HUW: What were the key things that shaped your spiritual journey?

MIKE: I was a total atheist when I went to Oxford University. Someone from the Christian Union visited me in my room and was able to answer all the many practical questions about university life I asked. He was really helpful! He invited me to a coffee evening and I turned up because he had made a deep impression on me.

This was St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, with a group of Jesus Fellowship students around, including myself!

Yes! At the coffee evening I was directed to St. Aldates Church, which had an evangelistic cell group for people who weren't necessarily vicars. Unexpectedly, I went along on my own. The Bishop of Coventry was preaching and I sensed God speaking directly to me. At first I just sat there, embarrassed - I simply couldn't get out of my seat to respond. Eventually, I came forward, and that began my journey as I committed my life to Christ.

Where did you go from there?

I had to do a lot of unlearning as well as a lot of learning! I am grateful to St. Aldates because I got put in a very caring beginners' group with helpful basic discipleship.

We were encouraged to go on a mission, so I got right into evangelism from the start. I remember being told to get on a soap box on a Sunday evening to do preaching. I was soon pulled down because my left wing socialist views got confused with my Christian salvation testimony. I was berating people as though I was a trade union shop steward!

After about two years of that I got very dried out, feeling that it was all really hard work - I felt there must be something more. It was at that point that Clive Calver and Graham Kendrick came into town to speak on the baptism of the Spirit. I went forward for prayer, and got completely zonked out of my head with the power of God. That was a massive change - I began to find a new reservoir of life.

Were you still at college at that stage?

Yes. I was saved when I was in my very first term and then I met Katey, now my wife, who wasn't a Christian and was doing teacher training at Westminster College. I led her to the Lord and we saw a tremendous move of the Holy Spirit there.

Where did God take you after university?

We went up to Wolverhampton to work with Clive Calver who was heading up Youth for Christ. It was the year before we got married. Katey got a teaching job and we ended up leading a team at 'Youth for Christ'. We went into schools, preaching the gospel. It was fantastic!

So how long were you involved with Youth for Christ?

I did eight years with them in various guises. We moved every 18 months to different parts of the country. I was on the national staff.

We then followed Clive to the Evangelical Alliance. He'd become the director and he asked me to come up with a framework of what the Alliance should be aiming at.

I was strongly convinced that the Alliance needed to have a commitment to the 'social agenda' - working with the excluded and ensuring that the gospel was clearly and coherently presented to those who are at the margins.

Also, I sensed the importance of our responsibility for the persecuted church. We needed to act as a voice for those without a voice, to dialogue with the suffering church so we could find out what level of support they wanted. Prayer was fine but there was also the need to take specific action.

Where did you go next?

I was asked by Clive to set up what was then called the Department of Social and Foreign Affairs. That began to move the Alliance back into engaging with the social and political environment, without trading down on the gospel.

The other side was carrying a passion for the suffering church. Eventually, someone else took on the social side and I stayed on the international side, working for the persecuted church.

Do you feel that you initiated anything that made a difference in that time?

One of the things I was learning was to listen to what the people on the ground were saying.

I was deeply moved in Turkey, working with Sir Fred Catherwood, who was there as special representative from the European Parliament, to secure the freedom for evangelical believers to hire buildings to hold their meetings. I just happened to be there after a whole congregation had been released from prison after a week inside. Their level of love, support and the reality of Christianity as a family of relationships was all very humbling.

You were also involved in Spring Harvest at that stage.

Yes. Clive teamed up with Pete Meadows, who was editor of Buzz magazine, and they needed someone to put the mechanics of a Christian interdenominational training conference together. I'm not too good an administrator, so that was a challenge, and little did I know what I was letting myself in for! But in 1978, we launched the idea and in 1979 the first Spring Harvest took place. I set it up and was the bottle washer and first chief executive for the first two years. I'm a starter and an initiator, but not such a good finisher.

After the Evangelical Alliance you changed directions.

Two things happened. First of all God said to me to come out of the Alliance. I was stepping into an unknown oblivion.

At the same time, Katey was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We didn't know what that would mean, but in the short term it certainly involved being available in the home with her, to pray, dialogue and journey in that experience together.

I began to explore and looked at how other traditions had engaged with God. It was a bit of a self-taught crash course in what I call 'spiritual formation' - basically how we sustain spiritual life, both personally and corporately.

And at what point did you get involved with Revelation Church?

When I left Youth for Christ. We moved down to the South Coast, after talking to Roger Ellis, sensing that God was saying that I needed to find a home for me and Katey. We were linked in with the Pioneer Network.

Where did the focus on spiritual formation lead you?

I began to see the importance of spiritual life being outworked co-operatively and relationally, not just personally and privately. So easily the dominant spirit of the age privatises our salvation. I am deeply dependent upon other people.

I've hooked into a phrase of Ron Sider's from his book, 'Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger': Total availability to one another, and unlimited liability for one another. That has become a foundational principal of how to steer my life and build people together.

You've always lived in an extended family situation since you got married. How has that changed you?

Six weeks after we were married, we had two people living with us - they came with the house that we bought! We learned some painful lessons, realising that you can't assert one person's rule over everybody else's or it becomes tyranny. We saw the need to have conversation and dialogue, understanding that there have to be certain ground rules to make the whole thing work. Everybody involved has to have a bigger vision than just their own private satisfaction and private needs.

There was a discipleship element?

Totally. I think that discipleship works both ways. Jane came to be with us when she was seven months pregnant and her husband, a former leader of the church, had walked out on her. She turned up just for a few weeks to get her head together, and she's still with us today!

I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'm reactive. So if something triggers me the wrong way, I explode outwardly, but a lot of us have different foibles or bad practice that goes on within the privacy of our own homes but it's never discipled appropriately. I am discipled by the love and commitment of the brethren, and the courage of people to face me up with my own weaknesses.

Why hasn't community been worked through by more Christians?

Too often people are looking for something for themselves out of community - it's more about taking than it is about giving. One of the things we have to agree to together in community is that it's about discipleship.

The second thing is that people are looking for personal advancement. There's quite a lot of selfishness around. Usually people want community but they also want to retain private wealth, private position and a way out. They want all the benefits of relationship and shared life in Christ together, but at the same time they want to keep their little nest egg or escape route.

Why is the monastic influence important to you?

Firstly, because of their whole commitment to an ordered rhythm of life, which has Christ at the centre.

The other thing I've learned is the importance of their vows. These vows emerged out of a desire to give themselves completely over to God and His kingdom purposes, which begins to shape life. Having some sort of compass to see us through is crucial. The monastics have inspired me to keep myself accountable and hold others to account as well.

What I'm essentially about is contemplating Christ and engaging in mission - those two mean I have to come together with others rather than retreating into a privatised personal 'faith world.'

Tell us a bit about Peaceworks, and how that all came about and where it's travelling.

It came about principally through two lines - my colleague and friend, Chris Seaton, who was very involved in the whole Identificational Repentance movement. This involved going back into historical roots of sin, seeking to take a stand and find the healing of God in those situations.

Also, as I worked in organisations as a consultant, I found that a large percentage of issues weren't about revamping an organisation but about recognizing and helping people deal with relational break downs. I then came across the whole concept of mediation, and talked to Chris about it.

We basically trained in mediation skills and that was the birthing of Peaceworks.

The gospel is about finding the 'Prince of Peace' and working that out in terms of recovering broken relationships.

Do you see much progress with the Identificational Repentance movement? I've not heard too much about it in the last couple of years.

I can give you an illustration. I went with Chris on a trip to Dresden, which you'll know is one of the cities which was incendiary bombed by the British in the last days of the Second World War.

Two situations there stand out - we met with some war widows. I shared about my own father, who fought all the way through the war, and the heart of God for reconciliation. These were not Christian meetings, but the Spirit of God was there. Spontaneously, people began to get up and come forward tearfully, hug us and have a conversation.

Do you feel that the charismatic movement has lost its way?

I can remember in earlier days when talking of being baptised in the Spirit was guaranteed to get pulpits closed - there was a price to pay. At the same time there was a tremendous enthusiasm about the reality of God moving through spiritual gifts. The whole charismatic movement re-energised the church.

My anxiety is that we have reached the stage where having pioneered, we've now colonised and fallen in love with the comforts of life - in other words, we've settled. We've exchanged the wagon for the homestead. My concern is also that the emerging generation are going to stop pioneering sooner than we had when they saw it didn't work for us.

We need to find some mechanism whereby we cooperate with the Spirit of God to continue the mission that God's got us on.

What is the way of communicating the prophetic vision that takes us into new ground?

We've critiqued an awful lot on our journey as evangelical charismatics, but we haven't critiqued the whole economic basis upon which we live as a society. Those following Christ are blunted when they get absorbed or co-opted into the overarching culture.

The second point is that we need to make ourselves accountable to others, so that we're not privately amassing our own wealth or pension or property portfolio. Too often, leadership has become separated from the body of Christ and tends towards an exclusive, unaccountable meritocracy.

How will this change the shape of the church?

I hope church will become much more a 24/7 church than two hours a week church. This is the way in which the early Christians lived out their committed faith and it's a whole life faith. Christians have compartmentalised their lives too readily. We've not really owned that any decision we take must be submitted to Christ and our brothers and sisters. Can I financially enrich myself at the expense of those who go without?

This takes a high level of trust, energy and commitment. Sadly, trust seems to be a commodity that's in short supply today. Modelling trust in relationships is one of the greatest gifts the church can bring to society.

How do you feel about the future of the Pioneer Network? You're in a stage of transition.

It's the biggest challenge that we face. It is difficult for leaders to transition appropriately and hand over responsibility so they remain honoured, yet don't get in the way. There's a great danger that we're going to be a one generational movement.

Creating a bridge between the patriarchs and the emerging generation is vital so that together there can be co-operation in the vision. We mustn't confuse the side-shows with the essence. Preaching, for example, holding forth on platforms, is a mechanism, it's not an essence. The essence is having the message that's transformational.

How do you characterise your own ministry?

There's a provocational and prophetic dynamic to my ministry. I can't let things rest; I've got to stir things up.

The nurturing of emerging Christians is quite central to my ministry as well. The whole of my life has been facilitating people in different situations, helping spiritual formation, laying foundations, individually and corporately, to sustain something for the longer haul.

When I left the Evangelical Alliance one of the things God said to me was: "I want you to be a friend to people". I thought that was a very wimpy word at the time and I wanted something more dynamic. A year later I was sitting in this room where a well known person was visiting me. I shared the word with this person. There was one of those pregnant silences in the room and he said, "I don't think I've ever really had a friend". Then all the lights went on.

Anything else you feel that God is saying to the church at the moment?

In terms of my generation, we've got to fall in love with the gospel again and become deeply convinced of our own experience of God. I worry that in this postmodern age, the gospel doesn't seem to matter. I'd been changed radically by the gospel and it's my privilege to be able to communicate that to everybody.

And we've also got to move away from the 'quick fix' answer as to how we do church. We've got to find out in what ways the gospel truly is good news to the poor, the marginalised. God has entrusted us to go to them, so if we're not finding our way to them, then there's something seriously wrong with us, and may God be gracious enough to deal with it!