Past Testimony Page
Testimony of Ian Hutchins (Assistant Pastor)
Born on the 26th April 1959 in Chadsmoor in the Cannock area. The son of a coal minor was raised a Methodist, but was not a regular churchgoer. I met my wife Marie while at school and in 1976 we were married, we have three children Kerry, Richard and Daniel.
In 1984 my wife said she was going to find a church to take our children to Sunday school. A friend of ours told her mother Mary and she came and asked us to attend her church Calvary Baptist. Pastor Ferrall Kearney was the pastor but he was in the USA on furlough and pastor Tom Gritts was looking after the ministry for twelve months and that's how we came to know the Gritts.
It was a mid week bible study in October when Pastor Ferrall Kearney led me to the Lord. It was about twelve months later when I began to backslide and took up darts, began drinking and my marriage suffered because of it. After 8 years of not serving the Lord as I should have been doing my wife said it was either the darts or the family. My wife had been praying for a Christian home and the only way her prayer could be answered at that time was if I was no longer in the home so we parted. After three months of being convicted by the Holy Spirit and prayers of Christians I finally came to my senses and returned home, gave up the darts and got back into church, but sadly it was another three years before I gave up drinking.
At this time the Cannock church had amalgamated with Temple Baptist Church and under the ministry of pastor Tom Gritts I began to grow. In November 1997 Pastor David Hartwell started a church at Hilltop in the Cannock area so our family went to help in the work back at Cannock. In 1999 pastor Hartwell was taken ill and had to return back to the USA. I was asked by the members of Hilltop to take the interim pastorship, which I agreed to do until someone else could take the work as I had not surrendered to preach at this time nor had I been ordained.
In September 2000 a pastor took the work at Hilltop so I stepped down and it was in the November of that year that me, my wife and our youngest son Daniel went to visit the Hartwell's in the USA. On the second Sunday we were there and David Hartwell preached. It was during his message that the Holy Spirit was convicting me to surrender to preach and at the end of the service I should have gone up during the invitation and surrendered but I thought it was just emotion. It had been a while since I had heard David preach. As we were standing around talking at the end of the service David's dad came straight to me and the first words he said were, "You look like a preacher." It was then that I knew God wanted me to preach. On returning home we joined Temple Baptist Church for the second time, I left my job and started Bible College at Nuneaton two nights a week and in 2001 Temple Baptist called me as their associate pastor and that's were I am serving the lord at this present time working my way through college and one day the Lord will show me as to where He would have me start or take a work for His glory.
Ian Hutchings Associate Pastor Temple Baptist Church
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