About
I’m Stuart Patterson: writer, pastor, community worker and researcher, with much of my life shaped by questions of faith, recovery, place and what helps people change.
This site brings those threads together. Some of the writing is memoir. Some is theology. Some is creative. Some sits closer to policy, recovery practice or public life. The categories overlap because life does.
I grew up in Easterhouse, spent years in addiction, and eventually entered Teen Challenge in 1997. Recovery opened into faith, ministry, study, community work and a life I could not have imagined from where I started.
I am not interested in pretending that change is simple, or that a testimony only matters when it has a neat ending. Much of what I write is about what happens in the middle: the ordinary choices, relationships, questions, failures, grace and formation that shape a life over time.
If there is one thread running through the site, it is probably this: people are never only the worst thing that has happened to them, nor the worst thing they have done.
A Few Places to Start
- Window Seat (Life Story) – memoir, testimony and lived reflection
- Real Recovery – addiction, healing, identity, community and hope
- Theology & Bible – biblical and theological writing rooted in everyday life
- Creative Writing – poems, stories and experiments in voice
- Easterhouse – place, memory, community and local story
- Policy & Public Life – lived experience, evidence and the systems that shape people’s lives
Contact
If you would like to get in touch about writing, speaking, ministry, recovery, community work or anything you have read here, use the form below.
I read the messages that come through the site. I may not always reply straight away, but I do appreciate people taking the time to write.
