Brothers+

A sermon at Synod referred to the last "real
Archbishop of Canterbury".  We in the audience thought
of Arthur Michael Ramsey.   Time passes quickly. 
Since 1974 there have been 4 others occupying the See.

Here is an excerpt from the Global South Q & A with
the current Archbishop of Canterbury.  

Charles+
Church of the Good Shepherd
"------------------------------------


Personal 
Q11.  Please share with us your testimony of how you
came to faith in Christ. 

A11. I don’t find those obtrusive or difficult at all!
I think it’s appropriate question for anyone in a
Christian assembly such as this. I grew up in a
Christian household and therefore the name of Christ
was familiar to me from my earliest childhood. When I
was about 11, we moved house and we moved into another
Christian family. We became Anglicans and I’ve never
been sorry about that. And it was in my teenage years
that my faith was nurtured by a wonderful pastor and a
wonderful congregation. I think there were 2 moments
in my teenage years when I felt I met the living God.
Not just words or rituals, but the living God. 

The first, and you would be entirely surprised knowing
my interest, was the first time I attended a Russian
Orthodox service. An elderly priest came to my town in
South Wales in Swansea to celebrate a Russian Orthodox
liturgy – the mass. And the curate in my parish said
to me, “You might be interested in this. Come with
me.” And I went, and when I came away I felt I had
seen glory and praise for the first time. I felt I had
seen and heard people who were behaving as if God were
real. And that it’s the only way, I know it’s not the
only way, but I came away with the sense of absolute
objectivity and majesty and beauty of God which I have
never forgotten. If people worshipped like this, I
felt God must be a great deal more real even I have
learned him so far. I have a long journey to make into
that reality. And that is why ever since then I have
often asked when people wants to discuss mission, I’ve
often asked “Does our worship look as if we took God
seriously?” because that’s what makes a difference to
me. This had to be serious, this had to be real. 

And the second experience was not unlikely in a way.
It was 3 years later when I was 17, and I used to go
sometimes at that period to a Baptist church in
Swansea as well as to my own Anglican church. I went
on Saturday evenings for the services which they held
there which were very direct and challenging mission
services, and that is where I learnt most of my
choruses and my Moody and Sanky’s hymns. And that is
where I learnt how to sing Blessed Assurance with love
and delight, and heard very blunt evangelistic
preaching. I also went because some very nice girls
from the Grammar school went there on Saturday
evenings too, but there we are, God works through all
sorts of motivations. And one of those young ladies
said in her own chapel they were going to have a visit
from somebody I might want to listen to, and his name
was Richard Wurmbrandt, a name which some of you would
know, I think, a Lutheran pastor who has suffered
appallingly for his faith in Romania in the 50s and
the 60s. He’s been many, many years in prison and
tortured. He wrote a book which some of you would know
called Tortured for Christ, and also an extraordinary
little volume of meditations and sermons in solitary
confinements. If you’ve never read that book, read it.
So I went to hear Richard Wurmbrandt and it was the
first time I had met a Christian martyr, a confessor
of the faith. He spoke about what he’d endured in
prison and he spoke about God and about Jesus Christ.
And once again I came away thinking I’ve seen the
reality, the words about something true, but now I’ve
seen the truth. Again, it was as if I was seeing a
life that so obviously took God and Jesus Christ so
seriously. And I came away thinking I cannot deny the
reality and my own life looks very hollow by
comparison. And just on that first occasion when I
went to the Russian service, I found myself that
evening kneeling at prayer in tears and feeling that
I’ve been taken somewhere new. I had to change, I had
to grow, I had to repent. I had to let that reality
become more real for me. 

Those were 2 moments in a long journey of faith,
beginning at my mother’s knees.