Paul Hazelden

I have been involved in teaching, pastoral care and evangelism since my university days; based primarily in evangelical churches from various denominations, but encouraging Christians and working with churches from all the mainstream denominations and a number of the smaller ones. My involvement with all the different groups led in 1980 to chairing the first UK university mission where all the Christian groups on campus worked together. I am still involved in promoting activity which recognises and promotes the unity of the Church, without compromising our individual beliefs.

I am married, with three grown-up sons. I spent several years selling books for a living, then around 20 years in IT, first working for Cornhill Insurance, then various other parts of the Insurance Industry, before running an evangelism training program and then leading a Christian charity helping homeless people, drug addicts and alcoholics.

My theological background is varied. I went to a small independent church (very similar to the closed Brethren) as a child from the age of 4, where they did ‘proper’ Bible Study in the Sunday School classes; from the age of 8 I also attended the local Anglican church which (a few years later) refused to allow me into the confirmation class because they were worried about the questions I might ask. Attended both churches until university: one for the teaching and the other for the friendship and social concern.

At 18, I went to the University of Surrey in Guildford and attended Millmead Baptist Church where David Pawson was the preacher – his sermons were copied and sent to people across the world; through my work on the CU committee, I was introduced to Roger Forster from Icthus, Gerald Coates from Chobham and a number of the other prominent House Church leaders; I helped to steer the CU through a theological conflict with UCCF – nominally an issue about charismatic gifts, but actually about competing principles of Biblical interpretation, the nature of the church and the extent to which Christian leaders should seek to control the lives of their members.

After graduating, I found myself leading a small House Church in partnership with a friend, where we sought to focus on both the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit; after a few years we were invited to take over an Independent Evangelical Church, but decided instead to take our people into the nearby URC, where I became an ordained Elder. Our church sparked off a national consultation on the subject of baptism, during which I represented the church in meetings with the Moderator, General Secretary, resident theologian and other senior figures of the denomination and spoke at the General Assembly. As well as pastoral care in the church, I was involved with evangelism (personal, church based and open-air) and mission in the UK and Europe. Employment during this period was mainly in IT, specializing in data communication between computers, using computers to establish contracts, and the various security measures required to make this work.

In the late 1990s, working with Open Air Campaigners, I helped to set up and then run a training programme for evangelists, which led to me giving up paid employment and brought us to Bristol. After a year running the programme I was asked to take leadership of Crisis Centre Ministries, a small Christian charity with 3 staff and 40 volunteers helping alcoholics, addicts and homeless people, and built it up to a significant organisation with 18 staff, 350 volunteers and a turnover of half a million pounds. While working for Crisis Centre Ministries, I helped to set up several other charities and completed a MTh in Applied Theology at Spurgeon’s College.

Since moving on in 2014, I have continued to preach in various places, am promoting Christian based social action and developing a new charity to provide pastoral care to people outside the church through referrals from GPs and other health professionals. Church unity, pastoral care, evangelism and apologetics have been constant themes in my work, and these conversations have fed into several studies, including the Biblical teaching about Hell.

Over the years, I have learned from a number of gifted leaders, but also from academic works, Church history and the Christian classics, from conversations with Christians who were struggling in various ways, and conversations with people outside the Church and on the fringes of society. Their concerns and perspectives need to be heard: the truth about God is life-giving – to all, but especially to the weak, the poor and the vulnerable.