As I said yesterday, I spent two years with the London City Mission Voluntary Evangelism Scheme (1986-1988). I have to say I was a rubbish evangelist. I was by disposition so introverted I would jump at a brown paper bag blowing in the wind believing it to be a sabre toothed Yorkshire terrier lying in wait for me. I also had very little idea of what I believed. How could I like most Anglicans I had rarely picked up a Bible. It was a crazy set of coincidences with a little sprinkling of divine initiative that led me to Old Jamaica Road.

I was determined. Yorkshire people are, I think. I am also gifted with a natural curiosity in a shy sort of way. As importantly, I had a huge thirst for knowledge and learning, and I was living with people who had been to university. I am not sure I had actually spent time with people who had been to university before. They were different. The thought that I could hold my own in their company was both a thrill and quite problematic. What if they rumbled that I had no idea what I was talking about?

Slowly, but surely, I would learn more about what I believed. I would then share it with anyone who would listen: on the doorstep, in the home, on the street. Sometimes I would run out of things to say, which was mildly embarassing.

One memory for now. Scot, was probably about 4. He came to the kids club. It was wild. He was wild. It’s not his real name. I poured as much as I could into him. But he was still wild and never listened. But I would still tell him all that I knew. As I was about to leave, his mum (I have forgotten her name so I won’t put any down in case I get it right) said to me, ‘my boy comes home every time he meets you and talks about Jesus’

I was a rubbish evangelist… but I stuck at it