My Journey of Faith
I was brought up in a Christian home and attended church from infancy. My parents were committed Christians who faithfully supported our local Methodist church in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. That’s where my Christian journey truly began.
Before Sunday services, I attended a boys’ Christian group called Crusaders, followed by morning worship and Sunday School. Around the age of fourteen, I became a member of the Methodist Church and even felt drawn toward becoming a Methodist minister one day. I certainly believed in Jesus with my mind, but that belief had not yet reached my heart. That all changed about a year later, in 1978, when a Christian musical called The Witness, touring from the United States, came to the UK. Our church organised a coach trip to Oxford City Hall to see the performance — an evening that would change my life forever.
The musical was amazing and, for me personally, utterly life-changing. At the end of the performance, the cast gave an invitation to respond to Christ. It was at that moment that I fully surrendered my life to Jesus and was wonderfully born again. After being prayed for and having the Gospel clearly explained, I rejoined my parents and the coach party — feeling completely transformed. Something unmistakable and wonderful had taken place inside me, and my life has never been the same since.
Within a few months, I started a youth group in our church called Koinonia (the Greek word for “fellowship” or “unity”), where we met on Sunday nights to pray and study the Bible together.
When I was seventeen, I moved from the Methodist Church to a local Church of England congregation that had a thriving youth ministry and a deep passion for the Holy Spirit. A few years later, when most of my Christian friends left for university, I joined a local Elim Pentecostal Fellowship. There, the pastor encouraged me to preach, evangelise, and lead a home group. I owe a great deal to that pastor, who recognised God’s calling on my life and inspired me to “fan into flame the gift of God” within me.
Within a few years, I applied to study at Elim Bible College in Capel, near Dorking, Surrey, where I began a three-year residential course in Theology and Pastoral Studies in September 1985. During my time at EBC, I was introduced to Evangelism Explosion — a Gospel presentation method that has been invaluable to me ever since.
After graduating in 1988, I served as pastor at Coventry Elim Church for three years, followed by seven years in Sheffield. In time, the Lord led me out of full-time pastoral ministry and into work within the NHS, though my passion for sharing the Gospel never faded. During these years, I joined St. John’s Parish Church in Sheffield, where I led local outreach, taught the Evangelism Explosion “Share Your Faith” training programme, and ran the weekly church prayer meeting. It was during this season that I met and married my amazing wife, Helen.
During the Covid lockdown, we began joining the Rock Christian Centre’s online Sunday evening meetings and felt prompted by the Lord to connect more deeply. Once lockdown restrictions lifted, we started attending RCC in person.
I am deeply grateful to Pastor Jon Watts, who not only gave me the opportunity to preach but also affirmed the evangelistic calling on my life — confirming a prophetic word spoken over me years earlier at Aylesbury Elim Church.
In 2025, I began serving the Rock Christian Centre as Evangelism Co-ordinator, where I oversee evangelism training, lead Alpha courses, and help run Healing on the Streets. My passion is to see our local community turn from spiritual darkness to the light of the Gospel. I continually seek the Lord’s guidance in how best to reach people with His love.
If you share this passion and would like to get involved in evangelism at RCC, I would love to hear from you. Please come and have a chat — together, let’s make Jesus known in our city.