I became a Christian a few weeks before my eighth birthday. It was in my father's Sunday School class that I realised that the Lord Jesus had died for my sins. And so, in my childlike way, I received Christ Jesus as Lord and knew that I belonged to him.
When I was in my teens, I used to think that was a very ordinary thing to say – dull even. Sometimes I longed to have a more exciting story to tell, of a dramatic rescue from a lurid past. But as I have got older and, perhaps, a little wiser, I have come to understand that my rescue is just as unique and extraordinary an example of the magnificent grace of God as any other.
During my formative years our church was served by a gifted, expository preaching minister, who nurtured my faith and enabled me to keep pace spiritually with all the other developments involved in what we call ‘growing up’. This prepared me for the rigour of university life where I had to learn to defend and proclaim the gospel.
Keswick and me
In my first job, as a school teacher, I became aware of my own spiritual inadequacy and began to long for a more fruitful Christian life. In the providence of God, I decided to go to Keswick. I had sometimes listened to the landline relays to my home town of the evening meetings from the convention, which in those days were broadcast all over the country. So I booked myself in and travelled up with the crowds on the special train from London and ‘did’ Keswick. The weather was wonderful and the ministry enormously helpful. With new clarity I came to see my own sinfulness, the wonder of the cross, the right to reign of the risen Lord and the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit. God met with me that week and showed me that only as he lived his life in and through me could I begin to discover and fulfil his purposes for my life.
Above Bar and Proclamation Trust
So much has followed from that – the provision of a wonderful wife, whose support over 46 years has been a tower of strength; an increasingly persistent call into full-time ministry, first through six years on the staff with Inter-Varsity Fellowship (now UCCF), then wonderful training years at Trinity College, Bristol under Alec Motyer and Jim Packer. This was followed by 15 years in pastoral ministry at Above Bar Church, Southampton and the last 25 years with the Proclamation Trust in London, where I was privileged to found and direct the Cornhill Training Course. Throughout this time I have been especially blessed to work under and with some outstanding servants of the Lord, along with many friends and colleagues who have instructed, challenged and encouraged me.
In returning to the convention this year, after an absence of 25 years, I am honoured and humbled to be given the privilege of speaking at the Bible Readings in Week 3.
