My Faith Journey

These wanderings began for me fifty years ago when, although having been brought up within a non-religious family, Jesus knocked on the door of my eight-year heart. Three or four years later it  was during my first year at Grammar school, way back at the beginning of the seventies. A Christian teacher, who was a leader in a Christian youth organisation that was called the Crusaders at this point in time, did an excellent job. He managed to encourage a good majority of my year group to go along to the Sunday afternoon Crusader meetings. Here, we were given a sound evangelical presentation of the Gospel each week as well as enjoying the opportunity to hang out together and have fun with my peers. There was also a regular house party over the Easter weekend and a summer camp in Cornwall to enjoy as eleven or twelve-year-old lads. 

It was Easter 1971 and I was at the house party on the border between the two counties of Hampshire and West Sussex. The week-end was being held in a large old boarding school set within large grounds which included a football pitch, which was very important for us all at this time. Over the weekend as I was exposed to the Gospel messages in the evening meetings and also to the quality of the people around me. To this eleven year old version of myself hey seemed to shine with something I knew I wanted. Something was stirring deep within me. Before the end of the weekend I felt a need to ask my dormitory leader, David Strauss, to have a chat about this unshakeable realisation that I needed to respond to what I was hearing-just listening was not enough. He suggested that we go through a booklet called ‘Journey into Life’ together. At this moment, indeed, a journey into a new life did begin as I prayed the prayer at the end of the booklet and things have never been quite the same. 

In the intervening years I was able to read the whole Bible in a year, admittedly it was the Living Bible (I wasn't the Bible snob then that I am now). I was persecuted, perhaps this is over stating things, at school for being an annoying Bible basher, even suffering physical violence on one occasion. As you can imagine it was a rough life at the grammar school in leafy West Sussex.

I was baptised into the Baptist church at 16 but felt uneasy about the idea of becoming a church member, surely that happened at the cross, I thought. The radical me was already looking to ruffle feathers and to challenge church dogma. As this simply did not ring true for me from my limited understanding of scripture. 

So, I decided to take a stand. I decided that the Baptist church needed to mend its ways and I would be the one to do this.  I attended the next church meeting. And even though I was not a member and did not have a vote, I tried to assert my 'God given' right to vote on whether the church needed a new lawn mower. Suffice to say my vote was not counted and the mower was bought. 'What about the poor' I bewailed as they kindly showed me the door.  Interestingly this story became very relevant in a later stage of my journey. 

However, soon after this, I was baptised in the Holy Spirit in a meeting at the local  Anglican Church and received the gift of tongues. However, at this point the journey began to go wrong for me. At seventeen both my parents developed cancer, the church didn’t approve of my new-found ‘extremism’ and the world was becoming more and more alluring to me. At nineteen I was backslidden, developing into a long-haired hippy and studying Biblical Studies at Sheffield University, which did not go so well-who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour. A journey into life without God was beginning. However, He never let me go-too far. 

I was always bumping into pesky Christians, leave me alone I am trying to find myself. I remember at one drug fuelled party I stumbled on an old friend, interestingly he was at the same easter house party at which I found Christ, he was even in the same dormitory, and had the same conversation about Jesus, but at this time he decided that it was not for him. Seven or eight years on he is on his way to faith, whilst I am walking in the opposite direction. 

So what happens at this party? I find myself giving him the gospel and challenging some dodgy stuff he was contemplating at the time. As they say, you can take the man away from Jesus, but you can't take Jesus out of the man.

Five or six years later and having played the hippy very hard and even living for a short while in a commune, Dad was there for me. I mean here my natural father who, on one May morning, turned up at the front door of a dismal high rise in the Midlands, in which I had been surviving for a few months, My great, non judgmental loving Dad came all that way fron West Sussex to Lichfield to collect his lost and lived out son and take him home. However, having returned to live at home with my ever so accepting and loving parents, Father God then stepped in, welcomed me home to Himself and was able to put me and my life back together again. 

I had been able to find some temporary labouring work helping to build the new north terminal at Gatwick airport. One evening as I sat at the railway station I had my prodigal son moment. I realised what an idiot I had been and that I needed to come home to my spiritual Father. Wonderfully, at this moment Jesus knocked again at the door of my heart.  

Soon He had provided  people  who I needed to help me  begin sorting out my journey and adding me to the exciting place that was the church in the early eighties. Just like Peter on the beach with Jesus following the crucifixion, Father God is a loving waiting Father longing to welcome home His prodigals. And again like Peter He will restore us by reminding us of the place and people from whom we have walked away. For me, this was achieved through the presence in my life, for a brief time, of the man, David Strauss, who had ushered me into the kingdom all those years before. He helped me sort out my past and set me on my feet to begin walking again with the Lord Jesus Christ.

 Within a short time, I had even found Daniela who would become my lovely, long suffering wife and mother of my two beautiful daughters, Sophie and Josie. 

The Lord lead me to settle again in the north west of England and we became actively involved in a house church and this was, for a time, a very positive time for developing gifting and ministry.  This was overall a good time and where a  relational model of church life was lived reality. 

There was a hunger for things of the Spirit in the church, however,  there was also a lack of understanding of true, dying to self discipleship as inner healing and deliverance ministry were the order of the day as the means to freedom in Christ. I dare not judge (but I will), it took another thirty years of 'churchianity' and, eventually, even being taken out of this religious system in 2012 by the Lord, before I was shown what I had been missing all this time.

Deliverance and what we called 'inner healing' as practiced then in the 80s and I am sure today as well, was built on the teaching found in books such as 'Pigs in the Parlour' by Frank and Ida Mae Hammond. When I came back to the Lord in 1984 at the age of 25 there was a real energy behind this idea that the cross was not enough and that beyond it we all needed the ministrations of others to clear out the reluctant demons that would not budge without it. That even though we come to salvation through the cross and the death and  resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lived experience of people trying to follow Jesus informed us that they just could not break free from the sin in their lives. The diagnosis was that the majority of individuals, if not all, were held by the chains of demons. Indeed, these demons had control, to a greater or lesser extent,  over the things we thought, and then as a consequence over the things that we then did.  

Clearly, Jesus delivered individuals who were, we are explicitly told, under demonic influence such as the Gadarene demoniac. And there is some limited attention given to this in the book of Acts, but what about the epistles of Paul? There is indeed, a journey into holiness beyond the cross for all of us, but for Paul we are to put to death our recalcitrant self life through walk with the HOLY Spirit (see Romans 8 particularly verse 13) and by following after Jesus each step the way (See Hebrews 12, particularly verses 1,2).  

We are on a wonderful journey of self-less discovery. 

There may, indeed, be a need of prayerful help and support along the way, but the Jesus and HIs Cross is a finished worked, and there will always be the interplay between the now and  the not yet.

For myself, I had addiction issues coming out of the 'Hippy' world and I eventually found my freedom when Father helped me see that His son had taken it from me, praise the Lord. Having spent many sessions being delivered, but to little effect. It is all about relationship and not some disembodied zapping from on high. It is what the two 'sukkot', the closet and the body, our provided,

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ    

Ephesians 4: 12,13

As a prominent proponent of this ministry, the late John Wimber and the Vineyard church, which he lead, were very popular at this time.  He came to salvation through the Jesus Movement of the the late sixties/early seventies, as did I, and more on this  below.  His claim to legitimacy was that as an 'unchurched', i.e. with no church background, rock musician and having read the book,  he was able to see through the dead religion of church life at the time and to ask the challenging questions that needed to be asked. Questions such as 'When are we going to do the stuff? Signs and wonders and healing were his watchwords. He saw his calling as  enabling the church to be reinvigorated in the area of its spiritual gifting and more generally its experience of things of the Spirit. A message that by the early 80s had crossed the Atlantic. 

As I have described above, I was saved in 1971 as an impressionable 11/12 year old on the edge of adolescence. The teenage culture of the time did offer a young person some options within which you might want to immerse yourself. Some friends shaved their heads, put on their Ben Sherman shirts, two tone trousers, and Harrington jackets and joined the mod fraternity, travelling around the country following Manchester United and avoiding getting beaten up. I did follow at least this fashion for a while but this lifestyle was not for me, particularly as I supported West Ham. 

An alternative youth culture presented itself to me through my new found faith, the Jesus Movement. An American import that sat weirdly within the grey world of 1970s Britain. It was spawned out of the peace and love hippy revolution of the 60s, morphing into a Christian version of the same sort of ideals. An early expression of the fallacious idea that the ways of the world need to be harnessed to make the gospel 'effective' in communicating with the world.  And, indeed, I can see how the seeds of my later falling away from my faith were sown in this young heart at this time. After all, where did I end up? Living on a commune, man, growing weed and befriending a goat, called Jenny, who ended up eating it, far out.

Back to Mr Wimber, my church at this time immersed itself fully into this movement and I attended rallies in both Sheffield and Harrogate. The focus was 'Come Holy Spirit'. The call was to explore the experiential side of the Christian faith through an over realised and distorted pneumatology (study of the spirit), see below for more on this. The meetings at this time  were all about welcoming the 'Spirit' into the midst, looking back now I am not so sure that it was of the 'Holy' variety. This problem got worse with each new 'wave' of this phenomenon, Toronto, Pensacola and ending as it did in scary spectacle of the tattoo covered charlatan Todd Bentley 'worshipping angels' and 'grave sucking' with Bill Johnson and his crew. My wife and I escaped from this in 1998.

Much that passes for the average church gathering today came from this movement. I am referring specifically here to the generic flow of church meetings. During my time attending the baptist church we were used to the hour long hymn 'sandwich', ending with the sermon. Through John Wimber things changed. The idea is that when attending church we are drawn through an extended period of song singing we will be gradually drawn into the presence of the 'spirit'. the songs that start this process are described as praise songs. They are designed to enable the individual to shake off the world and to prepare themselves for the slower, minor key, 'worship' songs that were to follow. And it is at this time that the sensing  of the 'spirit' by the gathering is both the expectation and the focus. According to this new model, the song singing  is therefore  a means to an end for the church. Indeed, an end that sadly has more to do with satisfying a need in the church rather than being something that was focused on blessing God. It seems to be more about man pleasing than God pleasing. Instead of seeking the heart of Father, we were looking for His hand to tickle our feelings.

It is is experiential sensory and sensual, as we move through 'happy clappy' to the soul soothing minor key of what passes for what we erroneously  call worship (see recent excellent teaching from Dr Tom Wadsworth on this subject). The church meetings were all about getting into the spirit through nearly an hours worth of song singing, although in effect this was really getting into a fluffy place in our soul. Feeling it! Just like Buddhists.

There is a simple experiment you can do to prove this point. Simply sit down, put on a minor key worship song and note the impact the music has on you, more precisely on your  mood. It feels a bit like being in the spirit doesn't it. However, this is the realm of the soul, not the spirit.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

John 4:23,24

Today, we have largely lost the focus on the desire to touch the things of the spirit, as we were doing back in the day, but the meetings are still very music heavy. And please, don't start me on the  quality of the songs being sung today. What a miserable old git I have become! Don't worry I have not finished yet, stay tuned for more from misery ministries.

Hold on, hold on there just a minute,  in the midst of all this 20:20 hindsight perhaps a question that does need to be raised at this point is how did I end up, or rather start up, in this place and in this church. It can't have been all bad. In hindsight I am able now to trace the elements of situation that were ultimately to prove to be problematic, however,  at the beginning there was an essential aspect of church life that was both positive and very much spiritual life enhancing. The Lord was building  a relationally based expression of His body. At this time, the pastor's home, which had our small meeting room at the back, was the focus of the lives of the group of young people who were being gathered together to form a church. There was a wonderful, positive spirit, which provided a foundation for our spiritual growth and development in these early years. This truly was for a time a good example of a house fellowship, indeed, a situation that was redolent of that which we might see experienced two thousand years ago, and this was happening in Morecambe, of all places. There were also other similar churches springing up at this time. And for a time it was a work of the Lord and it was good. 

As I reflect now, perhaps in my writing I am harking back in some way to this time, and recognising it as a potential way forward. However, the challenge , as always, will be the extent to which we  allow Father to deal with our selfish, ambitious hearts, to step back and let Jesus build HIS ekklesia with us, through us and, most importantly, in us. 

We are moving now into the last half of the 1980s and I was  still single as my future wife was finishing her studies in Germany and we were making plans about our future together.  At this time I discovered a capacity to teach  as I became part of the Sunday preaching rota.  I was also exercising some spiritual leadership within the church as I lead a house group and an intercessory prayer meeting comprising praying ladies, more on this below. 

Let us spend some time reflecting on my experience of preaching and teaching. From the outset I felt comfortable standing in front of people and communicating what I felt I had been given to share. My style has always been more teaching than preaching. However, it has always been important to me that I have something new and fresh in the Lord with which to encourage and challenge others. I was usually well received and overtime developed, in my own head at least, that I was rather good at this 

However, Here lay a trap for me. For this sad little man to suddenly  discover something like this it fed my self life and for me it created an important aspect of my identity. I was now someone because I could do this thing, and this thing sustained me. It made me feel good when it went well and absolutely rubbish when it didn't. This in turn led to self pride, a wonderful capacity to judge others as I thought of myself as being something special. 

The Lord let this continue for a while until my relationship with the pastor came under strain, as he, acting out of his own issues, cancelled me and my preaching. Ouch! This hurt. Who was this sad little man without his platform?  Where was the church without my invaluable input? I was still the same sad little man that I had always been and the church survived without my input. 

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

The word translated from the original Greek here as workmanship here can also be read as a work of art, a masterpiece, and for a masterpiece to be created there needs to be a new blank canvas. For all of us, the canvas of our life in Christ needs to renewed so that the image that is painted on it is His image and not the distorted image of the old self that has merely been painted over. The old will never be covered, it has to be removed. Otherwise the sad little old us will always come through, no matter how hard we try to fake it.

And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Corinthians 5:15-17

The Lord moved on my circumstances such that I was able to learn this painful lesson that we can have no foundation in our walk in the Lord other than the Lord Himself. 

Spiritual Warfare and Prayer and Intercession

I will now move on to explore my experience leading an intercessory prayer  meeting.  The motivation for starting this group within the church, as I reflect now on these events, does seem to have come from an experience that I had at the John Wimber conference that I had attended in Sheffield in 1984. The conference meetings were held in the beautiful Victorian civic splendour of the city hall. The popularity for Mr. Wimber and his message was such that the venue was full,  accommodating as it does nearly three thousand seated customers, this was a significant event. 

Every session had the same format. There would be a time of song singing lead by the Vineyard worship team. Music was very important to this movement, Wimber was himself a musician. Indeed, It was the Vineyard who largely  initiated the idea that professionally produced new worship songs would be regularly released and which opened up a whole new area of retail therapy to be found in the local Christian bookshops.

After the song singing, which was delivered to create the 'right' spiritual atmosphere, John Wimber would take to the stage and deliver his message. His messages were designed to guide us through his programme to make us more receptive to the things of the 'spirit'. This might be to do with individual experience of things of the 'spirit', the extreme manifestations of this through  the  'Toronto experience' were yet to come. He would also teach about, what he called,  spiritual warfare. Essentially the idea was that we, the church, were in a battle, and therefore we were called to wage  a spiritual war against  the devil  and his demonic hordes.

According to Wimber, this warfare begins with and within  the individual believer who needed to have a spiritual clear out before they would be ready to join the front line of this battle. This idea of a clear out was called 'deliverance', and had a younger cousin called 'inner healing'. Peter Horrobin was deeply impacted by this ministry at this time and motivated him to begin Ellel deliverance and inner healing  ministry.

The next part of the conference meetings in Sheffield would be John Wimber giving a deliverance or healing demonstration from the stage.  He then would invite volunteers who had recognised their own issues/spiritual condition within  what he had just been teaching. This was quite a spectacle. I remember one individual who was standing before the great man, in front of everyone in this huge auditorium. Wimber looked intently into his eyes and barked a loud command for whatever it was that he saw behind this man's eyes to come out. On cue the man fell backwards, into the arms of the attendants  who were waiting, like slip fielders in a cricket match, for this event. At other times whole groups fell over and Wimber described what was happening to them on the ground as 'spiritual surgery'. On another occasion he called people forward who were struggling to start a family, weirdly I actually recognised one of the men who responded to this invitation from my home town. What was the fruit of these 'spiritual encounters', we never found out.

Clearly what was happening here was not new, going back in time these sort of events had been taking place, usually for physical healing or to receive the gospel, what was different here was the spiritual warfare angle. The final element of these meetings was what Wimber described as letting God loose on the meeting. We were all invited to stand and to wait. And then from the far corner of the auditorium a wailing would begin, and like a Mexican wave this sound would begin to move around the space. And you waited for it arrive, you would prepare yourself and as it move to your part of the room you were caught up in the prevailing emotion/s that were being experienced.

I was not immune from this and on one occasion as I was moaning and groaning I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and someone was standing there, phew, and they told me that I was carrying the spirit of intercession. At last, we have got there. This is what motivated me to start the prayer group. I believed that this scrawny 25 year old, who was still struggling to give up smoking, was now equipped and anointed to stand in the gap and make intercession for whatever came my way.

This was the time of 'March for Jesus' and books such as 'Taking our Cities for God' and I started to meet together with 3 or 4 praying ladies to do just this. Please don't get me wrong, prayer is so important, the issue here is an over-realised sense of who we were and what we thought we were called to be doing.  

We would meet once a week in the house I shared with another young man who was part of the church. And we would do battle. We would wait for words and insights from the Spirit and pray them through, such as chasing and dispelling demons wherever we thought we had found them.

And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?

Acts 19:15

I have since learned the following:

scripture teaches that those who called to intercede have a quality of relationship with God, someone who has His ear such as Abraham, Moses or Daniel in the Old Testament. However, in the New, there is only one man who counts, a man who's intercession took Him to the Cross. We are told that,

It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Romans 8:34

And we are also taught earlier in this same chapter that it is the Spirit of Christ, who intercedes through those who are in  Christ. 

• we can only join Jesus in His intercession
• our intercession is for our brothers and sisters in Christ
• we are also called to make...supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;  For kings, and for all that are in authority (1Timothy 2:1,2b)

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints

Ephesians 6:18

It is not about chasing demons!

Evangelism

 A little later, I also lead a certain type of outreach meeting that was popular in the early 90s, a 'Seeker Service'. Again, like with John Wimber, this was driven by the need to keep up with the latest spiritual church based fad. A church in North America called Willow Creek had developed a way to do church that was designed to put the focus on becoming accessible and user friendly for the unsaved, or they called them 'the unchurched'. To this end they met in a theatre/cinema style venue and the service was more like a show. At the heart of this was drama sketches which were designed to illustrate and to illuminate the Gospel message each week. Just as Jesus used stories or parables to help people understand His message, Bill Hybels and the Willow Creek church saw the drama as a modern day take on this form of communication.

This idea spread to the UK and soon many churches started their own version of this type of meeting. Here, however, it tended to be an add on to the existing programme of services. This was the case with us, we ran it as a Sunday evening event. 

Still in the pastor's good books, I was given the leadership of this project. A team gathered around me and I developed a good creative working relationship with Mik Kelly at this time. And we ran this on  monthly basis as a means through which we might be more effective in our evangelistic endeavours. This meeting would be a net within which those who are being called by the Lord might find salvation. It made sense.

Mik and I developed the programme and wrote the sketches. There is a bit of a cross over here between the two pathways as this was the first time that I had done any writing since my days trying to become the next poet laureate.  The meetings were popular, however, not fruitful as it merely became an entertainment for the church, rather than fulfilling its purpose to be a salvific net to catch the 'fish' that swim our way. 

Ultimately, we were able to take our seeker services  on the road. Holding them in a village hall  locally and then we were given a time on the stage at the Aughton Pudding festival in 1992. This event is run every 21 years and it centres on the baking of the a cake or pudding that might challenge for a place in the Guinness Book of Records, not our finest moment I am afraid. Basically, if you are going to have a fun family day out You don't really want or need a bunch of self righteous kids performing a silly sketch without adequate amplification, being shouted at by a thirty year old version of myself that they needed to become part of the cake that God was baking and that they they could only do this through Jesus. And then, to put the icing and the cherry on top of this cake, the worship band from the church also took to the stage for a further half an hour. I needed therapy after this, goodness knows what the punters thought was going on. But the pastor told us to do this, whilst he hid out of sight, because he thought it was agood idea-mm?

Perhaps it would be good to at this juncture to explore what might have been going wrong with our approach to evangelism within church world?  Indeed, we might want to ask the question, where does evangelism fit into the life of the local church? Is it just one of the many programmes we have to man and find a place for, such as by running  special meetings like a seeker service or by regularly taking the gospel to the streets of our villages, towns and cities? There clearly is a place for it as one of the four fold ministries that were originally actively at work in the early church was the evangelist (see my book Taking on the Form of a Servant, where we explore the context for the fourfold ministries within the life of the early church).

A key to coming to our understanding of this issue can be found within a phrase we find used by the apostle Paul in the first chapter of his letter to the church in Philippi,

Fellowship in the Gospel.

The picture painted by Paul is that the life of the local church should be seen as a faith filled river of love and hope. A river that sweeps us along from salvation, into Jesus following, self killing discipleship which will in turn produce the fruit of both character transformation and the fruit of those who will come to faith through the witness of Christ in us and which flows out of us through His Spirit to touch and impact the hearts of those who encounter us. A spiritual flow that is captured profoundly and succinctly by Jesus formative teaching,

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

Matthew 4:19

and in the beatitudes, which climax in the following,

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children (literally sons) of God.

Matthew 5:9

When we understand this, no I really mean understand this, then evangelism becomes who we are and not what we do.

Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:

To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? (Jesus is!)

2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

As we explored above, our church fully embraced and endeavoured to experience the 'fruit' of  the ministry of John Wimber, which morphed into the Toronto ‘blessing’ and then on into Pensacola and . Eventually, it became clear that there was something wrong, not just with the hyper charismatic experientially based direction in which the church was moving, but also with the increasingly dictatorial style of the leadership under which the flock were being increasingly spiritually controlled. We will now move on to address these two problematic  issues that have plagued the evangelical church of the last thirty years:  a distorted understanding of things of the Spirit (pneumatology) and then spiritual abuse.  Yay, more joy! 

Pneumatology: character or charisma?

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

John 14:16-18

The key phrase in the scripture above is and shall be in you. The Holy Spirit is not some warm fuzzy feeling thing that comes down onto meetings and individuals. The Holy Spirit is the indwelling presence of Jesus that we carry with us 24/7 following our salvation through the cross. This is why Jesus uses the future tense here for the disciples, and later in the gospel the impartation of the Spirit being breathed into the disciples is described by  John (see John 20:21,22). 

We have a down payment for eternity in the Holy Spirit,

Christ,

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,

Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:12d-14

The word translated earnest here means a down payment. We have a touch of heaven, not outside of us that will, at random times, when we might sense we are close to God, come upon us and make us feel all gooey. No, He is on the inside and he is sealed there, praise God. He is also our seal, like on an old school letter, that proves that we belong and are His. Sometimes we might feel something, sometimes we won't, but He will always be there felt or not.

And the crucial reason why He is there is found in Paul's teaching in Romans 8, where we read the following,

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Romans 8:13,14

Something has to die. Your life or your old self life, you choose. And if we do want to follow Jesus we need to deny this self life on a daily basis, pick up our cross (see Luke 9: 23, 24) and walk with the Holy Spirit to a place of lived out unassuming righteousness and a greater purity of heart.  

Then...

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 8:1

Then...

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God

Romans 8:15,16

Then...

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Romans 8:35a

Therefore, when we do gather together in the body we bring the Holy Spirit with us, and there to share his presence in us with our brothers and sisters in love.

How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.

1 Corinthians 14: 26

The result of this being a veritable spiritual orchard of love called the ekklesia, the body of Christ. (if only)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Galatians 5: 22-25

Spiritual Abuse/Control

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.

1 Peter 5: 2-3

Church leadership as we have it is problematic. The leadership that I experienced in this small house church was carried by the founder of the work and his wife. He was open to bringing others into leadership positions, even to eldership, however the buck, so to speak, always stopped with him. In this he was following the prevailing model of leadership. In all denominations there is one individual who is recognised as the leader of the local expressions of their church, be it a vicar, minister, pastor. or in the Catholic context, the priest.  This said, in reality  with regards to our leadership structure in the church in whatever iteration we might find ourselves it is all a bit catholic.  Not so much with the strange garments, but with this idea that there needs to be one individual who, as Orwell expresses it, is more equal than the rest . There is no clergy/laity distinction in the scripture.

Also, there are no professional Christian that demand a regular wage in scripture. Paul at one moment does suggest that some exercising their ministry within the body at times does deserve some financial support (see 1 Corinthians 9). At other times he is tent making to make ends meet (see Acts 18).  I believe we are all called to give of our time freely and to obediently serve, leaders included. 

So many leaders within this structure burn out, fall into sin or is in our situation become spiritually abusive. An issue in our situation was the lack of accountability. The leader and his wife were largely a law unto themselves. This clearly had potential to go wrong and sadly it did. Eventually, the pastor's insecurities and mental/physical  fragility came through and his ability to lead others was distorted by this and people began to be hurt as a consequence. 

Not to dwell here too long, but the basic issue was one fear and some level of paranoia on the part of the leader and his wife. He became increasingly dictatorial and at times confrontational. If you tried to talk to him to raise a concern you were then the  issue. It was all very toxic. 

(please get hold of my book 'Taking  upon you the Form of a Servant' for a full exploration of the scriptural model for local church leadership.)

We finally left this house church at the end of the nineties and I was then able to return to my studies and to complete my degree through the Elim Pentecostal Bible College, which at that time was based in Nantwich, Cheshire.

Elim Bible College

For me to go to Bible college was a very significant event for me. I had been making ends meet financially through working as a picture framer and for a time running my own gallery. Neither of which brought much financial security.  Leaving Sheffield University without a degree had been a painful experience and I always knew I could have done better, clearly it is difficult to see how I could have done worse. I was left with a hollow ache in my soul. At times I had suggested to my pastor uber fuhrer that I would like to explore returning to my studies only to be met with a very definate 'no way Jose', not on my watch reaction. The party line was that bible college was all religious theory and as such was no practical use. A seminary was little more than a spiritual cemetery  (see what I did there). On one occasion this request triggered an emergency late night gathering of the elders.

Therefore, being a good, obedient boy I had to wait until I had left the church in order to explore my options to get an ology. This proved to be beautifully cyclical for me and my wife. The Bible where we had originally met, Elim, was now based in the small market town of Nantwich in Cheshire. This was only an hour and a half drive away, so I contacted them to ask what I needed to do to study with them. The answer came when I attended an interview at the college,  they had contacted Sheffield and I still had enough credit that if I attended some ledctures and wrote an essay of the back of this and if this was of a standard then...and here is the good news...I would only have to successfully complete one year with them to achieve a theology with honours that was accredited through Manchester University

This I did and this I did. I took out a student loan, and the following academic year I travelled three days a week to attend Bible college. I remember  walking into the classroom on the September morning back in 1998. I was early and  there was just one other student, I can't remember his name, but he was an Asian lad and he actually knew someone from my world. Then, soon after my arrival we were joined by my double, middle aged and looking for a new direction, a guy called Andrew and we became good friends. He was from Wrexham and as the year developed I ended up staying with him and his family one night a week, sleeping in their caravan that was parked in their driveway.

The studies were enjoyable and they went OK. Far better than last time. In Sheffield my course was Biblical Studies and as a secular academic department it had been taught with the prevailing rigorous 'Higher critical' approach, which coming out of the 'Enlightenment' as it had done was all about knocking holes in any sense that the Bible could be taken seriously as an historical document. In Nantwich things were very different, here scripture was taught from  faith to faith. The method here was to take the scriptural narrative at face value and to explore it as the God given text it is. The college was set up as training ground for people who wanted to minister within the given denomination and as such the teaching was very practical. This was a much better fit for me.

Reflection on Bible College/s

The Bible college that I attended, as I reflect on my experience now, and I can only assume the same will apply more generally to most of not similarly set up institutions, are propagating 'churchianity' as opposed to what I would recognise all these years on as the form of the body which we find demonstrated and described both in scripture and in what was practised within the early life of the church. A dynamic, community transforming, relational movement of love, power and challenge. The challenge being to the hearts of all those involved. The focus from the teaching of Jesus through the apostle's epistles is on what Paul describes in his letter to the church in Philippi as a joint participation in the 'fellowship of the gospel'. Among the first words that are recorded from the ministry of the Lord are His call for us to repent and  to follow Him. Why, so that He could turn us into trawlers for Jesus.  However, to do this, like Peter in Luke 5, our face also needs to be the sand before Him. (Philippians 1:5; Matthew 4:17,19; Luke 5:8-10) 

The role of the church is to be the human vessel within which this work of God, the fellowship of the Gospel, might be facilitated.  How does  the apostle Paul describes this fellowship in his letter to the church in Ephesus? The church and its ministries and ministers have been God given:

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ...

Ephesians 4:12,13

The church is supposed to supporting every born again member to journey towards their own form of maturity in Christ. To become a mature, fruitful child of God. In the terms used by Jesus to be able to catch people by the level of Christ within them acting as the lure. This the fellowship of the Gospel. The gospel and the cross of Jesus Christ are not only concerned with the single wonderful event of someone coming to faith, their purpose is truly fulfilled by this person coming through to maturity and fruitfulness in their own right, as we have seen captured by the succinct words of the Lord. The Gospel is a relational process, and  the fellowship of and in this gospel is the beginning, middle and end of the whole reason why Jesus instituted the church, which is His body, in the first place.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Romans 8:28, 29

Sadly, this was not the focus of the teaching in the Bible college. Instead, we  were trained to deliver 'churchianity'. What is 'churchianity' you may be asking?  'churchianity' is a distorted way of understanding the purpose of the church. Too often as we have it today, the focus of church life is not about building the people as we have seen it described in scripture, but is more about instilling in the people from day one of their faith journey that they need to be building the church. To keep the show on the road, to populate the activities and to make sure the Sunday meeting is as rich and entertaining as is possible. From day one the pressure is on! 

Again sadly, within such a structure true spiritual growth is restricted and people so easily get sucked into living their Christian life in their own strength desperately trying to please people, instead of fearing God and knowing His peaceful gentle beckoning.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

The problem with 'churchianity' is that too often, and this impacts  individuals within this system sub-consciously, the foundational allegiance is to the church and not to the Lord. So that relationships that are built within this system are predicated upon an adherence to this distorted allegiance by all concerned and when relationship is broken with the church then all the other relationships break as well. There is an inside and outside and the wall between the two will not allow any such relationships to persist beyond the break from the inside to the outside.  

Sadly, this is very cult like and as such 'churchianity' might be described as cultic Christianity.  The problem is, how do you avoid this today? Within the evangelical church wherever you look 'churchianity' seems to prevail.  You may say that I am being far too sweeping here. To be clear I am not saying that every evangelical church is a cult or that every evangelical leader  is a  mad cultic Jim Jones wannabe. The problem is that the 'one man band' leadership model and the underpinning 'churchianity' model that goes with this carries the potential for this to happen. And this does not mean that the congregation is being taken into the jungle to drink the 'coolaid'. The effect will be subtle and it will create a culture through which, as I have described above, it is all about building the church.

Listen to the words of the apostle Paul here,

Let all things be done unto edifying.

1Corinthians 14:26c

The word edifying means to build up, The apostle is not talking here about building up the church but is stating clearly that anything and everything that takes place when the people of God gather has only one purpose and that is to build the people and not the structure.

Planting a Church in Morecambe

Could I do a better job? As you are about to see, the answer to this is a resounding, NO! How could I, I knew no better.

I now had a bit of paper, which meant I could get a ‘proper’ job at the age of forty. I taught at a college for disabled young people until my retirement earlier this year.  My faith journey now moved in a new direction as the Lord gathered folk around us and, we eventually planted a church in particularly needy part of our town. 

However, perhaps we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here. It would be helpful to take some time, so to speak, to explore the process by which this church plant did come about.

The process began during the year of my Studies at Bible college and it did not have much to do with me. Our neighbour at this time was a Godly lady who attended the local Anglican church in the village where we live. Through my wife, Daniela, a relationship developed with this lady by which this lady, why don't we call her Jennifer, because this was her name, became a bridge into her church and to a few of the folk within. They began to meet together and there was a real hunger here for something more than the Sunday religion. This began as a small group of women and in time some husbands were drawn in.

At the same time, Daniela through her work in a local further education college met a lady who together with her  husband were looking for an opportunity to get involved in a church plant.

My wife also encountered another lady was looking to rekindle her Christian faith and she was also drawn into this orbit with her family.

Connections such as these continued to happen. to cut a long story short, within a few months we were meeting in a rented room in the afore mentioned further education college on Sundays with a leadership team of four. Within a few months we weren't. We suffered a little local difficulties. One of the gang of four struggled with the charismatic element of our gatherings and left to plant his own work in town and it is there to this day. Another struggled to be part of a team leadership, no one said it would be easy. He planted his own work, eventually he moved away to pastures (and to church splitting) new. 

Those who were left started meeting house to house on Sundays. We began to grow and one of our number who lived in a particularly needy part of this sad and tired seaside resort was also the chair of governors of a primary school situated in the heart of this community. She had a conversation with the head teacher in this school, within  which she shared about our fast approaching need for premises to meet in. The next day, the head teacher called , lets call her Kirsty because that is her name, Kirsty and said she found it hard to sleep that night because she felt she should offer to Kirsty and her church the school as a meeting place.  The thing that was probably most affecting her sleep was that she insisted that this would be without charge. This was quite a God thing!

I knew this was the Lord, such insight, because at the same time whilst attending another unconnected meeting I was asked by someone with whom i was chatting, what is happening in Morecambe? And I suddenly felt the Lord say yes what is happening in Morecambe and in that moment The placed a real burden spiritually speaking for the town.

We were soon unlocking a whole school, turning off the alarm system and clambering into the boiler room to turn the heating. Although, it never did get very warm, especially in January. During our time here I also joined the board of governors in order to give something back. 

We met here for a few years, we felt led to deliver a Bible to every house in this community as spiritual seed sowing. At Christmas time we took to the streets singing carols. Every week we held house groups and intercessional prayer meetings. 

Out of the blue, for me at least, I received a phone call from the other leader telling me that he no longer wanted to be involved. Sadly, he didn't want to talk face to face and face to explain the problem.  And guess what, I later found out that he found me too controlling, I did tell you I would be rubbish at this.

And if you want controlling, I was now the one man band leader perhaps I had always wanted to be. Not quite, I was working fulltime and now leading a church, preaching most Sundays and making all the decisions.

One decision was to move, the school was being renovated so we found an alternative venue. However, it was now the late noughties, and the spirit of Jezebel kicks in and the church implodes. A couple had joined the church, I say a couple, they were two women who lived together. They did deny that they were…we are not allow to go here anymore.

Anyway, they were very pastoral, and I had no time to concern myself with the needs of the people-welcome to the ‘churchianity’ club Richard. They did and they drew to themselves, it became very quickly a church within a church. And when I finally decided to challenge what was going on, the damage was done. 

The following Sunday there was just my wife and I, Kirsty and Simon, her husband, and two others gathering for church. We are left to once again to lick our wounds and to reflect on what has happened and to ask Father why? I think I knew.  Some of the answers to this question were very close to home for me as Father pointed out the significant elephant in the room, we all have blind spots. 

Truth be told, I was a bit of a well-hidden, functional mess at this time. Things couldn’t in reality carry on as they were. Certain lifestyle choices did need to be sorted and by His grace they were.

As I have reflected upon these events I have just had an interesting realisation. We did start with a plurality of leaders which had been a conscious decision that did have consequences for us at the time. However, at the end I was clearly operating in 'one man bandism' and my focus the church and not the people. That isn’t the realisation. 

This is the realisation. What if the couple, even though I might want to judge their lifestyle and to some extent their motivation, were actually getting things more right than I was able to see. Perhaps I was blinded by my harsh judgmentalism? Essentially they were people people and people, because of this, gravitated towards them. This said, therefore, might even the church that was created within the church by them,  have been  more akin to the idea of church that I am so exercised about now?  Blindspots indeed.

I continue to love the body of Christ, why has this been such a difficult road on which to travel? Probably this was down to me, however, I was determined to not give upon the church, but in 2012 the Lord took me out of the Sunday system.  The way he did this connects me once again with my 16 year old radical self. 

I love the body of Christ, why has this been such a difficult road on which to travel? I was determined to not give upon the church, but in 2012 the Lord took me out of the Sunday system.  The way he did this connects me once again with my 16 year old radical self. 

When we were left churchless in 2008 my wife and I and the remaining couple who had stayed with us through the turmoil we had just been through (Shout out to Kirstie and Simon-thank you) decided after some searching to attend a local Baptist church. We immersed ourselves fully here and the time came a certain decision to be made. We were advised that for us to be fully integrated in the life of the church and to take on any leadership function we would, you guessed it-benefit from becoming church members. 

The not so radical 50 year old self and my wife thought that this made good sense and we went through the vetting process to verify our spiritual credentials having in an interview. We were told we had passed and our membership would be voted upon at the next church member's meeting. 

At this time seeming echoes of my more radical younger self seemed to stir, I felt uneasy in my spirit about this and I prayed that if this was not the right step for us to take that then would you please stop us taking it. 

The day came and went. And we assumed the deed had been done, when we received a phone call from the minister. He rang to tell us that he had never experienced this before but there had not been enough people present to form a quorum. He went to explain that he had tried to convince the few that were there that we should be accepted anyway. However, one couple held out and said no. Rules are rules.

He apologised and then asked if we wanted to have our membership transferred to the next meeting. We said we would let him know. And the know we would go on to let him was no. Father had clearly spoken, hello the reborn sixteen year old me. This was not the right step then and it still wasn't now.

So after other issues confirm to us that we had made the right choice, and we left in 2012.

 I clearly had some things to sort out together, actually one huge thing my heart, and I am still a work in progress and I will always be. However, at least I am balanced, I have a chip on both shoulders, having suffered at the hands of both the church leadership and the flock. At least now I know I am now travelling in the right direction. For it has been in this time that I have learned so much about the Lord, His people and myself. It has been in this time that I, at last, understood what this journey has all been about- to know Him!  

It is in this time that the Lord has opened up for me a wonderful picture of a new yet old way forward for the church. And it has been in this time that I have been introduced by the Lord to some very special people who have experienced a similar journey to myself, and who desire the same outcome,  expressed within these two important scriptures.

That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 

For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 

(Ephesians 5: 27; 2 Corinthians 11: 2)

At 6.30 one Friday morning I found myself sitting  in an airplane on my way to spend some time with Sophie, my eldest daughter who was studying in Germany and going through a difficult time.  I was joined on the plane in the two seats next to me by an older couple, with the wife sitting next to me as I had the window seat. This was my God appointed time to meet Maurice and Joanna Barratt and to be introduced to Barratt Ministries.

As I took a sneaky look over the ladies shoulder I noticed that she was reading something Biblical and so I asked her what she was reading and there began a relationship that has been so important to me ever  since. We chatted on the flight and they invited me to join them on our return at their small house fellowship in Manchester. The clincher for me was the fact that we both nearly missed the same flight back on Monday morning.

Two significant events happened during two of their meetings, but I will save these stories for the account of My Creativity Journey. Suffice it to say, they have been instrumental in supporting my developing call to write, as they themselves write and produce their own media online output which includes music as Joanna is an excellent singer, all from their humble tumble down house in Manchester.

It was also during this time that I was led by the Lord to get involved in a community based Bible college in Rochdale that was led by Keith Mason. This did not last for long, but I saw here a model that I would be keen to replicate God willing. Their is such a need for solid scripturally based teaching at this time and I believe this would be both compliment the work of the local church and prove immensely valuable for the ongoing work of the Lord in preparing the next generation to walk in the things of the Lord.

During this period I have received ministerial credentials through the Christian Ministerial Fellowship International, many thanks for their support over this time, particularly to the late John Anglis.

The good news is that looking with the eyes of faith new groups are beginning to be gathered together.  This is a new day for a new wineskin. A day for making the bride ready for the bridegroom. A process of heart transformation that sadly seems to lie beyond the purposes of the religious system that is the church today, which is more focused on building itself rather than the flock. 

Within the church there is much confusion as to where we are in terms of the plans and purposes of the Almighty and as a consequence the prevailing teaching is suffering and is sadly too often devoid of truth. Therefore, this has been my journey and it is out of this journey and, more importantly, out of what I believe the Father has fed me, sitting by my own brook Cherith, praying walking the dog and writing.

I would like to thank my long-suffering wife, Daniela, for joining me on the journey. 

And I would like to thank those who have helped me along the way. 

David Strauss, for helping me find the Lord all those years ago. Peter Worsley and the Crusaders, the Rev. Albert Allen and the Baptist church for helping to give me a good start. Clive Carr, and David Strauss again for picking up the pieces and helping to begin to put me back together again. 

David and Shirley McEwen and Andrew and Nicky Hole for welcoming me on board, for a while the journey was a good one. 

Andrew Walmsley for patiently exposing me to the importance of Israel. 

And, latterly Maurice and Joanna Barratt for helping us to more deeply understand and embrace the purpose of the way in the wilderness. 

Last, but not least, I would like to thank my now sadly departed dog Charlie for joining me on so many prayer journeys along the canal.