It came to a head in a way. I began to become braver in my preaching and began to preach more like an Anabaptist from the sermon, from the pulpit. Did that have interesting results? It had profound results. I was in trouble for that. From my own congregation, rather than... I mean, they probably whispered it to those above me. Hew, welcome to the podcast. So, you've had an interesting story that we want to capture
in today's episode. You're originally from the UK and were part of the Anglican Church, I believe. That's right. And so, let's just start at the beginning and get your story. Where were you born and what kind of church environment did you grow up in? I was born in Singapore. My father was in the army and the second from last man to leave Singapore because it was a colony but had gained independence and he was helping their army gain the knowledge they needed to stand on
their own two feet. So, I was there for the first three years of my life. Now that's... Okay, so that's an interesting time in British history, I guess, as that colony is becoming independent. It was independent already. Okay. It was... Transitioning, I guess. Transitioning. And church background: he was inclining and in later life confirmed as an atheist. His parents would have been reasonably regular churchgoers in the Church of England.
So that was his background and my mother had a Catholic education but wasn't from a Catholic family. So she went to a Catholic school. So she had a knowledge of Christianity that kicked in later, bless her, and it helped us out of a hard situation. And in her teenage years, she was involved with the Christian science movement. So, basically, that was often her default and she was disillusioned with that. So religion was not a big part or Christian faith was not a big part of our
family upbringing. But we had lots of stuff in our house that was religious. We had plenty of little temple bits and bobs that we'd picked up in bazaars and thieves markets and things like that. So we had Buddhist scrolls on the walls and Indian images, copper images or bronze images of Indian holy men on the mantelpiece and stuff. So we had a lot of Eastern, what I look now as unhelpful junk. We didn't know where we were. We were just sucking up the culture around us and having none ourselves,
really. That was the way it goes. Was there a lot of... Was this from your father's travel? My father's travels, my parents had been married for some time before I was born. I was the youngest of five and was 18 years younger than my brother. So we had a very spaced family and my father had done a lot of traveling with the army beforehand. Then life went on to Germany. We moved to Germany then and then Nepal. It's probably in Nepal that I
had my first spiritual experience. It was basically an out-of-body experience that I first had. I was terrified by the whole experience. I was only six at the time or something like that. I would just head into my parents' bed after having this dream of just being able to push myself around my bedroom wall and float and look down upon my body beneath me. That was disturbing. When I told my mother this, she was quite stricken in some ways, because she had messed around with this as a
teenager. This was back in the... Would've been back in the 40s, 50s. She had seen it as a very terrifying part of her own life. She just realized that it had just transferred down the generation to me. She said, "Well, look, Hew, there's something that will work. Let's pray the Lord's Prayer together." Upon praying the Lord's Prayer, that ceased in my life, which showed me something positive about Christianity that I wouldn't forget. This is age six, you said.
This is age six. Wow. It's a pretty early... I had never been baptized. My older siblings had, but there was no kind of any Christian imprint on me at all. I was untouched basically at that point. That was a positive impact in my existence. Nepal was a pretty frustrating place to a point for me. I had difficulties in learning. I suppose they would put it down as dyslexia. I was pretty low in the class. I'm often being left behind. One day, I just banged my head on the floor. "I'm
just with a load of babies. I want to do something else." My mother said, "Oh, well, I better send you to boarding school." At the age of six, I was sent off to boarding school, traveling with my sisters. They were living in Nepal, my father and father. My father reckoned that it was cheaper to send us to boarding school anyway than to feed us at home because the army gave such a generous subsidy on education at boarding schools. Wow. That's fine. Problem solved. Off to boarding school.
Is this boarding school, it's there in Nepal or did you enter somewhere else? No, it was in England. In Devon. They send you to literally the other side of the world. Yeah, on the other side of the world. For the school term? Then you come back? They come back during the holidays. Wow. Quite traumatic at the age of six. Age six. Yeah, no kidding. That must have been confusing at that age or maybe disorienting, is a better word. It didn't last forever though and the occasion,
was quite sad. My parents divorced in 1979, and then that was the end of the boarding school education. The army wasn't there to subsidize it. It suddenly becomes a very expensive thing. I go home and go to a village school, a village government school. I had a big shock coming because it was a very different world to my boarding school world. Boarding school, you've got lots of people like yourself, soldiers' children's, diplomats' children's, the odd African chiefs' children,
a huge array of oddballs. You all get on very well. Then suddenly, you go to a village school and you're this weird guy that everyone picks on because you speak differently, and you've traveled and they haven't. It was a big struggle. A certain superstition took part in that. My family were pretty superstitious, actually. There is a religion in everyone, and they were. On one occasion, when we were down in Wales, I willfully broke a mirror. My sisters came to me
and they said, "Ah, you. That's bad." That was only 11 at the time or something like that. She said, "That's seven years bad luck now." To a degree, they were right because it was a very dark time in my life and for seven years. Things began to change when I went to sixth form college in Torlton, a neighboring town. There, I met a different girl. She was from a Christian family and got to know her.
But I have to backtrack a little bit here because, whilst I was still at finishing off at school, my brother and his wife had a first child, and they wanted to have a Christening ceremony. We went down to the local vicar and spoke to him about it. He said, "Well, the first thing I have to ask you is, have you been confirmed and have you been baptized?" My mother and I both had to answer that we both were not baptized or confirmed. We were out of the loop, so to speak, in the
Anglican mindset. That had to be done. We were invited to come along to a confirmation class. Can you define, when he's asking you to be confirmed, What does that mean? Also, for those who aren't familiar aren't familiar with Anglicanism, What is a vicar? Can you define that as well? A vicar would be a minister, a minister who is responsible for preaching and leading out the service prayers, visiting in
a parish area. Things are changing now because, to a degree, in certain parts of the Anglican world anyway, numbers are going down, so parishes would be getting bigger. Then he would have a responsibility of a village and its surrounding countryside until the next village is hit. That's helpful. Basically, your brother is going to the local vicar and this is what he's telling them. My brother wanted us to be godparents. Well, he needed to be a godparent. Of course, I was 15 at the time.
We went through this confirmation class and I came out of it, not as a Christian, but I came out of it believing in one God. Because, of course, the upbringing we'd had, there were gods all over the place, in our house. Yeah, interesting. There were works of art, let's put it that way, but I think it's a bit more than that because they would have meant something to somebody else in a different way. Anyway, as a result, I was going to be confirmed.
Then the vicar remembered, "But you two haven't yet even been baptized." Just before we were off to see the bishop to get confirmed, he said, "Come over here." He baptized both my mother and myself. Then we went off to see the bishop to get confirmed. The bishop then lays hands upon you, which represents the giving of the Holy Spirit. You then become a confirmed Anglican. Usually at the time of 14 or 15 or 12 or 13, that's the time as a young person you
leave the Anglican church. There's a joke about this in Anglican circles. Very often church buildings have problems with bats and they're flying around and dropping droppings on the furniture and what have you. One vicar's complaining, "Oh, we've got a real problem with our bats." The other one says to him, "Well, there's a way around that, you know." "Oh really?" "But you've got to be careful. You can't do things that are to bats because they're
protected." He said, "We don't. We baptize and confirm them, and then we never see them again." So that is almost the point of Anglicanism at that time and it probably still accounts to very much. Wow. So it doesn't seem like there was much expectation of continual involvement after this point for you. But having said that, it was an evangelical Anglican church. So there was a degree of expectation that we would continue and I did. I continued to go to church and I would put on a
suit and a tie and go to church. In fact, I went more regularly than my mother. Something was drawing me there. Could you pinpoint it at the time? I think it was probably, there was a certain sense of belonging, but what I didn't want to do was to talk to anyone after the service. So once the service was over, I shot out of there straight away before anyone could nab me, because I felt someone would gonna, "Oh, nice young person, he's still coming to church. Let's go to speak to
him." And so I would disappear very quickly. Anyway, back to the girl I met at Sixth Form college. She was different because the young bloods went to chat her up because she was pretty. And I observed this. Interestingly enough, they kind of walked off. I thought, "What's this girl? She's a Christian. She's not going to be doing the things that we'd like to do with her." And so, "Well, that's a bit different." And I go
to church. I got to know her, but then pointed out what my worldview was, and she could very clearly see. Though I attended church and the Anglican church, she was a Baptist minister's daughter. And though I attended, I wasn't a Christian because I believed that the world centered around me and others were just cardboard cutouts that were convenient to help me pass my time. That was how self-centered and rotten I
was. Anyway, to cut a little story short, we had a friendship, but she said, "But I'm not your girlfriend." And we did get pretty friendly. Anyway, she invited me along to the tail end of a beach mission service. I have to explain about beach missions. This is going into the more of the evangelical circle of nonconformity,
generally, in Britain. And they would, at seaside resorts, they would have young people looking after the bored children on the beach whose parents were just sunbathing and maybe just letting- the children were a bit unoccupied. And so this youth group would wear blue shorts or blue skirts, blue shorts, and yellow or red t-shirts. So they would be identified as a team of young people. And they would teach the
young people Bible verses. They would have a shop where if people had learnt to say so many Bible verses or achieved certain merits in the games they did on the beach, they would occupy the children and they would give a nice place for they could get out of the sun, sunshade area where they would meet and teach them simple songs and that sort of thing. But then they would invite the children and the parents back to a gospel meeting
in a local church that hosted them. And so I was there at this service where a chap called, I think his name was Nigel Lee, was preaching and he gave a very clear gospel message. And the gist of it to me anyway was that you can't just walk on the fence. You have to be for God or against him. He doesn't take people who run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You need to be in his church or out of it. There is no halfway point.
And I realized that I was attending church, but I had no knowledge of Christ. I knew about him, but he certainly wasn't dwelling in me. And that there was an offer of salvation if we would come to Christ and repent from the sins we knew about. So a gospel call was made and I was invited to go up if I felt that my life needed to change. And so that was back in 1988. I think it was on a Sunday in August of 1988, I gave my life to Christ. Initially, there's a lot of work to be done on me
since, a huge amount. But that was a first step anyway. And I at that point felt the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And though God had to do a lot more work with me, there was such peace in that encounter with God. Interesting point though, you know how self-conscious you are when you're about 18. I felt that I was going up with a great company of others. But when I turned around, there was nobody else. So God brought me up there with the thought that there were many behind me
and there wasn't one person. So I'm sure Nigel, as he preached there, was a bit disappointed that his eloquent sermon and his forceful preaching had only produced one person. But thank you, Nigel, if you're listening out there, thank you. I'm very grateful for your preaching. Anyway, about a year before I went up to from sixth form college, which is up to the age of 18, 19 to university. So I was accepted at university in Abberistwyth initially to study geology.
But in geology, it was something that I'd started when I wasn't a Christian and I wanted to do it. I'm fascinated with it. It helped later on in life with an interest in creation. But I felt that the reason I was doing geology was just about me. And those who are with me were very much that way focused or on just themselves. I felt I wanted to do something better for the world, for God's kingdom, for poor people. And I thought, well, what can I do? I need to transfer out of this
geology to do something else. So I actually was able to switch to doing agriculture with business studies. And so I spent four years at university in Abberistwyth. And I'm glad I did, because I met my wife there who's sitting back there out of range. And we met at St. Michael's Church, Abberistwyth. And we had the ministry, the minister at that time was the Reverend Stuart Bell, a good, clear preacher of the gospel. And
I grew in my faith there, I have to say. It was an evangelical, small-c, charismatic congregation that was showing some growth. And there was a lot of outreach to students. So it was very much a student. It was the hip student church to be in at Abberistwyth University, very much definitely. The majority of the students went there. And I involved myself to a degree with the Christian Union that was always having spats between Pentecostals and Calvinists, generally speaking.
There was often flack there, but it was nonetheless quite formative. Meeting Jeanette, I met her in the street and it was my flatmate. I knew Jeanette before I knew her. And I was looking over his shoulder thinking, "She's a rather nice girl." But my flatmate did thought she was too. And he made no attempt to introduce me. So it was a couple of years before we met later. And at the time, our now brother-in-law was the parish worker,
and he wanted to get us together, didn't he? So he invited himself to tea and I thought, "Oh, no, the parish worker's coming." And I was living with a bunch of non-Christians in an outlying town called Borth on the coast as well. And suddenly, in come two parish workers actually, and a girl with them. And it's the same girl I saw in the street. Pretty soon, we were seeing more of each other. And Jeanette will laugh, but I had to talk to
her mother, didn't I? I got to befriend her mother securely and then everything fell together. I was such a nice boy. Anyway, but when we got together and we were talking before we got engaged about the importance of if we were to marry, we wanted to be serving God in some form or other. And what denomination were you at this point? Still Anglican. We were still attending an
Anglican church. And we have at the time, another brother-in-law, a future brother-in-law, and Jeanette's sister, were serving with an organization called Emmanuel International. And they are an interdenominational evangelical missionary agency based in Canada. And we were very impressed with Wendy and Glenn, my brother and sister-in-law, in their work amongst the poor people of Malawi. Jeanette actually went out to visit them. And I, at an earlier point, had visited my sister
in Malawi. And so we had another thing in common. And I actually gave you a radio to give to a forest ranger I'd been for a walk with. And so that was little things there to do things, to make connections. And I actually, at that time, I was visiting my father in Malaysia. And I sent Jeanette a postcard or two. And my writing is absolutely awful. It's really bad.
So when Jeanette saw my writing on this postcard that I'd sent her, she thought, "Oh, this guy must have terrible disabilities or something like that. He's got such awful writing and punctuation and spelling and everything." Anyway, there you go. But she overlooked that. And coming to the end of 1992, I proposed to her and she accepted. And then I had to ask her father. And very fortunately, he said, "Yes, that's really good news." And we got married the following year.
Then, following on from this desire to serve God, we were impressed with what Wendy and Glenn had to say about the Emanuel International. But then, I was also interested in Tearfund, which is a British charity that works overseas. But they said, "Well, for the first year of marriage, we won't even consider you because you need to have that year of living together in your local culture and getting through the teething problems of marriage." And then we asked Emanuel International
and went to some interviews there. And we said, "Do we have to wait here?" And they'd say, "Normally we would. Normally we would." But on this occasion, they bent the rules somewhat for us. So we went off to training [in] Canada and Jamaica as missionaries. And the way Emanuel International worked, or maybe still works, was that you would do your training first and then be offered to churches around the world who like the look of you and thought you'd be able to fit into
the programs they were offering. So it wasn't... This was a little different than training to be a minister, say, or something. This is different than that. This is a missionary worker. This is mission. Underneath the local church. So we weren't going off... It happened to be an Anglican church that we went to and I'll say more about that. But before that, I have to say, because it was during training that we had our first
encounter with Mennonites. Because we come from an Anglican background, the mission agency wanted to shake us up a bit. So they like to put you with a church that you had no experience of. And so we were put in this local church of Mennonites in a place called Stoville, which is east of Toronto, east of Markham in Canada, in Ontario. And we were with the First Mennonite church. And I only discovered recently the First was actually the name of the denomination of Mennonites in Canada.
Oh, interesting. Okay. I thought it was the first Mennonite church. And in the UK, we have cub scouts. And if you're the first troop of cub scouts to be in a certain village or a town, you get first. And the other one would have to put second and a third and fourth if there were more of them being set up. So it wasn't that. I discovered that recently. That was the name of the denomination of Mennonites. And they would have not been as conservative as
you are, but they still retained. And I hope they still do. And God bless you if you're listening from you dear folks in Stoville, First Mennonite church. You had a big impact on our lives. And one of the things we remember very clearly about that was the hospitality that we were shown. After the end of the service, we were always invited to someone's house for a meal. They took us under their wing.
And I'll have to say a very amusing cross-cultural misunderstanding, a couple of them which took place, which were quite telling at the time. First of all, it was a simple misunderstanding. Sunday School, for instance, came about in the service. And for us, Sunday School was something that those who are perhaps under 12 or under 13 would go to. But the adults would be in the service and the children would be out there somewhere. But here, adults did Sunday School. So that was
something very new to us. So off we went into our little groups. And we went down into the basement to a men's group. And there, one of the fellows leading it said, "Ah, lovely to see you. I've brought some cider along to drink during Sunday School." I thought, "Oh my goodness me. It's only 10 o'clock half past in the morning and we're drinking alcohol?" What has this mission agency brought us to? Oh, that must have been a shock. So then here we were.
Okay, well, when in Rome, do as Rome does. So we were like, "All right, it's only apple juice. It's okay. That's all right." And then that was one thing. And the other one was a bit more serious. This was towards the end of our stay at the church. But we were asked to do something that was a cultural practice from our own countries. And it happened to be the beginning of November. There's a tradition in Britain called Guy Fawkes
Night. And it reenacts the time in history when James I was the king and he had started encouraging the Bible to be more widespread and for the country to be generally a much more Protestant nation. And there were subjects of his who were Catholic who did not like this. And among them was a man named Guy Fawkes who plotted with about 21 others to rent cellars underneath the houses of Parliament and then pretend it was for firewood storage, but actually be putting
gunpowder in there. And then on Guy Fawkes Night, November the 5th, to ignite it and blow the House of Lords/ Commons to smithereens with the King. Then there could be an invasion because everyone would be in disorder because all the royalty and the nobles would have been wiped out with a great explosion underneath the Houses of Commons/ Lords. And one of the plotters warned a Catholic nobleman to, you know,
"You're one of us, don't be there tonight." But he was a loyal subject to the King, warned the King. And then the plotters were arrested and for their treason, horrible things happened to them. And so on Bonfire Night, an effigy of Guy Fawkes is made in some places and a big bonfire is put up and the effigy is burned. And so we had plenty of things to burn around the mission buildings in Stoville. And we thought, well, let's do a British cultural demonstration to our Canadian
hosts and friends. And so we had the sausage sizzle and we had a big bonfire constructed. And the accountant of the mission had this very involved little daughter and she was really into it as well. So we got some old clothes and stuffed them with old wet leaves that were lying around because it was autumn or fall. And we made this effigy of Guy Fawkes with a big floppy hat and you know, big, big, big, small, moustache and
beard. And we had them all the time on fire. And we invited the local churches that hosted us because a lot of us were from Britain as well, no others. So we all took part in it. And we had this, you know, sausage sizzle and big bonfire. And one of the guys from our church, a young man, was a part-time fireman. And he was absolutely disgusted and said, "This is sickening." He was a Mennonite. "This is sickening. I'm a part-time fireman and I have seen humans burn in cars, in houses,
when I haven't been able to rescue them. And here we are burning an image, an image of a human being that's made in the image of God." And I never thought the same about fireworks night or Guy Fawkes night from there onwards. Something of his conviction made him brave enough to speak out and challenge what had just happened. But the two women spoke out as well in the church service, giving thanks for the way the church had helped them. One of them's husband had broken his leg
badly and couldn't get the harvest in. And basically the church people who could, pitched in and brought in the harvest and helped out. And another one, whose husband actually tragically died. The same thing happened. The congregation pitched in and the harvest was taken in, the day was saved. An immediate relief was given to a problem that faced both women. And to us, from our church backgrounds, that spoke volumes. For you coming from Mennonite backgrounds, that's just what you do.
But it wasn't something that happened from our backgrounds. Yes, if there had been a bereavement, you would have had a very compassionate visit from the vicar. And maybe there would be some help from a neighbor farmer, but the church would not have acted as a body to help do what's done in the general sense of our experience. That would have been neighbors who may have been, but it just wouldn't happen together. Not like a church, an actual church unified in this way. Is that just culturally or
traditionally? That's just the way it is? I think it's something deeper than that. I think it's something whereby faith and practice go hand in hand in the Anabaptist setting. And they don't always do that--not to say they never do that--in Protestant/Anglican circles, but it's not so common. It's very rare. Well, it definitely made an impression on you. It did. Powerful. So you continue on from this point, and you're still Anglican. I'm still Anglican.
Basically, you've been Anglican this whole point from when you became a Christian on. Do you return to the UK and continue life there then in the Anglican church? Or what happens? After that, we had some time building up our funds. We went back to the UK for a while. At the time, we discovered we were going to have a baby. It was Richard, our first son. He was born in England, in southwest England. Our funding did come in. It did mean that we
went to Uganda. In Uganda, we were teaching as well as being tutor for agriculture, because we had to grow our own food at the college. Anyway, that was a long story. So it was suddenly we're thrown into missionary life there. Added to that, in northern Uganda, there was a war zone. We were generally kept within the confines of Gulu, but it was a very dark time. You would often be hearing gunfire in the distance.
And sometimes the conflict came very close, and we would have bullets raining down on our roof sometimes. And sometimes we had, on one occasion, we had a tank fire outside our house, which was quite... That's an experience. That was an experience. It brought a lot of dust down from the roughness. Yes, it does. There's a lot of percussive force behind a weapon like that. So, wow. Okay, so yeah, you're definitely getting a variety of experience here. But it's
interesting. I didn't know Anglicans were in Uganda, so you were connected with a church that was already established. They were already established. Yeah, they had the first missionaries who'd come in in 1911 to northern Uganda. So that's just over 100 years ago. So not that long, man. And they had tried to bamboozle the Africans with technology initially by filming them, doing dancing and throwing spears and what have
you. And that actually backfired badly, because once they were shown the films of themselves, they thought their spirits had been trapped upon the screen. And so they thought the missionaries were sorcerers and kept well away from them. So it was actually a long time that the trust was built up again. Yeah, that wasn't a good plan. So how long were you in Uganda, then? We were there for two years. Okay, so you went back to... We went back to the UK and then did our second
year. So we were in Uganda from 1995 to 1997. So after Uganda, you end up back in the UK and at some point you become an Anglican vicar yourself. So now that's a change. So what happened there? What was the process? Why did you become a vicar? Why did I become a vicar? Yeah. Well, we had some shining examples of Anglican ministers in northern Uganda. They were working for a pittance. Sometimes they would not be paid. They'd often have to
grow their own food to survive. And they were godly men and still are as far as I'm aware. That must have left quite an impression, because you're describing an environment that maybe we read about it in books or something, but those of us living in the West just never experienced chaos, like what you're describing, and for someone to live in that environment.
It was the example of the men who we knew there that made me think, "Perhaps I should do that when I go back to England and take up the calling of becoming a clergyman in the Church of England, which is what I know of. I know nothing else, really." Yeah. I'm realizing that's a thread through your story. The Church of England or the Anglican Church. Yeah. It's definitely a large impact on your life and these ministers you knew. So becoming a vicar, what is that
process like? You go back to school. You go. First of all, I have to see the Warden of Ordinance. They are called a prebendary. I visited a prebendary in the Church of England to begin with in my diocese. I told him what I was planning and why I would like to be ordained and that sort of thing. I had the experience in Africa. Basically, I didn't realize there's a bit of a game to test your calling. He kind of pooh-poohed everything I'd done. I thought, "Why am I wasting my time?
I should ask the Church in Wales." This is another Anglican sister church to the Church of England. Okay. I didn't know that. So I said, "You're just wasting my time. Why should I be trying to prove to you that I want to... when you're mocking me?" So I just left off and then he's running after me and saying, "No, come back. Come back." I said, "No. I'm going to go to the Church of Wales now. I'm not going to bother with this anymore." So I didn't realize that it was a "test your
vocation to make you grovel." Now, my brother-in-law who was already ordained as a deacon in the Anglican Church told me, "That's what they do." So he said, "Next time you go in for an interview, don't be so quick to walk out." So you stuck with it though. So then I went to visit the similar setup because I'd been going to college in Abberistwyth, and going to attending an Anglican Church there. I needed then to work through the Diocese of St. David's, which was in West Wales.
And so I visited the Warden of Ordnance there, and I met the bishop who questioned me. And I went to a panel aboard and I remember my own doubts being honest with him. I said, "Well, I am dyslexic. I'm not really great with those things." And there was some retired major or something on the board. He said, "Don't worry about that. You've got a degree. You'll be fine."
So that was a part of the story. So then you're then sent to Theological College where your calling is tested still for three years if you're under the age of 30. And I was under the age of 30. So I had to do a degree again. So I went to the... So you got another degree? I got another degree in practical theology. That'd be a four-year degree? It was a three-year degree. It was basically in an Anglican college being released into the
university to do the theological side. And some of it would be in-house training, and then going out to preach in different parishes. You'd have an experience of a wide range of churches in the Anglican setup. And that was in the city of Cardiff. So that's where I was based. And so for three years I was there and it was a... In the Anglican church, you've got four groups within it that bicker and fight amongst each other often enough.
You have the Anglo-Catholics who are very like Roman Catholics. They would perhaps have images and statues in their churches. They would swing incense. Some Roman Catholics would say, "That was like we used to be before Vatican II." Wow. So quite medieval in their way of doing things. But amongst them I've met men of great faith. So I don't want to poohoo them too much. Some of them are just in it for the theatricals,
which is very sad. So you have that group. Then you have the liberals, as you do usually in any denomination. They're often actually aiming to change culture, the culture that's around them, as much as they want to change those who are being ministered to by them. And you have them in the Mennonites as well in their setup. Yes. Then you have the Charismatics. Do I say more? Okay. I've just never thought of Anglican Charismatic combination. I don't know why.
I guess that makes sense now as you say it, but whoa. Okay. That's interesting. And then you have the evangelicals. Within the evangelicals and the Charismatics, there's often hybrids between the two. And likewise, between the Charismatics and the Anglo-Catholics,
there's hybrids between them too. And maybe the Charismatics and the Liberal system hybrids, but generally the evangelicals and theologically the evangelicals and the Anglo-Catholics will probably have more in common than the Charismatics and the Liberals. So it's a bit of a muddle. It's a bit of a muddle, but you're born into that. And our church was conservative Anglo-Catholic and the Catholic changing to Liberal Catholic. Oh, so you're in interesting transition.
I was from an evangelical background and observing all this going on in the college, the bickering and the fighting and the meanness that was going on between the ordinands and the ordinands and the staff. And it was pretty ugly stuff, but part of spiritual formation, I'm told.
Wow. Yeah, because that's interesting to me because what you're describing, so many different churches denominations go through that process where you have this old, traditional old conservatives way of doing it, and then it's changing and being updated or going more liberal in certain ways. That causes all kinds of, yeah, like you said, bickering. Yeah, it certainly does. It's quite emotional, emotionally charged atmosphere.
So once you complete your three years there and you say you were preaching some in different parishes, things like that, so you're getting some experience, at that point then, are you now officially a vicar or do you have to go through more? It doesn't happen so simply. There's some more hoops to get through. You are then assigned to a placement, a teaching, a parish where you are ordained deacon. And so as a deacon, you can preach and you help with communion, but you cannot administer
communion to the congregation. You have to wait a year and then after a year you're priested, and then you can give communion. You said "priested." I'm not familiar with that term. What is that? That would mean that you undergo a ceremony and you become, and you're given a charge by the bishop and hands are laid upon you and you make a vow of obedience to the 39 articles of the Anglican faith.
You then are allowed to conduct a communion service after being a year of a deacon and observing it happen, but hands off you're not able to do it yet. Now you continue being a curate in your position, so you've now been ordained, you can take communion, you can go to old people's homes and give people communion, you can visit the sick and give them communion. You have the power. Some would say "you're a magic man now." No, I'm being a bit facetious, but you're suddenly empowered.
Yeah, interesting. Now would you be called a priest at this time? Is that the wrong terminology? No, it's the right idea to use that, but generally if you're from an Anglican evangelical background, you generally prefer to use the term minister. A priest often is, and you might be called reverend, whereas if you're from the Anglo-Catholic tradition in the Anglican Church, you like to be known as father. So you could have chosen a number of different title options here. If I wanted to,
I could have been a reverend father. Which one did you choose? I was reverend. Okay, so this is a process, but this is really interesting because I'm not familiar with this. Of course, being an American, not much interaction with Church of England. So you go through this process and you're now a priest or a reverend or a father or a vicar or whichever term I guess we want to pull in here. So what's that like now? That becomes your life.
Well then you're suddenly there and I was, I have to say I was probably rather naive. I realized I was now managing decline. Oh, that's gotta feel not fun at all. And it wasn't great, but I was doing my best to preach the gospel in that situation. And the inertia was tremendous. And I began to rattle cages by speaking of the need to be born again in my sermons and sometimes in the
parish magazine. That was something that ignited an interest because someone who read an article I'd written in the parish magazine was a Baptist minister from a nearby town and he'd somehow read what I'd said and he understood the reaction that I'd got, which was pretty bad. I think my training vicar was a bit irritated with that. There was someone lodging with the hairdresser up the road in the terraced houses we lived in, in Pembroke in South Wales by the name of Brendan. Brendan,
if you're out there, God bless you. I have to say you used a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but you got your point across. And your point was, Brendan, that as a born again man, I was in the wrong place. Some would argue against that. Someone would say you were in the right place, you, because you're in it to win it. That was what my evangelical Anglican brethren would say, "Hew your in the church to win it." They wouldn't be saying the same thing now with what's happened
to the church. But anyway, this man Brendan basically metaphorically took me by the scruff of the neck and he told me in no uncertain terms that I was absolutely wasting my time administering in a church that was simply a daughter of the whore of Babylon. That was his reaction.
Now that's Plymouth Brethren speak. But he had a reason for that because he had actually become a Christian from a Catholic background and he was originally Irish, interesting enough, and his mother had been so annoyed by him becoming a Christian that she had ordered his brothers to beat him black and blue and there was no love lost. So he was a man who was wounded and bleeding, I believe, from that traumatic experience of him becoming born again and being rejected by his family.
So the Plymouth Brethren was all to him. But in the conversation he had, he mentioned the suffering of the Anabaptists in Europe under the Catholic Church. Well now that's interesting. Why did he bring that up? Because if that was his background and the background of his upbringing had been Catholic and he had suffered and come out of Catholic and going into the Plymouth Brethren. I understand now. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. So he could empathize with suffering for what it had been,
the cost of his faith moving out of that. But with the mention of Anabaptists in Europe, a light bulb came on in my mind and I began to remember our time in Canada, which was about eight or nine years before. I thought they were Mennonites. They're Anabaptists. That got me thinking, do they exist in England? Do they exist in Wales? Are they around? Are Anabaptists there?
The early days of the internet, type it in Anabaptists and what pops up, there's the Anabaptist network in London, Wood Green Mennonite Church and the Bruderhof pop up. I didn't have a number for the Bruderhof, so I contacted the Wood Green Mennonites and said, "Could I have a number for the Bruderhof because you might have as your both Anabaptists?" They somewhat reluctantly passed it on. Anyways,
they did. Thank you. And so in the great scheme of things, but I have to say at the time, the neighboring Baptist minister had given me this book to read. And I don't know if you've come across this one. I've heard of it, but I'm not... How do you pronounce their name? The Broadbent. The Pilgrim Church by E.H. Broadbent. This would have been produced by the... But I think the man was Plymouth Brethren. He's passed
away now. But in the 1930s and 20s, he did a lot of traveling throughout Europe and Asia, making contact with surviving churches from historical links and in the States as well, Mennonites and Amish. So he spoke about the continuation of the Pilgrim Church from the Acts of the Apostles through history. So that book opened my eyes to the existence of a non-sacramental form of Christianity that existed from the time of the Apostles.
And that was a really encouraging read. And to anyone who's on a journey like me, do read it. That was very helpful. That led me to a point where I actually, for the first time, resigned from the Anglican Church. I was probably a little bit early in doing that. But you had been a vicar for how long before you did? I had been a curate and that was someone who was a priest in training, put it that way,
doing practical work. So I was resigning. But that led me to a point of, "Okay, so I've resigned. Where do I go now?" "Yeah, where did you go?" "Where do I go now?" We'd already visited the Bruderhof. And my dear wife had made it very plain to me that our family would have suffered greatly if we'd gone to the Bruderhof because community is valued at a higher standing than family. So our family would be restructured in a way that would have been too painful for us.
But what we did do at that point was to decide that we would home-educate because we realized that there was a change in the culture of... because as we were getting more spiritually aware, I suppose, we were realizing that there was a change in the culture of Wales, that it was drifting away from its Christian foundations and becoming steadily more pagan and secularized. And this was coming through to us in the state school
that our children were going to. My ---- view somewhat naively was that I thought that education should lift children above the level that their parents achieved. And that's something I hope that our school is doing here in Dunwall East, lifting children above to where their parents have achieved to go beyond, in a positive way, to the point which their parents have. Anyway, I could see that in some
ways the schools were failing. How in their own views, they were probably doing just fine, managing difficult situations and compromising where they had to and that sort of thing. But it led me to be in a position where I was still the curate, but taking devotions in these schools and my children had been taken out of them. So we were home-educating and the Bruderhof had helped us see that there was another way of doing things. So that was
great. And there was an option to home-educate thanks to the work of Winston Churchill, who when he was a student, he had a horrible time in the boarding school he was sent to. And he would have much rather had a home tutor in his home and he didn't like school. And he made a provision in the Education Act of 1945 that there would be an education at school or otherwise. So within law... That's on British law right now. Yeah, in British law now. So there's a freedom to home-educate in Britain.
I did not know that about Winston Churchill, but that doesn't actually entirely surprise me, now that I think about it. He was quite insightful. And he said of education, "The sad thing is about education in Britain is its main design is just to create workers for our factories and soldiers for our empire." Ow. That's brutal. That is brutal. I mean, that's what... And we thought, "Well, education should be more than that."
So that's an interesting piece of the story because it feels like oftentimes home schooling or home education or whatever is usually part of the story for people that are going down paths similar to what you've went down. And that's, I think, an important piece because of how valuable or important I should say education can be, what an influence that can be on children. At this point, you've resigned from your position in the Anglican Church. You're doing some exploring, I guess, testing
options. You're going down the path of home education. Where do you choose to go from there as far as church goes? This must have been a pretty lonely time. Well, having resigned, I was given a month to think about it. And on the last day of the month, I went to my bishop and said, "I think I made a mistake. I can't see where I'm going to go." And he said, "Well, we'll see if we can find a square peg for you to go into rather than a round hole." But at the moment, you need to spend some
time out. So I spent four months outside of the Anglican Church. And I worked for a government agency finding people jobs on the telephone, which was an insight into how some people live, which is a telephone operator. And it was an interesting time to be out of the church. So I came back in and I was then sent for further parish training, I suppose, as a curate in an evangelical parish in a town called Aberaeron on the coast of Wales, further north than
Pembroke. And there, I found a different situation but one that was somewhat... at face value, it was a great relief. But I still had that feeling that there was something better. And inside, I was an Anabaptist still, though I had come back into the Anglican Church. And I remember someone saying to me, "Oh, it's good. It's really good to come back to Mother Church." So I would have gone somewhere else had there been somewhere else. So that's, I think, an important piece there,
right? Because there was this, "You don't know where else to go." That had to not have felt good. Did that feel, I mean, almost like you're trapped. We don't know where to go. Not trapped, but we don't know where to go. Or stuck. Having said that, there was Wood Green Mennonite Church in London. Are they still... But they're not there anymore. No. But they did exist. So I kind of... They sent some of the mailings to me and I saw the books that they were encouraging.
I thought, "Wow, they're more liberal than many of the liberals in the Anglican Church that I know." Oh, no. And I thought, "I can't go there." And the Bruderhof, "I can't work with the Bruderhof. What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?" So I was in an evangelical parish in Aberaeron and I moved there in about November. It was during my second son's birthday and we moved
in November 1994. I knew eventually at some point I would no longer be a curate and I would become a rector/ vicar of a parish and no longer be number two, but number one and where the decisions were made. So I knew this time was coming and I was wondering, "What do I do in a decline?" I feel the church is declining. I know that there's movements on the way. They're going to make it a very difficult place to work. It began with the blessing of same-sex marriages and I knew it would go
further. What year did that happen? It actually happened after I left. Okay. But you saw that that was coming. I saw it was happening and someone close to me, who I was very disappointed in, actually took part in the ceremony doing that with the knowledge of his bishop, but it was just done for a pastoral reason. I think of the same-sex relationship. It really saddened me and in a way propelled me to seek for something else. I thought, "This is going in a bad way. I can see the
writing on the wall. If these things are happening and they're being tolerated, then sooner or later they're going to be the norm." And Jeanette will remember, I was on my knees by the bed for many, many, many nights just wrestling with the Lord, wondering what to do. You see, as an Anglican vicar at the time, I would be required to remarry divorcees, to baptize infants who had no clue about what they were entering and whether they would ever enter
it anyway. Many times a baptism service or a "Christening," as it's called, would be no more than an excuse to get drunk by the families participating and have some photographs taken with the baby in the Christening garb that had been passed down the generations. There was a lot of feeling of deep pain and concern. Through the homeschooling channels that we had came a leaflet about an Anabaptist conference that was going to be held in Oxford by the Nationwide Mennonite Church.
Now, they didn't have a presence in the UK, but they were seeing what the interests would be. And so I thought, "Well, let's go and find out." I phoned first of all and said, "What do you believe in? What are your standing? What do you stand for the Bible? What do you stand for?" As he spoke, I thought, "Well, I could have truck with these people. I could find out more about them because at least it sounds more like the Anabaptists that I've read of in history than the guys I'd heard of in
London." So we went along to the conference. And at the conference, we encountered a lot of other homeschooling families who were having similar ideas. And there were even some people from Ireland there. Now, Jeanette met Barbara and Dan Yoder who are based here. And in my speaking, I never actually spoke to them, but they had a church up and running. And as I went through life in the parish, being the number one from where the buck stops, so to speak, I was now in charge of the parish.
And I had my struggles. I wanted to see what was happening in the churches before I got inducted to become the rector of the three churches they had given me in that group of parishes. And so I just went along in ordinary clothes to sit in the congregation to see what was going on the week before I was due to be inducted. And at one of the churches, I was approached by two men at the end of the service and they said, "We hope you don't mind. We're in a partnership."
And I thought, "Oh, oh." And I was thinking about what sort of partnership is that. So I went and had a visit with them before my induction and said, "You spoke of being in a partnership. What sort of partnership are you in? And is it a business partnership or something else?" And they said, "Oh, it's actually a civil partnership." Oh, I said, "That's a difficult one. There's a difficult one for me. I will have a problem with that. Let me explain.
I'll be as clear as I can. I'm not going to drive you away. I'd love it if you continued to come to the church, but what I can't do is to give you communion because in your current state, that would be causing you harm." And to begin with, they said, "Well, where do you get that from?" And I flicked into the Bible and showed them the passages that were relevant to that topic. And so I thought, "Oh, they understand. They've
taken it well." But then there was a letter to the bishop and letters going back and forth. And then the harvest service happened where they were going to be playing. One was playing the organ and the other one was going to be doing a reading. And one of them played the organ very badly and the other one refused to do the reading and walked out of the church. And that was the last that we saw of them. But it wasn't the
last of the letters going back and forth. It wasn't the main church, but the church, it was the second biggest church in the group. And the parishioners wanted me to explain what had gone on, why I'd taken the stand I had taken.
So there I was in my black cassock with a table in the church and the church group assembled around me, having taken advice from a senior evangelical clergyman to explain to them the history around the church's view on same-sex relationships and the biblical view, the traditional view, the line that was taken historically hadn't just changed. And their view was you must change with the times and it'll be okay. So the couple actually went to a neighboring church down the road where they made
a home for themselves. Sadly, one of them passed away and the rumor went round that I had refused to bury them. So there are lies and there are sad things that go on. But throughout this difficult time, brothers and sisters from the Mennonite church, from the Nationwide Mennonite church visited and encouraged me
in this time. So I have a lot of respect for the nationwide Mennonite church in their outreach and we make it a practice to visit their conference annually in the UK each year to support them in their work in the UK. At this time, as well, was a shift in my thinking as regarding the age of the earth and what the Bible says and the order of creation and the trustworthy of the scriptures from the very beginning. I should have mentioned this earlier because that would have... we've shot forward
a bit. But it became more and more clear to me that if I could trust through organizations like Answers in Genesis and the Creation Ministries International and their view and their scientific proof and evidence that the world is much younger and the Bible story fits much more easily in that young earth situation. If I'm to trust that, and I did, then the words of Jesus in the New Testament, which back up the creation model,
need to have special attention to them. So I was now looking at the New Testament through the eyes of someone who'd been convinced of the validity of the old with a completely new set of eyes. I was looking at the commands of Jesus, the Son of God, in a way that I'd never really looked at it before. I'd looked at it as a sort of… I'd looked at scripture in a flat way. It was all sort of one and you kind of blended the commandments together and what Jesus said was sometimes trumped by the
commandments and the law. But then when I seen how the Old Testament could be trusted, I thought, "Well, now let's look at the New with fresh eyes." So in a way, my contact with would probably generally be more mainstream Protestant in their line with creationist views, open my eyes to Anabaptism in a very fresh way. So the teaching on the two kingdoms
became more of the bedrock of my faith now. And I could see that the mingling of the church, the Anglican church with the world was something that was toxic. When you… It sounds like you were right in the mix of all of that. You know that managing decline is something you said and then these other changes and shifts that were happening and how the church was approaching things, "Oh, we need to change with the times," things like that.
And you're right in the middle of that. And you mentioned two kingdoms, which is a foundational piece for the Anabaptist worldview. How did you hear about that for the first time? Was it like you read the Sermon on the Mount and you're looking at it with different eyes now and saying, "Oh, wait a minute," or do you read a book about it? How did you encounter that teaching?
It would have been a very helpful book that was passed on to me by a Nationwide brother, now brothers, but they did say at the front that they didn't believe everything that David Bercot spoke of in the book. They weren't completely on board with him, but there's an overall framework of what this book spoke of, The Kingdom that Turned the World Upside Down. And the way Christ's teachings do that to a human life and even to a society, if the society allows that, are immense.
And the idea of the two kingdoms became very apparent in the reading of this book and opened my eyes up and made Scripture much more clearer and plainer in my understanding of it. So yeah, that was another influential book in my walk. Another book and film that I would recommend. Our church doesn't encourage film watching, but I wasn't in it at the time. It's like a documentary, but there's a book as
well that goes with it. And it's by a man I have met, actually, a Myron S. Augsburger, and the book is about the life of Michael Sattler, called Pilgrim of Flame. And that's a very good read. Michael Sattler's life was an inspiration to me in the way he lived and died. And in the capacity of someone who was ordained within a Reformation church, I empathize so much with this man. I wasn't suffering the way he was, but spiritually I was. It came to a head in a
way. I began to become braver in my preaching. And began to preach more like an Anabaptist from the sermon or from the pulpit. Did that have interesting results? It had profound results. I was in trouble for that. From my own congregation, rather than... I mean, they probably whispered it to those above me. And the Anglican Church is very hierarchical. You have to remember that. It's not a local body of believers, such as the one that I'm part of here in Ireland. It is quite
hierarchical. So what's said is monitored. There's a series of sermons that I preached on the Beatitudes called God's Manifesto. I seem to remember that. So I preached through the Beatitudes. And I'm very sad to say, but I did make enemies of my congregation. Not all of them, quite a few of them who were influential. And one day after speaking out at a larger church gathering called the synod, because we were then told at the particular Synod about what we could and couldn't discuss
anymore in regards women in ministry. We were told it was no longer a negotiable or something for discussion. It was to be taken as norm now. And anyone discussing that would not be considered to become an ordinand in the up and coming years to come. So I just felt that was incredibly draconian. Even if I hadn't at the time had any strong views on it, for that to be said
was pretty draconian. So as a result of my speaking out against that in the Synod, one of the influential people in the church was doing the congregational prayers. And I was, again, in the front of the church. And I found that I was being prayed against by my congregation. Okay, so that was probably a disconcerting experience. Yeah, it was disconcerting. And then at that point, I realized this was the end of it,
but it was a curious sensation. I was kneeling at the prayer desk in the front of the church, as the prayers were being said. And as I was praying, I felt that I was being lashed on the back as each prayer was prayed, that I was being beaten. But the wonderful thing about it was that I felt a peace that Christ was with me in that time. And I suppose at the time, I had been reading this book as well. And this book caused action.
It's called the Anabaptist Vision. And it was written many, many years ago, in a very short period of time, it was written overnight by a man called Harold S. Bender, because he had to explain the Anabaptist position to the President of America and various military officials as regards the stance of non-resistant Christians, of the plain variety, the Anabaptist variety. And this book encouraged me to act upon my convictions. And I phoned up my bishop and handed
in my resignation. Normally, you have to wait three months before you can leave. He allowed me to go in two. We then came to Ireland. The thought was that after six months, there would be a church in England to move to, and that our time in Ireland would be six months of living in an Anabaptist community and preparing ourselves for a life in the UK, in an Anabaptist community, church. But as it was, the Nationwide Mennonites took 18 months to come. And after 18 months had been and gone,
our savings was spent. The children had settled, and I had five children at the time. They had settled in the community here as much as they could. And we'd run out of money, and I was working. I formed a little business. We were baking and gardening, and life in Ireland was for us. So six months turned into you live here now. We live here now. Yeah, six months came and went. A year came and went. Eighteen months came and went. And when we were asked to come over, I had to say, "No, I'm afraid.
We've made our home in Ireland now, and we have been blessed. We've been living here for nearly 15 years now." I have to say that life in an Anabaptist church is not a bed of roses. There are times when you'll be frustrated and you'll be annoyed with your brothers and sisters. But you know deep down that you will never find the perfect church in this world. But I would say that in the scheme of things, I'm not condemning other Christians in the church denominations they find themselves in.
But I find as a Christian, it's more easy to live within the structure of scripture in an Anabaptist church than I would in a Protestant or a Catholic or Orthodox church. That would be in my readings and studies. But within those denominations and movements, there are Christians who I respect highly. So it's a strange position to be in, but there I am. And the other thing is that I wanted salvation for my children. And that's something both of us have wanted, both
Jeanette and myself. That if we have to sacrifice something, some comfort, some privilege, some entitlement for the sake of our children's faith, we will do it. Even if it means leaving the safety net of a golden cage. And that brings us to today essentially. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, what a journey. Like one of the things that stands out to me in this is how it wasn't just a straight linear path. It's like you're here, we need to be here, take the
steps, arrive, here we go. It seems there was a lot more to it than that where you're exploring, you're learning. Could be here a week. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's easy to want to try to rush things sometimes. We hear from a lot of listeners and it's like, "Okay, great. I'm going to go join a Mennonite church and we're just going to do this right now." You're getting to a point and I'm looking towards my wife now. And I don't know. And part of me is like, "Okay,
that's great. They're looking for a church to join wonderful, but these things do take time." And your journey, Emily, was years. I would say that it took me seven years to leave the Anglican Church and five years before we joined this one. So we took a process. It's a process. And I would recommend anyone going on a pathway like we have gone on to take your time. Take your time, but don't take too much time.
I think there was a point in our life. We realized the age of our children was rising and it's not easy to do something as we have done if your children are in their teenage years. It's not easy. It's not impossible, but it's not easy because their way of thinking will have been majorly influenced by the world. Even if it's the homeschooling group you're part of, it's something that I certainly felt was important to mention. Now, I mentioned earlier that I had
come from a military background. Both my father and my brother were in the British army. When you come from a background like that, you think rather like that. That had been a goal of mine at one point when I wasn't a Christian to just follow in my brother's and my father's footsteps and become a soldier. Some of that thinking needed to
be challenged. A book, if you're coming from a military background, because sometimes the idea of joining a community like the Anabaptists, you think, "Well, they're all wearing uniforms. Women are wearing this and men are wearing that." It's all tickety-boo. Just because you're wearing those same uniforms, you'll get on all right. It's not that way. We don't operate like the military. We are on the side of the kingdom of God.
Prayer and love are our weapons. A wonderful book to look at is A Change of Allegiance by Dean Taylor. I've met Dean. We had time together in Lesbos working with refugees there. Dean is a former US military soldier who managed to sign out as a conscientious objector, but he had to go and think deeply. He's now a bishop in an Anabaptist church in the States. But in his time in Germany, he was deeply challenged about what he was doing and whose
kingdom he was in in the military. It's a profound book, and it's helped me on my journey from the background that I was part of to coming into the Anabaptist world and what I believe is a helpful way of living the Christian life. Dean is quite the man. I had the honor to
interview him a few times. Quite the story, and I think it's stories like that that are very helpful for others because they can find pieces like, "Oh, yeah, that's something I'm struggling with," or, "I'm trying to understand that too." That's why I'm glad you're willing to share your story too because I don't know who else is listening. I know we have Anglicans listen to this podcast for sure. We hear from them, and
they have questions sometimes. "Well, have you thought about this or what about this?" I think as well. There are some Anabaptists who think that grass is greener on the other side and think perhaps that Anglicanism is for them, and maybe it is for a while. But if you are an Anabaptist and you're thinking about becoming an Anglican and you've heard of some good Anglican Christians, and there are plenty of good Anglican Christians, and some of their teaching is very wonderful, but consider
this. You may be satisfied, but what will it do to your children, your wife, and in the long run your family? Bear that in mind if you're considering the leap in another direction from a former Anglican. So that's something I wanted to ask you. Who knows the different journeys everyone is on that's listening to this. Maybe they're very satisfied with their church situation. They found a good community to plug into. But my guess is there's a lot of people who don't have that.
I can believe that, and they may have had some very negative experiences from their church. But I would say, don't give up on the Anabaptist way of living. And in the States, particularly if you're coming from the States, you have a lot of options to move to, whether it's slightly more progressive or slightly more conservative or a degree greater in either direction. But bear in mind that there is a temptation if you go too far in a progressive direction, then you'll begin to surrender
biblical standards. And that's a dangerous point. But if you go too far in the other direction, you can end up entangling yourself with man-made rules. So yeah, there are some which are helpful, and there are some which need to be adapted for a changing circumstance. And so it sounds like what you're saying, don't be too hasty. Don't be too hasty. Yeah, it's a serious thing. And you think it through, you know, as I mean, in your story, you know, it was some time of really wrestling through this.
Yeah. Yeah. I would like to leave any of you listeners with these words of Scripture. They spoke to me very strongly as I wrestled with God over the decisions I'd make in my life. And this is taken from the Gospel of Luke. And it's chapter 14 and reading from verse 23 to verse 34. "Now great multitudes went with Jesus, and he turned and said to them, 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be
my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it? Lest, after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, "This man began to build and was not able to
finish." Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him, who comes against him with twenty thousand, or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has, cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor,
how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'" Those are verses that help me to rather set my face like flint and make a move. And I would say, my wife isn't next to me at the moment, but she's supportively sitting just out of shot from the camera. It wasn't easy making the move to come away from the Anglican Church. It was a sweet setup we had. We had a home. It was our home.
We had a beautiful Georgian house that we lived in. We had a field and we had sheep on that field and the children would help me tend their hooves. We had a life... that was a stressful life, but it was a position in society. There's a certain pride in it still. You went through a lot of giving up, a lot of grieving even of things that you had to leave behind. It would be easy to package a story like this where, "Oh, everything's wonderful now. We came through that and we landed it where we
need to be." That's not the full story. Another thing is that you may have come from quite a pronounced or prominent worldly position and coming into an Anabaptist church. You might think that you have all the answers and you're the bees' knees. You are the one who can actually solve some of their problems. Maybe they should put you in a position of leadership because you've just come from a position of leadership, but don't think that way. You need to humble yourself
and learn from them. Just take time to find your true position and to not rush into a situation, but to humble yourself under the brotherhood and not think that you have all the answers because when you realize there have been a fair number of splits in the Anabaptist movements and painful things like that, and whilst that's a weakness, it's also a strength because it has allowed a continuation of the original dream of the Anabaptists
from the time of the radical Reformation. You've given us a lot to think about in this episode and I think that the piece that sticks with me is I was born into the Anabaptist churches and that's what I know. It's easy to just be okay. That's just kind of what we have. You take it for granted, I suppose. For someone like yourself who had to go through a much longer process, a pretty difficult process, you bring a perspective for people like me
that I think we really need to hear. There is value here and don't just quickly, as you were saying earlier, don't just quickly jump ship and "Ah, we're just kind of done with that." I think that that's a really valuable piece that we need to keep in mind. Yeah. Well, Hew, thank you so much for being willing to share your story with us today. Mm-hmm. Thank you for listening. I hope it's a help to someone out there. God bless you for listening.
And I just want to say too, we have a lot of listeners, at least over the years, from the UK. So hopefully if some of those are listening to this, maybe we'll reach out and we can find some more people there that have these questions. It is possible, you've shown that it is, to walk this path. So yeah, thank you again for sharing today. It's been quite soul-searching, but quite cathartic too. Yeah. Wow. Well, thanks again. Well, thank you very much for listening. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episode with Hew. If you found this interesting, you should check out this episode we did with David Bercot, where he describes how he used to be an Anglican priest and then explains why he left. And you can find that linked in the description down below. We also have a whole separate second YouTube channel and podcast called Developing As A Servant, which is a class that Frank Reed taught
at SMBI back in 2014. All of that is freely available as a podcast and on that YouTube channel, which again, you can find in the description down below. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.