Meet the Team

Having worked in international retail, latterly as a manager, the Lord called me full-time into the work of The Open-Air Mission in 2005. I had the privilege of being taken to church from a young age where I was taught the Scriptures. My testimony is two-fold. Partly through the ministry of the church and through the work of an OAM Beach Mission run locally on the Isle of Anglesey, I came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Through a burden to share the gospel with others and an admiration of Beach Missions, I got more involved in the work of OAM.

Over the years, I grew in my faith, developing skills in evangelism and eventually became an Associate worker, before joining the team full-time. Over the years, my role within the Mission has developed from that of Evangelist, to Assistant General Secretary and latterly to Field Operations Manager, overseeing the work and workers of OAM. What a privilege it is to serve the Lord within The Open-Air Mission.

After studying Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester I worked for several years in marketing at a medical device company. I loved introducing products that made a difference to the lives of patients who had life-limiting illnesses. However, since becoming a Christian at aged 16 I have longed to see lives changed not only for this life, but also for eternity. Over time I became more and more burdened to be involved in Christian ministry, reaching out to others with the gospel. I have been involved in open-air evangelism since shortly after my conversion and had the privilege of spending a year as a trainee evangelist with OAM in 2009-10. So, it seemed to be from the Lord when an opportunity opened to begin working with OAM in 2019.

I have two roles within OAM. Part of my time is spent running local open-airs in the East Midlands as an evangelist, and with the rest of my time I oversee the office administration.

I am married to Tami, and we have three young children who keep us very busy! In my spare time I am involved in my local church as an elder, and I enjoy editing family videos, DIY and reading.

I came to The Open-Air Mission in 1997 after almost 20 years in the Life and Pensions Industry. During that time, I processed a lot of numbers but I also learned some basic computer operating skills including PowerPoint, Excel and Word, how to speak in public, and how to placate an angry complaining customer! All good transferrable skills.

Having been raised in a Christian family, I became a Christian while still a young lad. As a teenager I was keen to share my faith with others and got involved in a school scripture union group, helped my father run children’s meetings in the local community centre as well as our local church, got involved in leading a Bible class in a List D school for boys, and joined in with a group of Christians who preached the gospel on the streets of Glasgow on Saturday evenings.

It was a natural development to move to full-time Christian ministry, and in particular to work with The Open-Air Mission after having been involved in open-air preaching over many years. I also heard the call of God to do this as I read Luke chapter 5 where Jesus instructs Peter to ‘launch out into the deep’. I felt God was telling me to take a step of faith away from the shallow water to the deep water where my feet would not touch the bottom of the sea. In other words, to leave my nice job in an office and go out into the world, trusting God for all things as I went.

Now I regularly share the gospel on the streets of towns and cities in Central Scotland as well as further afield on occasion, particularly on the OAM Team Events. I also run OAM Bible Exhibitions in conjunction with local churches, preach at various regular church meetings and events, take school assemblies, speak at youth camps, and am actively involved in a Glasgow prison Bible class. I enjoy training others in open-air evangelism.

In my spare time, I enjoy DIY, gardening (mostly just cutting the hedges and the grass), and relaxing holidays in the Canaries or in the caravan. I am married to Marion. We met while I was preaching on the streets in Glasgow on Saturday evenings! We have two grown-up children who have two children each, so we have four grandchildren.

Having been made redundant twice in agriculture, I changed career and eventually managed a team dealing with import and export issues for a large American company, which I really enjoyed. Years ago, I heard about Jesus dying on the cross to provide forgiveness for the wrong things I had done and rising from the dead so that I could know forgiveness from God and have the promise of heaven. I responded by turning from my wrong, asking for God’s forgiveness and trusting in Jesus and His death on the cross. Since then, I felt that this was such good news, and that Jesus was so compassionate towards people, that I should share this great news with others. In 2000 I began to work with OAM in various ways to do this. Over the years, I have been involved in schools, doing assemblies and bible exhibitions. I have also been in prisons doing bible studies with inmates, worked on the streets sharing my faith, in hospital visitation, on beaches in the summer, in cafes, camps and churches. Sandra and I attend a caring and helpful church near Bedford. We have three married daughters and currently six grandchildren. We love spending time with the family, and enjoy walking, cycling, gardening, and I have a love for motorcycles and vintage vehicles.

I have been an Evangelist with The Open-Air Mission since 2015. My background is in design, graduating with a degree in Industrial Design in the 1980s, then working as a graphic designer, latterly in Higher Education writing, teaching and leading graphic design degree programmes for 11 years. Although I appreciate the power of visual communication to affect people, my passion is communicating the truth of God, as revealed in His Word, and especially that of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the saving truth of God with the power to rescue from sin and bring into a wonderful new life of peace with God and hope for eternity. I was born to parents who became Christians in the 1950s but knew from early childhood that their faith did not make me a real Christian; that knowing the love of God personally and being right with Him meant I too had to confess my sin to Him and my need of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.  I moved to Leicester with a summer job just after I graduated, but ended up living here, getting married and having a family! I live in Wigston, just south of Leicester with my wife, Alison. We are a part of Little Hill Church in Wigston. We have a son and a daughter, now both adults and married, and two granddaughters. We very much enjoy seeing and spending time with them. I enjoy history and historic technologies, exploring new places and walks in the country.

Prior to joining the Open- Air Mission I worked for many years in law as a solicitor, dealing particularly with conveyancing, probate and wills.  I studied for my law finals at the College of Law, Chester.

I was born with a physical disability and it was said that I would never walk. However, by God’s grace and after several operations the Lord enabled me to do so and continues to strengthen me.

Although brought up in a Christian home I was not saved until I was 18. I will never forget the joy of knowing that my sins were forgiven. I felt like Pilgrim in Pilgrim’s Progress when he lost his burden at the cross. After witnessing to a friend who later came to Christ, I was given a passion to evangelise.  In my 20s I felt a great burden to serve the Lord full-time. A particular promise given to me was Psalm 138: 8 ‘The Lord will perfect that which concerns you’.  This promise was later made precious to me many years later in 2017.  Sadly, I put other things first in my life and for a number of years I thought I had been laid aside by the Lord.  However, the Lord graciously gave me a second chance and renewed my burden to serve Him. By His grace I became an associate worker with OAM in 2015. In 2017, following a restructure in the local authority where I was working, I was able to apply for voluntary redundancy.  The Lord wonderfully opened the door for me to serve as a part-time evangelist in 2018.  I live in Somerset and work mainly in Somerset and Wiltshire but also venture further afield from time to time. Whilst my legal career was interesting and fulfilling nothing compares to the joy and privilege of being able to share the gospel.

I am married to Shirley who I met through an open-air in Bath and who often accompanies me in the open- air where she is a great support to me.  We are blessed with two adult children.

In my spare time I am involved in my local church and enjoy bird watching, wildlife, the countryside and reading.

I began my career as a police youth trainee, seeking to find out what I might do in the future. During my time in the police, I became a Bible believing Christian (even though I had vowed never to consider any form of Christianity, having been raised as a Roman Catholic, which I abandoned in my teens) and it became apparent that my future was not in the police force, but elsewhere. I spent the majority of my working life in transport and systems roles involving mechanical automation and vehicle tracking until I began work with OAM as an evangelist in 2021.

In 2000 I attended a United Beach Mission week in Llandudno where I was involved in open-air preaching for the first time when I was invited to preach unexpectedly. I felt I should speak about the lifeboat and use that to illustrate how God saves. On the day that I was due to preach, God brought the lifeboat to the promenade, as an illustration, to go with my talk! A great burden was borne within me to share the gospel through open-air preaching, as so many people passing by could hear the good news. On my return, I began open-air work locally which took place once a month, and I have been involved in various similar works ever since.

I first met an Open-Air Mission team in September 2017 in Manchester. Seeing the team on that day gave me a real burden for the work of evangelism and open-air preaching and I began to consider full-time work in Christian ministry. I attended some team events with OAM during 2019 and felt the Lord’s leading me to apply to become a full-time evangelist.

I have a love of real science and history (both ancient and modern) and I like learning about all the latest developments taking place in the fields of archaeology, astronomy, physics, and other related subjects. I also like to research particular topics as they catch my interest, whether that be the origins of the Bible we have today, archaeology in the middle east, or the sister ship of the Titanic, the RMS Olympic.

I am married to Liz and we have two children. I love spending time with my family in the lakes, especially when we head out onto the water and spend a day exploring!

I have spent most of my life in education, from teaching children as a deputy headteacher to developing other school leaders with the National College for School Leadership. Later, I had my own company developing online programmes of study for school leaders worldwide. My spiritual journey began in 1984 when at 19 years old, a friend took me to hear a man called Billy Graham talk about Jesus. I was convinced, and it changed my life. Fast forward to 2018; I shut down my business and joined OAM to share the same message I heard with as many people as possible. I love working with local churches encouraging them to tell people about Jesus in the streets. I visit the big towns all along the M5 motorway from Cheltenham to Exeter, with occasional visits to Barnstaple and Minehead. I’m married to Fiona, have three grown-up children, and we attend a Christian fellowship in Weston-Super-Mare. In my spare time, I enjoy watching old films, listening to audio books and walking our dog, Jetta.

I was born and raised in Coventry. As a child I was taken to church and there encouraged to attend the meetings. During my teenage years we went on retreats and weekends away which I enjoyed. During my teenage years the message preached, and God’s spirit caused me to know I was not a Christian, this led me to cry out that I might be saved. I am so thankful the Lord has sustained me ever since.

After leaving school I trained as a carpenter and worked in the construction industry for over 35 years. Over the years I enjoyed working for many private companies and housing associations.

I came to know of OAM when on holiday in Wales. Our family came across the beach mission being run on South Beach, Tenby. We returned each year with our children and eventually joined the team ourselves.

I joined in with several OAM team events such as Lincoln, Oxford and Epsom races. Then, after a message at my home church and discussion with my elders, I applied to work for OAM. It was over 20 years from first coming into contact with OAM to joining the mission full time. On reflection, those years were a time of preparation.

I still live in Coventry with Mandy. We have been married 28 years and have 3 grown-up children. We are active members in our home church and help with the children’s meeting each week. In my leisure time I follow Coventry City football club which is a bit of a roller coaster! I also enjoy my allotment where I grow a variety of vegetables. If I have any time, I also enjoy swimming and going to the gym.

My father was an Anglo-Catholic priest, and I had a very religious young childhood, but that all changed when my mother left him when I was 8. My mother and stepfather had a small stud farm and I spent much of my youth working with horses.

After studying Agricultural Engineering at university, I was quite disillusioned with the world and began a two-year period of travelling. Things went from bad to worse and my life became a mess. While in London, an American lad invited me to a Bible study. I was given a helpful book where I read Jesus’ statement, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’ (John 14:6). He claimed to be the only way to God. Then I read how Jesus responded to Philip’s request to show him the Father with, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9). The realisation hit me that Jesus was not just a man but God in human form. I bowed my head and asked the Lord to forgive me and take over my life. A few weeks later the truth hit me of just how much I had been forgiven as I read about the cross and of Jesus suffering there because He loved me and gave Himself to die in my place.

Within a few weeks of becoming a Christian, I was encouraged to speak at Speaker’s Corner in London and a year or so later I began preaching in my hometown of Worcester. My local church sent me to work with a church plant in Ireland but after a summer of outreach at a number of festivals I became chronically fatigued and spent several years battling with M.E. I retrained as an accountant and became an associate worker in 2001 with OAM. I then joined the staff in 2016.

When I can, I love to go skiing. I also enjoy sailing, cycling, hiking and generally enjoying the outdoors. I ride a 1990 Honda VFR motorcycle and in 2022 rode from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

I am married to Anni and have two children both currently at university.

I attended Cardiff University in 2000 to study a BSc in Optometry. While there, I also got involved in volunteering with an evangelist from The Open-Air Mission. Since graduating, I have spent nearly 20 years working in optometry, first in Hertfordshire, then returning back to South Wales. Alongside my work in optics has been increasing involvement in open-air evangelism, becoming an associate worker with OAM. It is a great joy and a privilege to care for patients and their eyes – but how much more of a responsibility to seek to care for their souls? Indeed, for myself, profound spiritual questions have been answered by the life-transforming Person of Jesus Christ, and it would seem selfish not to share this good news with others! During the pandemic, situations changed, and enabled me to greatly increase my work with OAM, coming to work for them formally as a staff evangelist, engaging in the work 3-4 days per week, whilst still maintaining one day a week in the world of optometry. It’s not the only new change in my life – after 16 years of marriage to Natasha, we were blessed with an active and inquisitive baby boy who keeps us constantly on our toes!

Now based in the South Wales Valleys, there is opportunity to reach out with the message of Jesus Christ to surrounding towns and cities, as well as enjoying village life with our church family nearby.

I live in Derbyshire with my wife Chloe and our son Joel and have been in Christian ministry for seven years. Prior to this I used to work in retail, but after becoming a Christian at the age of 20 the Lord put the desire in my heart to preach his gospel full-time. I studied in preparation for this doing 2 years at Bible college before joining another mission organisation and doing gospel work in Devon and Cornwall. After this we moved back to Derbyshire, where I now work with The Open-Air Mission. My local open-air work is mainly in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. My regular open-airs are in Derby, Sheffield, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Rotherham and Doncaster. In my spare time I enjoy reading, going to the gym and getting my money’s worth from my National Trust membership.

I became a Christian at university at the age of 19, having been brought up in a non-religious home in Cumbria. In my early twenties I moved to London to start work for an economics journal, having chosen to study economics as my degree subject. I worked full-time in this capacity for almost nine years before cutting down my hours to join OAM. As someone who never went to church or learned about the Bible as a child, I have gradually become more and more aware that those of us who call ourselves Christians need to give people the opportunity to hear about who Jesus is, how He forgives us of our sins and gives us new life. When I am out on the streets and see the multitudes of people passing by, knowing that many of them have never heard a detailed explanation of the most important message in the world, I am reminded of Romans 10:14, which says, ‘How shall they hear without a preacher?’ During my time sharing the good news with people and giving away Christian literature I have heard many people tell me that they have never heard this message before, and a number have thanked me for telling them about Jesus and have come to church as a result of my interactions with them. I have been based in Tottenham, North London, since 2020 and attend a local church – Grace Baptist Chapel, Tottenham. In my spare time I enjoy running and cycling.

Historically, people have been sent from the UK to Australia (often against their will!), but I decided to reverse that pattern. In 2019, my family and I moved from the warm weather of Brisbane to the ‘sunny’ United Kingdom. Our purpose in coming to the UK is simple – we love the people of this land, so we want all to know the good news of Jesus.

Since 2004, I’ve been active in Christian ministry, both as an evangelist and Baptist pastor. At present, I reside in Southampton with my wife Louise and three children. In our spare time, we enjoy spending time together as a family and exploring the surrounding areas. If I have the time, I also enjoy watching the NBA!

My ‘patch’ with OAM is rather broad, with outreach locations in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, West Sussex, and East Sussex. I hope in all our locations, we can bring the message of God’s love to all people.