1. Simon, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself?

John Wimber used to say "I'm just a fat man trying to get to heaven" - the older and fatter I get the more I think that description fits me well.

I am joyfully married to the long-suffering Tiffany for 22 years, and we have two fine young, testosterone-filled sons.  I dropped out of school at 16 and tried the Army, the unemployment queue, butchery, sales, and administration before meeting God through the ministry of an Anglican Church, and having my life turned upside down and right-side up.  I never got over the wonder of it and knew immediately I wanted to live to give away what and who I'd found.

After a couple of years working in evangelism and church planting, I went to seminary and trained for the Anglican ministry, earning a couple of degrees on the way. I worked first as a priest in the inner city,  then 7 years as a university chaplain at Oxford, and for the last 6 years have been teaching pastor at St Aldates, a role which includes running expository Bible series, writing, travelling/conference speaking, and most recently appointed as the Dean of Studies for the Oxford Centre for Church Growth, which is about to welcome its first students called to plant churches on European mainland.  My hobbies include obsessive vintage fountain pen collecting, photography, and reading military history.  If I wasn't called to serve the Lord as a minister in the church, I'd like to have been a saddler or a watchmaker.

2. What are some events and/or people who have played a role in shaping your understanding of the person and the work on the Holy Spirit?

I became a Christian in 1985 in a church going through a Charismatic renewal.  The overwhelming impression that God was real, that he was here at Church was mind-blowing to one whose religious experience up to that point had been deus-ex machina.  I have never forgotten the awareness of the immediacy of God, of his felt presence and manifest power and could never be content with less than this ever again.  Within months of coming to faith, I attended a major conference in 1986 called Acts86, held in Birmingham for 10,000 christians where Wimber was introduced to the wider church in England. I was thrilled and not a little terrified by seeing the Spirit of God move upon large crowds of people, who fell or laughed or wept and some even cried aloud under the anointing of God. Several people have modelled to me life in the Spirit: my humble father, not a charismatic but who walks in the Spirit and exhibits the fruits of the Spirit like few others I've known.

My mentor as a young minister David MacInnes, who constantly insisted on the need in pastoral ministry to rely on the guiding of the Spirit rather than simply one's natural gifts or learning. I have spent quite a bit of time over the last few years ministering alongside David and Mary Pytches and, despite their advance in years (David is now 80) their passion, enthusiasm and pursuit for ministry in the power of the Spirit is remarkable and infectious.  Recently at the National Vineyard leaders conference in Trent Nottingham, after Mary spoke passionately on the need to receive More of the Spirit, hundreds of weary pastors came for ministry, and I watched from the stage, laughing aloud for joy, as Bishop David Pytches made the sign of the cross on people's foreheads and they fell overwhelmed by God's love and power.  Beautiful.


3. Do you have any words of encouragement and/or exhortation for the Vineyard movement in regards to the ministry of the Holy Spirit?

Well, I love the Vineyard movement and my own spiritual journey has been nourished so much by exposure to Vineyard churches, and leaders.  I have been privileged to befriend and share at many Vineyards, and the DNA I have seen of:  Ministry in the power of the Spirit,  Intimate worship in the Spirit,  true fellowship in the Spirit and mercy ministries in the Spirit of compassion is a rare and beautiful set of values.  That is the Vineyard I love.  But I am aware there are competing ecclesiological methodologies and spiritualities from Postmodern Emergent to Pentecostal Apostolic Alignment to Pragmatic Seeker Service to...

I would encourage Vineyard to stay true to her core values -  to "look to the rock from which you were hewn and the quarry from which you were cut" Isaiah 51:1.  God said to Moses "what is in your hand"?  And that staff was what God chose to use to display his power.

I would ask the Vineyard, What has God put in your hand?  Dont look and compare and try and imitate what is in others' hands - what's in yours?  It is that which the Lord will use.

Vineyard was birthed almost 5 decades ago - you cannot stand still and you musn't spend your time nostalgically looking longingly back; but the values that birthed you, the gifts the Spirit of God gave you then, are as good and relevant and necessary today as they were all those years ago in Orange County.


4. Are you working on any new books?

I have just finished a book, out this summer, with worship leader/song writer Neil Bennets called "Now To Him."  This is a study on worship, in particular the need to worship the enthroned Jesus and not worship worship - an increasing concern I & Neil have.  At my church in Oxford, I am preaching through Romans systematically, projected over 1.5 years, some 75 sermons - and hope to publish that material in some sort of "devotional" format.  I'm not really a writer, I'm a pastor/teacher, whose taught materials have at times been published in book form.  I find writing very difficult, and being edited even worse.

Please CLICK HERE for information about the upcoming Holy Spirit Conference with Simon Ponsonby.

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