Jasmine Allen

Current Role:

Online Campus Team Leader

What I'm passionate about:

I’m passionate about people finding freedom, healing and hope in Jesus, and family in the church – I love God and I love people! One of my favourite things is sharing a meal around the table with people I love, particularly my family who I adore. My husband, Steve, and I have been married for nearly four decades and we have three grown-up children, and we also have the great joy of being Mama and Papa to our five grandchildren – I might be biased but I have the most gorgeous grandchildren in the world!

Interesting fact:

I have another life. But don’t worry, it’s not as suspect at it sounds! What I mean is that as well as being on the team at KingsGate, we have a couple of businesses that we run in agriculture and property development – I love being involved both in the church and in our businesses.

Josh Gardiner

What I'm passionate about:

I love all that I get to do as part of my role as a pastor in KingsGate! Spending quality time with family – particularly going out for coffee and cake with my wife Chrissy and our son Freddie – is always a priority. I am a passionate Manchester United fan (sorry!). I also love playing golf and have recently discovered that listening to classical music is very soothing for me! Wow, that last sentence just aged me somewhat!

Interesting fact:

I once shared a stage with Ross Kemp at De Montfort Hall after he had performed as part of a musical (I think that was why we were there, but I was so young I can’t really remember!) I was picked out of the crowd with a few other children to enter a competition where we had to do our best Fred Flintstone impressions by shouting ‘Yabba dabba doo!’ down the microphone. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I didn’t win.

Galia Ben-Israel

What I'm passionate about:

I love Jesus, people, the Church, and words, so I’m passionate about anything and everything that combines all of them! I also love speciality coffee, playing (and, ideally, winning) netball games, tacos, sunset skies, coastal US road trips, and my four goddaughters. And don’t even get me started on Justin Bieber’s greatest hits!

Interesting fact:

For 10 years of my life, my Grandad adopted a dolphin on my behalf. I used to love getting monthly updates about my kinda-pet dolphin, Whisky… who then moved to the Arctic and got swapped for a different dolphin called Spirit instead. So, I guess my fun fact is that by the age of 16, I had two more pet dolphins than most people ever will.

Jim Thody

What I'm passionate about:

I love helping people grow in their relationships, particularly in getting to know Jesus (so I love the Alpha Course) and supporting people in their journey of joining the church and getting to make real and meaningful friendships.

My wife, Sue, and I also love heading up the Marriage Course team, as we know how much we have benefited from support into this key relationship in life, having been married for 38 years, with two married daughters and four grandsons, all of whom we are also passionate about!

Interesting fact:

My career initially was in Animal Nutrition, in the UK and overseas, which I very much enjoyed – but I had really wanted to be a vet. I discovered being a vet wasn’t the best job for me, though, as I embarrassingly fainted on two separate occasions when assisting veterinary surgeons in their operating theatres!