‘Our events take place once a month and are currently held in multiple coffee shops nattionally. We book musicians to come along to each venue and entertain and we also add our “twist of faith” to the evening by inviting a Christian guest speaker to talk about how they came to know Jesus. That bit usually lasts ten minutes. And it’s important. Jesus told his followers that they were the salt of the earth. Too much salt can be overpowering – but a hint of flavour is good. We try to adopt the same principle when introducing people to faith at Sunday Night Live.’
Whatever Johnny is doing to get his programme up and running in different locations seems to be working. More and more churches are keen to establish it in coffee shops within their own communities. The jazz café style of each event is appealing to all ages. But the first ever Sunday Night Live, held in Johnny’s home town of Loughborough, nearly flopped. ‘On opening night I believed that Costa was going to be rammed out with people, but when I opened the doors at 7 pm, just four walked in,’ remembers Johnny. ‘I said to my wife: “We’d better say a quick prayer!” So we did. As I prayed, I felt God say: “You’ve been obedient. You’ve built this. The people will come. Let me deal with it.’
Twenty minutes later 160 people turned up. They queued up the road. Inside they had to stand on the stairs because there was no room. I was blown away!’
The next month Sunday Night Live got the same response. And the month after that. ‘My aim was to take the Church out of its building and to go into the town,’ he says. ‘I wanted people to be inspired by this incredible God and see that he has the power to transform lives.’ And Johnny knows a thing or two about that. Before he became a Christian, Johnny was a very different man. He admits that his whole life was a mess. ‘I had a huge void inside,’ he explains. ‘And when I was younger I tried to fill it with alcohol, gambling and drugs. Soon my addictions grew out of control and I became depressed. Then I would drink and gamble to make myself feel better. It was a vicious circle.‘I studied performing arts at college but spent my grant on gambling at the bookies. I was kicked off my course. I started to hate all authority. I had a chip on my shoulder and thought the world owed me a favour. ‘I auditioned for a place at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) to study acting and was accepted. But while I was there I blew thousands of pounds on betting on the horses. I started taking cocaine. My drinking became heavier. Rada kicked me out and I became homeless.’
Johnny started to sell the The Big Issue in the shadows of a theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue; a venue in which he had previously performed. ‘I wanted to get back up on that stage – but I was in the gutter,’ he says. ‘I moved from hostel to hostel. I got into quite a few fights and was in trouble with the police.’ Eventually Johnny moved back to Loughborough. He moved in with his new girlfriend. She encouraged him to take part in the ITV talent show Soapstars, a programme in which producers were auditioning actors to play a new family in the soap Emmerdale. ‘I got down to the last two men for the part of the dad,’ says Johnny. ‘When the producers told me, I shouted to the cameras: “Who’s the daddy?” and it became a bit of a catchphrase. I didn’t get the part – but I did get an agent from the exposure.’ Soon the roles came thick and fast. Johnny landed parts in The Bill, Doctors and Paradise Heights. He shot some adverts for Matalan.
But Johnny lost his earnings through gambling. ‘My girlfriend kicked me out and before I knew it I was back in London, homeless again. I went into a hostel and the lady at the desk said she recognised me as the “Who’s the daddy?” guy off the telly. She asked me for my autograph. I was embarrassed to tell her that I’d actually just come in for a bed. ‘That night in the hostel was the darkest night of my life. I was so depressed. I wanted to kill myself.’
But life was about to get even worse for Johnny. ‘By this time I was on medication for depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. I was regularly stealing food from shops. I had also mugged people. Later I was arrested for committing violent and alcohol related crimes. I went to prison. My life was manic. My brain didn’t contain even one positive thought – everything was a din. ‘One night I was in a park in Leicester and I necked a load of tablets with some cider. I wanted out of life. Just as I was falling to sleep a voice popped into my head which said: “Get up Johnny, there’s more for you. Go to A&E.” So I did. When I got there I collapsed. I woke, hours later, with all these tubes on my body. But I was going to be OK.’
In 2004 the council gave Johnny a flat to live in. But it wasn’t long before he was in trouble with the police again. He was charged with criminal damage and assaulting a taxi driver. He was placed under house arrest. ‘I had an electronic tag on my ankle,’ he explains, ‘but I didn’t care. I went out, got drunk and went over my curfew. Then I ran into a wall to smash my head in. I told the police that the reason I was late home was because I had been beaten up.
‘Not long afterwards, my friend Johnnie Cave came over to see me. He told me that he had become a Christian. I was gobsmacked. If he’d become a woman I would have understood it – but a Christian? I thought it was the most ridiculous thing he could do. I didn’t think much of what he said and asked him to lend me a tenner.’
Johnny’s friend invited him to church. He went along, reluctantly. Even for a hard man, the experience was tough. ‘There were a couple of old ladies on the door and I found that I couldn’t look them in the face,’ he says. ‘Then the preacher spoke about finding freedom in God. I wanted to take in his words but I couldn’t. I had one eye on him and the other eye on people’s purses.
‘When I got home I started to cry. I rang Johnnie and asked him what was happening to me. He explained that God was moving in my life. I was scared and so tried to ignore what I felt. ‘After a while – and much persuasion from Johnnie – I went back to church. This time I prayed: ‘OK, God. I will give you ten days to change my life. And that’s what God did.’
Johnny felt strong enough to stop swearing, drinking, gambling and taking drugs. He looked for a job. He told his doctor that he wanted to come off his medication. But starting life afresh wasn’t easy. ‘I went through three months of being very poorly,’ he remembers. ‘But every time I was sick I used to pray instead of turn to drugs. God really helped me not to go back to my old ways.
‘Nine months after I became a Christian I went to Bible college to study theology. On the first day I met Anneka. We were engaged within six weeks and have been married now for some years and have a daughter, Georgia.’
Although Johnny is a changed man, he admits that he is far from where he wants to be. He has just about managed to come to terms with the past. ‘I’ve done some terrible things in my time – but I believe that God has forgiven me by the death of Jesus on the cross. I’ve had to learn to forgive myself too. ‘Today I still get things wrong. Sometimes the old Johnny Kinch rears his ugly head. But I know that I can ask God for forgiveness if I make mistakes. I trust him to help me. I won’t fall back into my old lifestyle.’
And he is keen to encourage others to discover the life-changing power of God for themselves. ‘If people have addictions I tell them how much God loves them – just as they are. But I also say that God loves them so much that he doesn’t want them to stay that way. He wants to help them overcome their problems. At times their recovery process may make them feel nervous or awkward, but if they have faith in God, they can build new foundations for life. And then things can start to get better.’ He owns up to having ‘a chequered past’, but Johnny has finally put it behind him.
Today his focus is on the future. ‘I want to see more and more churches hosting Sunday Night Live and Live Lounge events in hundreds of coffee shops across the world,’ he says. ‘I hope we’ll have reached over 300 locations within the next few years. But the whole process is in God’s hands. My job is just to keep pushing the doors and see if they will open.’ And Johnny has another desire.
‘Ultimately I want to see Jesus return in this generation. And I want to be effective for him and his Kingdom. I don’t know when Jesus is going to return – but I try to live as if he is already here.’
Written by Claire Brine “The War Cry”
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