Bible classes at home were further opportunities to learn. In 1980, during a children's mission, I saw clearly the difference between knowing about Jesus and owning him as Lord and Saviour. All that my parents and others had taught me pointed to this, and at last I understood it for myself. From that time on I knew I would enter full-time Christian work, though for a while it was with rather romantic ideas of what this might entail. Soon after, we moved to Wolverhampton, where my father had been appointed Vicar of St Luke's. Here, in time, I was able to get work with a jobbing printer, and so was able to develop a hobby that began at school. When University and I parted company it was to the printing industry I looked for employment while trying to decide what I was going to do in life. Work was not so easy to come by in the West Midlands, and so I took a job in Reading, where my uncle, the Rev Allan Bowhill, was Minister at St Mary's, Castle Street.

The congregation had a youth group (with ages ranging from about twelve to about seventy!) which met to study the Bible and to play table tennis. As we were leaving the chapel one dark, wet, foggy night, a girl appeared. She was a young Christian from New Zealand who was looking for a church in Reading, and who had been invited along by someone from the group, but had been delayed. Some two years later I saw her again and discovered that she had been back to New Zealand in between. Her name is Katrina, and we married the following September, in 1992. We have since been blessed with four daughters.

This was the time that the Church of England took its historic and unprecedented decision to part with catholic orthodoxy and accept women as suitable candidates for the ordained ministry. The historic Protestant and Reformed faith of Scripture, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer clearly stood for nothing. Our minister at that time, Dr David Samuel, announced his inability to accept this new ruling, and returned his licence to the Bishop - in effect resigning his living. The congregation was virtually unanimous in its support for him and voted to leave the structures of the Church of England, asking him to continue as minister, which he did.

In 1994 the Church of England (Continuing) was brought into being, and Dr Samuel was appointed as the first Presiding Bishop.

In 1996 three events coincided, in the providence of God. I had been employed in the printing industry for a decade, Dr Samuel announced his retirement, and I knew finally that I was called to the ordained ministry. I was accepted as a candidate for training by the Continuing Church, and was sent to the London Theological Seminary, where I spent two happy years being instructed in the history and doctrine of the Christian faith. When the course ended I was ordained as Assistant Curate at Castle Street, and two years later was appointed as Minister. In May 2000 I was invited to join the Council of the Protestant Truth Society, and have been glad to serve in this capacity since. The need for the PTS is undiminished.

Edward Malcolm