A Conversation with Peter Blundell | Trinity Talks Podcast

Having already a nice conversation off screen here with Peter Blundell who is joining us

because going from one thing to the next today here at Trinity, you come your dance card

is full when you come to this church, isn't it?

There's no relaxing.

No.

She didn't say, did you want a break?

Did you want a cup of coffee?

I actually have a cup of coffee for myself here, but I didn't bring one for you.

So anyway.

Sort yourself out first.

Go girl.

That's right.

I know.

So yeah, we have Peter here and we are going to have a lovely conversation.

He's laughing away.

And we're just going to get to know you a little bit better.

We always say when we have newcomers come, we'd love to get to know you.

Let us know who you are.

And then we have a guest preacher come in and we didn't want to give you the boot out

the door.

Be nice to get to know you a little bit better.

So thank you for taking your time here.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

That is always good to be here.

Yeah.

So you probably noticed that our summer sermon series is called Summer Playlist.

As Rob was saying, Rob, our senior minister here, was saying that we're going to sing

our way through the book of Psalms.

It's the Bible song book.

And we talked last week about the importance of singing and the power of singing.

And I was wondering when it comes to music, what type of songs do you like to listen to,

maybe sing to outside of the church?

Outside of the church, but only in the shower.

Okay.

There are musical people that are on musical people.

I'm a musical.

A musical.

Yeah.

I'm a musical.

I like the nightingales that are vultures.

All right.

When I sing, they literally cover their ears with the wings and then they drop out of the

sky.

So you won't want me singing.

Thank you for a great band this morning.

That's right.

Absolutely brilliant.

Lovely.

I like, I'm a Victorian.

I like musicals.

So that's my go-to.

Awesome.

Christian songs.

And I do like them.

I like some of the oldies.

I mean, a good hymn gets you going.

Yeah.

I don't know whether this is new or not, but I like the newsboys and that sort of thing.

Right.

I like any song with Jesus.

And that sounds terribly simple, but it really is.

All right.

But it's honest.

It's true.

And we'll take honest.

We prefer honest here.

And simple is always welcome as well.

I need it.

Yes, exactly.

All right.

So for those of you out there who have never met Peter, maybe you're even watching online.

Maybe you weren't here last year when he joined us.

And I know you've been here a few years before that as well.

Can you let us know a little bit about yourself?

I can.

Yes.

All right.

I think that was your third mistake.

I mean, apart from following Jesus, the most important thing you need to know is my wife

who said yes.

And I do.

In fact, she said, I guess.

And then I made her say yes.

She's with me now.

And so my wife is amazing and loves Jesus.

And she's been my partner for all these years.

Yes.

Can I ask how many years?

We'll be 25 this year.

Okay, great.

Next month.

All right.

Well done.

Hello, daughters.

25th, silver.

We met actually in Africa.

I was out there as a missionary.

Have you heard of the Alpha course?

Yes, we're actually going to get to that in my next question.

So I was the Alpha chaplain of Sub-Sahara and she was working for World Vision.

I know you've got links with that here.

And so we met in Zambia and she dragged me to this wonderful country.

So we have two daughters who one has just graduated this year out of McMaster and started

her job at the beginning of this month, very grown up.

Wow.

She's a radiographer at McMaster's Children or Hamilton Children.

Love that.

And daughter number two is she's at UNLV, University of Las Vegas.

Really?

Yeah, doing professional gambling.

No, she's not.

She's not.

That was a joke.

She's doing engineering.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

Okay, yes.

Yes, I heard that.

She's going to kill me for that.

She's going to kill me for that.

She's on a placement with a wonderful Christian theater group at the moment called Sight and

Sound.

They have a place in Branson, Missouri where she is and one in Pennsylvania.

Wow.

So, yeah.

And how often do you get to see your daughters?

Not enough.

Not enough.

I'm a very bad empty nester, a really bad empty nester.

Yes, well, your love for your family shines through.

So thank you.

But you did mention the Alpha course.

And we actually just wrapped up doing an Alpha course here in mid-June.

Okay.

It's something that we do try to do at least once a year here at Trinity.

And we see great success.

And there's a lot of excitement that comes out of it from our volunteers, the facilitators,

and then of course the participants as well.

So what was your role in Alpha?

Because I think there was some even foundational stuff going on there.

A little bit foundational, but I don't get carried away with this.

You might know Alpha started in 1977 at Howard Trinity Brompton in London.

Charles Mannum, he left in 1981.

And John Irvin, who is not very well at the moment, so we're keeping him in our prayers.

He took over the Alpha course.

And my brother, my older brother, became a follower of Jesus, became like me too, and

did the 1982 Alpha course that John was leading.

I'd never heard of it.

It was very small.

And he went away for the Holy Spirit talks.

The first time they were done, John had written them, came back a different person.

And I was in the pub with him after the service.

We go to the pub after every service there.

And I kept looking, are you really my brother?

Because this is amazing.

I'd never, honestly never seen this transformation.

And so I said, what's happened?

And then he confessed he'd been doing this course.

And I went back to the church and I found John Irvin.

It was the beginning of 1982.

And I said, I don't know about Alpha, but I mean, if it changes my brother like that.

And he said, well, you're leading the next course with me.

And so that was where I started.

And when John was going to plant a church in 1985, he handed Alpha over to me to run

it in 84, 85 at HDB, which was a huge honor.

I'm very young.

I'm not much older now, but I was very young then.

And took it and expanded the course to 11 weeks and introduced the supper actually by

mistake.

It was a complete mistake.

But that's another story.

So you introduced the supper?

By mistake.

By mistake.

Yeah.

And it stuck.

Well, then it faded a bit and then they brought it back much more professionally.

But we did it for a couple of years and that was a lot of fun.

Well, that's fascinating.

Yeah.

That's really great.

So you also mentioned you were in Africa.

So you have some background with missionary work, church planting work.

This is where you met your wife.

But what was that all about?

How did you get involved in that type of work?

The church planting is because I went on that first church plant.

So John, who deserves a medal, John Irvin, he's the most amazing man of God, discipled

me for 15 years.

I mean, that's not a medal.

That's a medal with a bar and a knighthood.

And so when he went on that church plant to St. Barnabas, 100 of us went with him.

It's the first church plant the Church of England had done in over 100 years.

And HGB were brilliant in supporting us, obviously.

But it was great.

It was fantastic.

So we got into church planting.

We planted a couple of churches from St. Barnabas as well.

Always been involved with that.

But I was then invited to be by the Bishop of Harare, Zimbabwe.

I'd done an alpha conference down there and he invited me to be his alpha chaplain.

And that didn't work out because of some issues.

We won't go into that.

But it turned out the role transformed.

And as God does, he takes a bad situation and just does what he does.

And I suddenly became the alpha chaplain to Sub-Sahara.

So instead of being one diocese in Zimbabwe, I became the guy.

And if you look at a map, Sub-Sahara is very small, it's very big.

It's big.

And I wasn't paid.

So somehow that's what we did.

And he was amazing.

And I traveled everywhere and got alpha going in lots of different countries.

Not as many as one would have liked.

And there were always wonderful people who did all the legwork and hard work.

And I just talked.

Wow.

Well, then I met Margaret.

Right.

So we got married.

Look at what can happen.

One experience, right?

Just snowballs into something you didn't dream on your own.

A man who's got no idea.

Well, I always joke, if God can talk through a donkey, I'm in.

That's right.

The bar isn't that high, is it?

Really can do anything.

Let's talk about something that you mentioned to me in an email.

We had a little back and forth there.

And you mentioned that I think these are your own words.

So I wrote them down that you are full on for the Holy Spirit and that's very passionate

about the Gospels.

So what's this all about?

Well, I think it's normal, but I find that people don't feel that same way.

The Gospels is just amazing.

I mean, it's not good news for a reason.

It's great news.

It transforms.

Once you taste it, wow.

But the Gospel, I learned that when I try and explain the Gospel to someone, all I do

is beat them up.

I mean, I'm really good at condemning people.

I get an A grade in condemnation because I want to tell them the bad news because then

they're going to say, yeah, I need some help.

I need to save you.

And all they go is, hey, how dare you touch me, you miserable git.

And I go like, dang.

So I mean, anyone is saying you're going like, why is he so slow?

That's who he uses.

OK, so it took me longer than it should have done to realize the Holy Spirit does the miracle

stuff and we're not supposed to.

We're supposed to be full of the Spirit, but he does that stuff.

So John 16, 8, the Holy Spirit convicts, which means bring to someone in victory the unbeliever.

It's the only verse I know of which directly deals with the unbeliever when it comes to

salvation.

I know in regards to sin, the position of wrong relationship with God, righteousness,

the position of right relationship with the Father and judgment.

Whichever position you are in, you're going to be judged in.

I don't want you in sin.

I want to depopulate, help populate heaven.

But he does that work.

I don't have to beat you up.

He does it.

So then I went like, well, what's my job?

What's our job if he does that?

And then he said, well, it's simple.

I'm the first witness.

You're the second witness.

The last words of Jesus Acts chapter one, verse eight, you'll be my witnesses.

I'm going to give you the power of the Spirit, not to lord it over, but to be really powerful

witnesses.

And people are going to look at you because the only Jesus they're ever going to see is

you and they're going to say either, well, if that's what Jesus is, I want nothing to

do with him.

Or if that's what Jesus is, I want some of that.

I want that.

I mean, I know they've got a mess, but oh my goodness.

And as Jesus said in John, the last supper, the new commandment, it supersedes the whole

one.

You know, if you love yourself, well, you know, if I don't happen to love myself very

much, I have to love you very much.

The bar is low, isn't it?

But love one another in the same way that I've loved you.

Well that's, he's going to, he's just washed their feet.

He's going to die for them.

I mean, that's the bar up here.

And then he said, but if you do that, everyone's going to go like, oh my goodness, they're

disciples of Jesus.

There's only people who are disciples of Jesus do that.

The church, the church has got a weakness in the world's eyes.

We've got lots of weaknesses, but one of them is we let anyone in.

And we do look at, did you see the congregation this morning?

We let anyone in, including me.

I mean, they look at that and they go like, we wouldn't do that.

We've got a club.

We want a membership fee.

We want to have that.

We let anyone in.

Well, that's odd.

But then when they become family, the crazy bit the world doesn't understand is we love

each other.

And they go like, no, you don't get to choose your family.

We don't, we have problems with family and these guys love each other and they sacrifice

and they care and they're there.

And that's only the work of the spirit.

You can't do that in your own strength.

I'm a selfish kid.

I want to do my own thing.

So it's all that you see.

You can't do anything of eternal value unless you do it in the power of the spirit.

And so it's all Holy Spirit, the fruit of the spirit, the maturity to hit the microphone,

to tell people the gospel and then to live it out as Jesus followers.

And so people say that's Jesus.

Fill me in.

Thank you.

I love the passion coming through.

We just finished our sermon series on the fruit of the spirit.

We are all full of the spirit and fruit, actually, if you had been here, we had done some fun

fruit things, but I just thank you for your passion and thank you for the joy that actually

just comes through you.

We see it.

It's natural.

And we can just tell that the spirit is living through you.

Like I said, we were also going through the Psalms this summer.

Now is there a specific Psalm that you tend to go to or one that has spoken to you maybe

in the past or you gave me a warning of this one because I just said someone asked me this

question.

I feel not Psalm 91.

Yeah, not some.

No, I like the Psalm.

It was my old school Psalm, but it annoyed me at school.

Oh, right.

You meant for the reason.

And I wasn't a believer at school.

So I just realized this is nonsense.

Yeah.

That's why I had to tackle it, you know, and deal with it.

But I think that's sometimes how God, right?

That's how he gets to us.

It's like it's living and active and it gets in here.

Psalm 84 is probably my go to Psalm.

And for that reason, I probably never preached it because I don't want to ruin it by going

too deep into it.

But it is.

It's just that Psalm.

I mean, better is one day in your courts.

Those who go through the valley of backing, it's the valley of weeping.

It's a desert.

But if you walk it, he makes it a place of springs.

He makes, you know, you go, oh my goodness, you are with me.

It's just a place of great comfort.

It's a song of a sense.

So they are going to Jerusalem to worship.

So it's often I use it to prepare my heart for going to worship, but also in difficult

times.

And then it finishes the second last verse.

No good thing does he withhold from those who walk his blameless up.

Actually, it's righteous, which is a position.

It's not that I have to be that good.

Just no Jesus.

Yeah.

But no good thing does he withhold.

What a wonderful promise.

It also implies that he's going to keep back the bad stuff.

Yeah.

So lots of good reasons.

But that's yeah, that's probably my favorite.

Thank you.

I love that.

Maybe we'll even link it below when we put it on YouTube.

Have a read of it.

It's fantastic.

Well, thank you.

So what I mean, other than I know the highlight of your summer has probably been coming to

Trinity, but it's downhill from here.

It's downhill from here.

But what else do you have planned with the family perhaps or maybe any other adventures

this summer for you?

I'm not much in lots of respects.

I'm going to be helping out lots of other churches in the summer.

I find that some pastors, particularly pastors of when they're the sole pastors in a church,

it's half of them to get a vacation.

And so often get a phone call saying, you know, can you cover?

And I think that's a lovely gift I can give to a pastor to say, if you can trust me with

your pulpit, I'll preach the word.

You have a good vacation.

But what I try and say to them is I'd rather you didn't just have one week off and I come

in and do that week.

If I can, can I come the week before so you're not working before you go on vacation and

then, you know, stop.

And if I came the week after, then you don't have to write a sermon on vacation and not

trying to find a job.

But it's more it helps.

And I hope that's what you're doing with Rob.

I'm sure he's got lots of people here.

Love your pastor.

Take care of them.

Take care of them.

They really do love Jesus and they're trying their best.

Well thank you.

You will certainly be welcome back anytime because it's always a pleasure to have you

here.

And you also probably want to go grab a cup of coffee before we get to service number

two.

So I'm just going to say maybe decaf for you over there.

All right.

So I'm just going to thank you once again.

Thank you.

And we will see everyone in just a little while.