Today, 1st July, I begin my formal training to become an accredited preacher in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, but it has been some 46 years in taking this step. So why now?
When my dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was ordained in Clough Presbyterian Church, near Ballymena in 1963, I sat in my Sunday pew beside retired Presbyterian missionary Nancy Alexander, affectionately known to me as Miss Nancy.
It was her chats about her work in Africa which inspired many a primary school composition When I grow up, I want to be … For me, it was a Presbyterian minister like dad. He was not just my dad; he was my hero.
That passion increased in January 1972 when I became a born again Christian, aged 12. I was totally convinced God was calling me to become a preacher.
However, as I advanced through my teens in the 1970s, life as a preacher’s kid growing up in the north east Ulster Bible Belt became increasingly challenging. I soon learned about the consequences of being made an example off simply for being the minister’s son.
In my early teens, an elder punched me in the face during a Sunday school class reducing me to tears in front of my peers. I was selected for punishment because I was the preacher’s kid.
In my late teens, I was kicked in the back by a thug in a church hall. He just targeted me for being a preacher’s kid, leaving me on life-long medication.
But it was a chilling cardboard poster containing foul language about dad which was pinned on the Presbyterian Manse front door while my parents were at a family wedding in Holland at Christmas 1977 which made me turn my back on preaching.
Months away from sitting my A levels the following year, when asked what I wanted to be, I always replied with a negative -“well, I certainly don’t want to be a preacher after the way my dad is being treated!”
I had turned my back on preaching, not on God. But what was I to do after A levels? There was one person in that Bible Belt who was really critical of me at every opportunity.
One evening, going to a function in a church hall, out came this person. They were so friendly, but it was all a front. But why? I was told that someone called ‘a journalist’ had wanted to do an interview with dad about life as a rural Presbyterian minister.
My persecutor had heard about the interview and was afraid my dad would tell the media about the way I was treated as a preacher’s kid. Dad would never do this, but it was clear my persecutor was afraid of the media.
I made a simple deduction - if a journalist is what my persecutors are afraid off, then a journalist I will become. Put bluntly, I stumbled into journalism by accident. This was not a career I had imagined since my primary school days.
For me, journalism was a welcome port in the storm of life. In that 1970s and 1980s Bible Belt, image was important to many folk - fancy car, expensive farm machinery, lovely fashion.
There was a false perception the preacher’s kid knew people’s dirty wee secrets; that I knew which cupboards the skeletons were in. So the thought of the preacher’s kid going into the media was akin to me being given the keys to those cupboards!
Just as the New Testament book of Ephesians talked about spiritually wearing the armour of God, so journalism was a practical suit of protection against my persecutors in that north east Ulster Bible Belt.
As the decades passed, my dad and I would have regular conversations about me returning to become a preacher. Oh yes, I would give my testimony about how I’d become a born again Christian, or give talks about working as a Christian in the media, but become a preacher of the Gospel like dad - that was a bridge too far.
While my late dad was known as an UUP MLA, Mayor of Ballymena, college lecturer and Loyal Order Chaplain, preaching the Gospel was always his first love.
When dad would talk about me taking up the challenge of preaching, I would remind him about the physical and verbal abuse I had endured in that Seventies Bible Belt.
2018 was to become a crucial year. More to keep dad happy, in March I completed the Presbyterian Church’s Handling The Word course; dad paid my fees! But I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to me about preaching the Gospel.
Dad died that September. In the weeks before his passing, he told me he had been praying for me to seriously consider preaching. For almost six years since then, I have struggled spiritually about taking that step back from journalism and becoming a preacher.
I kept reliving that kicking in the church hall in 1976. When its the wee small hours and those spasms of pain are shooting across your lower back and you are struggling to get the bedside lamp on to take your pain relief, thoughts of being a preacher are the last things in your mind.
But for the last 46 years, I’ve hidden too long under the cloak of journalism. I had to take that step. It’s not just a promise to my late dad. It is a new calling from God.
My bedside reading of Jennifer O’Leary’s excellent work, The Padre: The True Story of the Irish Priest who armed the IRA with Gaddafi’s Money has been replaced with Saving Eutychus: How to preach God’s word and keep people awake.
To misquote Dusty Springfield’s 1969 hit, the Son of a Preacher Man will, God Willing, become a Preacher Man himself!
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. |
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