About Pastor Geoff Williams
In 1983 I was 17 years old and I was studying science A-levels at Lancaster Royal Grammar School. I had a deep interest in nature conservation and wildlife photography and was planning to study for a degree in Zoology at the University of Sheffield - and I most definitely did not believe in God! My younger brother, Brian, had become a Christian about two years earlier and he would often talk to me about God and the Bible. Sometimes we would talk late into the night and I remember my mother coming in to my bedroom at one o’clock in the morning to tell us to be quiet and to get to bed. I couldn't understand how any rational person could believe in God and I told Brian that he must have had his brain removed to become a Christian. I thought he was a real idiot.
One day as we walked to school with friends we got into another discussion about religion and Brian told me that if I was to die that day then I would go to hell. I don't know why this offended me if I didn't believe in God but it did. My reaction was swift and immediate: I punched him in the face and knocked him to the ground. But it was in those following moments that everything changed for me; I will never forget the look in my brother’s eyes as he propped himself up on the pavement with tears in his eyes. He looked straight at me but it wasn't anger that I saw; it was love and deep sadness! I think that that was the first time that I ever saw Jesus; as I looked at my brother I saw someone who loved me so much that he was willing to suffer at my hands. Now I didn't tell him about this realisation as I barely understood it myself but from then on I started to pay more attention and my interest grew.
Brian and I continued to discuss Christianity and we often argued, until one day he decided to make a deal with me. He promised that he would stop talking to me about God if I would just come to church with him for three Sunday evenings in a row. I thought that was a great deal; I couldn’t lose. After all, God didn't exist and my brother would stop bugging me about it! So, to my parents’ surprise, I went to church the following Sunday evening and it was there that I truly met God for the first time as I listened to the minister preaching from the Bible. I remember thinking that it felt like he was talking about me; it felt like I was being opened up on the inside and was being shown for what I was really like. I remember looking around at others at the church wondering who had told him about me. Then, as the service drew to a close, the minister asked us to bow our heads in prayer. As soon as I closed my eyes I felt like I was being surrounded by a beautiful light, a sense of pure love all around me. But in the face of such beauty standing right there before me, in the presence of God’s light and holiness I felt utterly filthy. I was filled with a sense of shame and guilt for all the things I had done and I remember feeling utterly helpless to do anything to change myself. All I could do was keep saying, “Sorry! I am so sorry!” I knew that God was real and that he loved me; I knew that I was a sinner, that I was guilty and that there was nothing I could do to change the fact! But it was then that I was surrounded suddenly by a beautiful sense of peace: it was all okay. I knew God’s forgiveness, His grace and mercy washed over me and tears of joy rolled down my cheeks. In those moments I knew that my life had changed forever. Sixty minutes earlier I had walked into the church building as an arrogant atheist but now, not only did I believe in God, I had become a follower of Jesus.
The next day I started to read my bible and pray; my character didn't change overnight but gradually over the next few weeks and months my anger and arrogance started to subside. I was becoming a different person, a new person. I went to church every week and attended Bible study in the evenings and the compassion and love I had for animals and the natural world slowly started to be released, by God’s heart in me, towards my fellow human beings. Within 18 months I had become a lay minister in training; instead of going on to study Zoology I moved down south and studied a degree in Theology at London Bible College and then a master’s degree in Biblical Hermeneutics. The day after I had given my life to Christ I still had all my scientific and rational objections and questions; I didn’t know the answers but I did know God who was the one who had made everything. I figured that if God was the creator then the best way to understand everything in the universe was to get to know Him.
God has given me a compassion and love for people of all races and backgrounds. The love that God showed me I want to see overflowing from the Christian church into the lives of those who are lost and broken. I still love the outdoors; the years have seen me rock climbing, ice climbing & mountaineering and although I’m not as physically fit as I was, I love to get outdoors with my camera as I have a passion for landscape photography. Everywhere around me I perceive the wonder of the God who imagined you and me and this amazing and vast universe. Isn’t it awesome that He is interested in us! And if He is, then that means that we’re not here by accident; our lives have purpose and meaning in the creator God. The bottom line is that we all have a destiny that can only be fulfilled by getting reconnected to our Heavenly Father. And the only way to do that is through the Lord Jesus Christ; there is no other way!