Seeds of faith rise in new-look city

Jul 30 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

There are thousands of new people in Liverpool. Now an evangelical clergyman is starting a parish in the city centre for their spiritual needs. David Charters reports

HE HAS the bright teeth and the confident good looks of a presenter on an afternoon TV show – this man who made a deal with God when he was just a young Tyke with a mean bowling arm.

And he has come to our city, all six feet and four inches of him, like an early Christian missionary, seeking those of faith, so that he can make a new church for them.

It is probably true that all Yorkshiremen coming to the Mersey, with accents you could gouge from a pit, think they are on a mission, but we make them welcome just the same.

Anyway, the Rev Neil Short is here at the invitation of the Rt Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, who thought the city needed a new parish to serve the expanding student population, as well as the new business communities on the waterfront and in the city centre.

It’s a daunting challenge for Neil and his wife Margaret. They haven’t even got a church, though they have just moved into a smart house, literally in the shadows cast by the magnificent neo-Gothic cathedral.

The bishop has for long been eager to see the church flourish again in city centres, where for a variety of reasons it has lost much influence over the past half-century.

Liverpool’s regeneration, based on tourism, the building industry, commerce and the 2008 European Capital of Culture, presents a grand opportunity for resowing the seeds of Christian belief.

So for Neil, who began his ministry a few days ago, it will be meeting as many people and organisations as possible in the coming weeks.

Eventually, they hope to have a permanent meeting-house, possibly in St James Church, Toxteth, which closed 35 years ago.

Meanwhile, however, Neil and the first members of the congregation will have to meet in pubs, clubs, houses – anywhere that’s available to them.

But who is this chap, destined to play such an important part in the spiritual development of Liverpool? Well, Neil was the second child born to Audrey Short and her husband Alec, an engineer. He was brought up at Pudsey, Yorkshire, attending the local grammar school, a fine place of learning.

But the little town between Leeds and Bradford is even better known for the Pudsey St Lawrence Cricket Club, where Herbert Sutcliffe and Sir Leonard Hutton refined some of the strokes, which made them two of the most revered batsmen in the world.

“I was a fast bowler until I was about 15 when I changed to off-spin,” Neil says. “Being tall is very good for any sort of bowling, particularly spin because you can get extra bounce and lift. I played in the second eleven at the club. There was no chance of getting in the first team.

“They were champions in the Bradford League. I played for Yorkshire’s Under-15s and the Under 19s and we went on a tour of five southern counties. It was great.

“At lower levels I was a very good batter, but at higher levels they find you out.”

From school, Neil, 49, took a gap year, working in the crypt of St George’s Church, Leeds, with those who had fallen on hard times, and then he had a spell at Scargill (not Arthur) House, a Christian holiday and conference centre at Kettlewell.

At Loughborough University, he studied civil engineering, graduating with a first-class honours BSc.

For the next few years he worked for an engineering consultancy in Peterborough, at one stage fulfilling design contracts which involved jetting about the Middle and Far East. During this time he married Margaret, also 49, and they have two children Peter, 20, and Ben, 18.

However, the early sense that he should be working for God was still pulling at Neil and he entered a three-year theology course at Cramner College, Durham University, leading to his ordination.

This was followed by a four-year spell as a curate in Glossop, Derbyshire, and then six years as a curate in Bradford.

In 1996, Liverpool’s then Bishop, David Sheppard, appointed him vicar of St John’s parish in Burscough. Of course, this was another link with cricket, as the late Bishop Sheppard had been an England captain and batsman.

Then his successor, “Bishop James”, plucked Neil from rural west Lancashire and landed him in Liverpool.

“When I was 17, in the lower sixth, I became a Christian,” says Neil. “I was convinced of the existence of God, but I had this sneaky feeling pretty early on, deep down in my bones, that God wanted me to do something full-time for him – be a missionary, a vicar, or, perish the thought, a monk.

“I liked being a Christian, but I wasn’t convinced that I trusted him enough to give him the whole works. So I did a deal with God. I said, ‘I’ll give you a year and do anything you want in that year. If you come up trumps in that year, you can have the rest of my life. If you don’t come up trumps, then I’ll keep control of my life’.

“So I took the year off and it was a bit like swimming, if you stay in the shallow end you never really know. But if you jump in at the deep-end, which is what I did, you discover that you can float.”

Neil speaks clearly and crisply about his chosen path.

“I had a great upbringing and lovely parents and did okay at school. I loved all things sporting I had absolutely everything going for me.

“But there was one person in the crypt I remember particularly. He was a big lad in a bright yellow pullover, who had come down from Newcastle looking for work, but he just couldn’t get a job. After a couple of nights he got into trouble with the police. This was a man who just needed some help, some support and a bit of love. Often people are like that, they just need some support to get back on their feet.”

But what does Liverpool offer this handsome figure in the blue shirt, a dash of grey in his neatly cropped hair?

“Bishop James wants me to target the folks who live in the quayside developments, lots of younger folks,” he says. “He wants me to help them move on in the faith, to discover leadership skills and then to encourage them to take up more active roles in the city.That is a long-term task.

“But there is no parish, no congregation and no church.”

In such circumstances, it is usual to wait for a miracle. But Neil is a man of action.

“I want to build up a team of core people to build up the vision, to see how we are going to launch the church,” he says. “When we outgrow the house we’ll probably start to meet in a pub or club, a school or theatre.

“It is absolutely like the early roots of Christianity. Every church you see started one day. You know there wasn’t a building or congregation.

“Somebody said, ‘There is a population over there. We need to start a church’.”

The Diocese of Liverpool has 255 churches serving a population of 1.56m in an area of 389 sq miles, stretching from Southport in the north to Widnes in the south, across to Wigan in the east.

“In the first few months, I want to visit loads of the local churches to see what is going on,” he says. “I obviously want to get to know the local leaders – the church and civic leaders. I specifically want to visit people who are doing social projects. There are people doing great work here and I want to learn as much as possible from them.

“I believe God has given each person a special gift or ability. One of my gifts is helping people discover those gifts or abilities and to give them the encouragement to have a go.

“My job is not to get them to do what I want, but to help them do what they want.

“What they want is God’s place deep inside them.

“You only have to look out of the window in Liverpool and you can see tower cranes everywhere. People are moving back into the city centre – the population of the city is exploding. We are keen to respond to that.”

And then this preacher in the city quotes from Ephesians chapter four: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

“In other words,” he says, “the leader’s job is to encourage the members to do the ministry.”

So the man, whose hair almost brushes heaven, steps into our midst.

davidcharters@dailypost.co.uk