Paul Woolley
1. How did you become a Christian?
I grew up in a Christian family of six children and with a knowledge and love of God. I never doubted that I was loved – either by God or my parents. I could see my parents’ faith in action through their adoption of three of my siblings. I grew in my faith in my teenage years especially and was deeply formed by the Bible.
2. What lessons have you learnt since that you would want to pass on to a younger Christian version of yourself?
I’ve learnt that God invites everyone of us to join in His mission in the world. I’ve learnt that life in the kingdom of God is more real and exciting than life outside of it. And I’ve learnt that the cost of non-discipleship is infinitely greater than the cost of discipleship. Imagine life without Jesus – I am simply not strong enough.
3. How would you describe your prayer life?
I am reminded of the words attributed to C.S. Lewis in the film Shadowlands. ‘I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.’ Prayer changes everything. I set aside times each day to pray and read the Bible, but I live all of each day in conversation with God.
4. Which two or three Christian books apart from the Bible have most influenced your faith?
Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright. The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis. The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen.
5. Who or what have been your biggest Christian influences?
Some of the authors above, but also my parents, and older Christian friends who have discipled me.
6. What are the main challenges you believe Christians face today?
To live authentically as followers of Jesus every day of the week in the places they live and work. One of the big themes of Scripture is the importance of God’s people living counter-culturally. That can be difficult. 75% of young adults raised in Christian homes have left church by the age of 35. It’s not that they’ve all rejected Christianity, but that they don’t see the relevance of the gospel to their everyday lives and concerns. The priority is to empower the emerging generation to become Biblically astute, culturally confident women and men who relate the gospel to all of life and work.
7. What encourages and what discourages you?
I am encouraged and discouraged by the witness of the church. I can bear witness to the love, healing, acceptance, grace, truth and holiness that I have discovered in the church. In the words of the missiologist Peter Cotterell: ‘The church envisaged in the New Testament is a radical new community, within which the meaninglessness of life is marvellously resolved. The contemporary reality, and especially the European reality, is vastly different: an institution, locked into its past, preoccupied with arcane irrelevancies, yet perennially confronted by a hurting, helpless world, its fundamental questions unanswered and its meaninglessness unresolved.’
8. What makes you laugh?
Classic comedy like Yes Minster, my children, and the events of everyday life.
9. What would you want to say to the wider evangelical world?
I am increasingly convinced that the church is often failing to capture the hearts of the next generation not because our gospel is too radical but because, all too often, the gospel we present and model is too safe, too shallow, and too small. The wider evangelical world needs to take Jesus and His gospel more seriously.
10. Which Biblical person (other than Jesus) do you most look forward to meeting in glory and why?
Onesimus. I’d love to hear what happened to him after he returned to Philemon.
