Hello! I'm Simon and I'm the pastor of Harvest Field Church, Cheltenham in England. I've been in Christian ministry since 1975 and I have been ministering over the internet via email and our web site since early 1997.
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Hello! I'm Simon and I'm the pastor of Harvest Field Church, Cheltenham in England. I've been in Christian ministry since 1975 and I have been ministering over the internet via email and our web site since early 1997.
I'm English by birth and British by nationality but I spent fifteen years abroad before returning to England in 1989. I lived in Holland for almost five years then in South East Asian for ten years. I speak both Dutch and Indonesian besides English. I am married to Ruth and we have five children.
Ruth comes from Klaten in Central Java, Indonesia where her parents still live. I met her there in 1980. Our first child Benjamin was born in South Sumatra.
Ruth and I work very closely together in ministry although I am the "public" part of our team. We begin each day in prayer and counsel together. We unitedly respond to prayer requests and promptings by standing together in agreement about them.
Our five children are great delight to us. We have always prayed Isaiah 54:13 and Isaiah 44:3 over them. It thrills us to see how the Lord has taught them, put His peace on them and blessed them. (See more on my children further down the page.)
I home-schooled our children until the beginning of 1997. They have since excelled in local schools, not only continuously getting good grades, but also finding favour with both teachers and other pupils.
Benjamin was attending the University of Warwick for three years until the Summer of 2003. He started there two years earlier than normal. He was in the maths department studying Maths with Computing. Warwick is one of the top three universities for mathematics in the UK.
Benjamin set up the first version of the Teaching Pages web site when he was only 14 years old. He continues to provide great support and help to my internet ministry. Thanks to him my office computer runs Linux and open source software. I take care of present day web page implementation and the presentation of teaching materials on the site.
Our web site is not just a family vision but a church vision. Our church is right behind us in prayer and is always eager to get the latest reports of incoming testimonies or to hear how many "hits" we're getting. We have found that there is a constant carry over of materials prepared for the internet into materials suitable for ministry in the church. Everything produced to benefit the world on our web site also finds it's way into the church setting.
I was educated in England and got my degree in education from the University of Bristol while studying at St Paul's College, Cheltenham. My subject speciality was physical education. My career destination at that time was secondary school teaching. My sporting aspiration was to represent Great Britain at the 1976 olympics as a gymnast.
In 1972, after a period of success and tremendous progress in gymnastics, I attempted, without adequate supervision, a triple back somersault on the trampoline and broke my neck. I was left paralysed from the neck down but miraculously recovered.
I recognised that some great goodness had been shown in my life and started to search for the meaning and purpose that then I felt my life was meant to have.
In 1975 I received Jesus as my Saviour. I was born again and my whole life started over again. I was living in Holland at the time training in Rotterdam to be a contemporary dancer but the moment Jesus came into my life I knew I had found who and what I was alive for. I left the dance school went through a basic course in discipleship and began ministering the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the streets of Holland.
In 1979 I left Holland to meet up with a family serving as missionaries in Jakarta, Indonesia. There, as a missionary myself, I introduced people to Jesus Christ, led them to salvation and nurtured them in the faith.
During the first, challenging years on the mission field my first marriage - to a Dutch girl - fell apart and ended in divorce. The children of this marriage - Melody, Priscilla and Christiaan - lived mostly with me up until 1989. They have a special place in my heart. I later married Ruth. My first wife lives in England. Likewise, so do the three children who are all grown up now. We have a yearly "extended family" reunion to which they all come. It's a joyous time. (For more information visit my page entitled Divorce.)
In 1989 I returned with my family to England after ten years in South East Asia. It was a time of learning to rely on the Lord and be led by God's Spirit at all times in all circumstances. I made many mistakes but in them I came to know God's compassion for me and faithfulness to His Word even when I was faithless. 2 Timothy 2:13.
In 1990 Ruth, the children and I began a mobile Christian outreach in the English Midlands. We concentrated mostly on door to door ministry in rural areas and smaller towns. Soon we were holding "Church In The Field" under canvass. During this time we made regular outreach trips to Cheltenham and through one of these trips I met Jerry Garry and his family. They received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour with great gladness.
In 1991 we went to our first Kenneth Copeland convention. Our faith and vision rose up higher than it had ever been before. The word preached at that convention set us free from a sometimes-you-get-healed-sometimes-you-don't Christian background as well as causing me to realise there were many weaknesses, errors and shortcomings in my understanding of God's Word and Will. A new learning time had begun.
In 1991 Harvest Field Church also began and I started developing High Impact Christianity to meet the need of nurturing young believers consistently and progessively.
In 1997 Pastor Simon's Homepage web site was set up. This was soon after developed into the Teaching Pages web site.
In 2002 I launched the The Virtual Church. This online 3D style, interactive church is a radical new concept in Christian internet use.
Lots has happened since then. On the recreational front I took up trampolining again in 2005 when one of my daughter's was attending a local session. Amazingly I found the memory and ability to do the basics of what I could do over thirty years beforehand was still there. In 2006 I worked on my fitness, did some trampolining sessions fairly regularly and then entered the British Veterans Gymnastics championships. That's me in the picture coming out of back somersault (September 2006). Following that I started tumbling on the floor again.
The YouTube video clips after the photo show me tumbling. The top one is me in training. The second one is my tumbling run at the British Veterans Gymnastics championship 2007. Not bad for a 55 year old huh? Praise the Lord for His grace, strength and health.
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I have been asked in an email from a site visitor about why I refer to myself as pastor. The visitor wrote,
"I would also like to ask why you call yourself pastor? Everytime I have read the word pastor in the Bible it seems to me that it is refering to an elder, overseer, or bishop, but never as a preacher or teacher. It discusses a pastor being one who looks over the flock like a shepherd and it also describes a elder the same way."
I include here my reply should others be asking themselves the same question -
You're right in your observation on how the Bible uses the word pastor or considers the office of pastor. The reason I call myself pastor is because I am the pastor of Harvest Field Church, Cheltenham and my role there fits the scriptural picture of a pastor. You can find out more about my church on my site.
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