ST PANCRAS CHURCH
Capt. Phil Baul (retired) Church Warden & Pioneer Minister to Chaucer Way
So when did the Lord finally grab my attention? My wife Chris and three lady friends had been praying for their husbands for several years. It was in May 1988 that a group of churches in High Wycombe were running a mission in the town. Derek Prince was the speaker and I was invited by Colin, one of the four husbands, to join him at the evening event. Derek Prince said nothing I had not heard before but somehow this time it all made sense and as he invited people, who had done Christian things all their lives but not committed their lives to Jesus to stand, I stood.
Had I realised then what God had in mind for me you probably would not have seen me for dust, but our God knows how to handle people so they reach their full potential. From that moment of commitment I got more involved with our sending church, St. Birinus in High Wycombe (now Christ the Servant King). I put myself forward to become a lay reader and was licensed in 1998. From there Chris and I felt God encouraging us to look at full time ministry and, after two vocational weekends, we believed God was pushing us towards Church Army, for which we were selected. We started at Wilson Carlile Centre in Sheffield in 2001, which involved selling our family home and moving north. We completed the very challenging and exciting training in 2004 and were released onto the unsuspecting world that July, heading down south and joining the Benefice of Chenies near Amersham in Bucks. After four years, with our contract coming to an end, we started looking for another position and were selected for a post in Plymouth working across part of the Plymouth Deanery and a local estate, Chaucer Way.
Although now 'retired' I am became a Church Warden in 2022 and both Chris and I still work on the Chaucer Way estate using a blue bus (Route 3:16) to create a hub for people to gather. We are also involved with local schools in giving presentations at various clubs.
It has been a very interesting ride with God for which we are very grateful. He did not tell us what He had in mind for our lives, because we might have missed out on the adventure we are having!