What was your background, spiritually?

My Dad was a traditional churchgoing quiet Anglican. As small children, we were taken to church regularly. Dad was in the army and was posted every three years when I was small, including to Kenya which, I remember, when I visited in my school summer holidays, was very hot. The General’s wife fainted in the chapel, which was a metal Nissan hut!

My Mum struggled with the idea of “faith” but came to church occasionally. I can recall a very gloomy church in Beckenham, when dad worked in London, which was very boring - Dad used to try to keep us entertained with toys from his pocket but there wasn’t much in church to appeal to a ten year old.

I was confirmed in the school chapel when I was 14 with a number of other boys in the choir (not that I can sing a note in tune now!). It was just something we did together with little grasp, or explanation, of its significance – at least that we registered. In our RE lessons, we only studied the Christian faith, learning the Beatitudes, etc. by rote, to be forgotten entirely in the years to come. So, although I’d been confirmed, there was no apparent spiritual side to it.

When I left school I went to a polytechnic to study to become a commercial property valuer. I only went to church occasionally when I went home to visit. Dad went regularly, but the rest of us infrequently. I used to take Communion from time to time and then, inexplicably, feel really low afterwards, for two or three days.

How did you get interested in the Christian faith?

When our children were small, I felt prompted to have them baptised, so we went to a church in Teddington near where we lived. Coincidentally, the vicar had been a surveyor before becoming a clergyman and whilst very intellectual (unlike me!) he appealed to me. I took our first son, Daniel, to the toddlers' group, and, as the only man who attended, began to help. I began to find myself being useful (a trademark!). I was helping to teach stuff I hadn’t looked at for 30 years! It began to stir my memories and prompted questions in me.

A few years later, a client I’d acted for for years was looking to buy a large site next to Battersea bridge on which to build a 4,000-bed student hotel. The site owner was in receivership and the Receiver rejected our bid, but put us in touch with another interested but unnamed party. After months of discussion, they turned out to be a church - Holy Trinity, Brompton. One Sunday afternoon, we met in the vaults under the church to discuss the possibility of a joint scheme – a 5,000-seat church and a 4,000-bed student hotel – following which we were invited to the service upstairs. It was awesome, at least 800 people all chatting before the service! I had never seen a church so full or so lively. The service had very different worship to my experience but I was touched by the sermon – the longest I hade ever heard it seemed but totally engaging (Pity I can’t remember the subject!). Afterwards, I picked up a leaflet on the Alpha course. I had heard of it, as my wife, Marijke, had already attended one.

So I went back and did the Alpha course at Holy Trinity, including the weekend which was at Pontins, in East Wittering, near Chichester. I struggled on the Saturday, feeling quite isolated, despite being part of a great group of people. There was an amazing party on the Saturday evening into the early hours, but somehow it still hadn’t “clicked” for me.

Was there a specific moment when you committed yourself?

On the Sunday morning of that weekend, I woke early and went downstairs at 5.30am to the main meeting area – in the bar! - which seated about 200 of us, and just sat down where I had been sitting so far. A little later, people began to drift in to set up for the Sunday service, and I found myself saying to God that I had had enough and I turned my life over to Him.

How did your family cope with this?!

Marijke was annoyed because she had already done an Alpha course without any support from me and she hadn’t been convinced. And now I was coming back, saying I’d become a Christian, and expecting her to go along with it! This proved to be very challenging for both of us for some weeks but, for once, I didn’t react.

How did you come to join All Souls?

I was helping at Alpha courses at Holy Trinity, still going to the church in Teddington to help with the childrens’ groups, and Marijke was doing another Alpha course at St Stephen’s, in Twickenham. One evening I asked Nicky Lee at Holy Trinity for advice on which church to go to. He told me to put my family first and that I should go to the same church as my wife. So I started going to St Stephen’s in 1998. I settled in there and began to help with the children’s work again.

One Sunday, the church announced there was going to be a new church planted in St Margaret’s. Marijke suggested we drive past the church on the way home. I wasn’t really very impressed with it – it was just another red brick Victorian church. St Stephens ran four meetings for those of us who might be interested in the plant and. I went to two talks and Marijke the other two. I got interested and eventually we agreed to go. The leaving service was awesome again – a real sense of being commissioned for an unknown (at least by me) task.

I’d never planted a church or been involved in anything like it. But we hit the ground running, we were pioneers, all with different life skills. And somehow we grew together and the church grew. And I was useful because I was a practical person who could use a hammer and nails. Bits fell off (but not the bits I hammered in!)

How has living the Christian life changed since those early days?

It’s been a constant maturing process. Once I was on the outside, then I began to look in, and now I am committed. I feel very blessed by all that has happened and live expectantly now.

And finally?

Looking back, I think I now know why I’d felt so bleak after taking Communion for some twenty years(!). It was the mere fact that I had been confirmed but it didn’t mean that I believed, so it meant very little to me – and perhaps I knew that deep down. Now I do understand something of the significance of being “made welcome” by God when I have no right to be, but that’s grace!

Interview by Helene