I love Church History, and am encouraged by the great Christian men our Lord has raised up for the Gospel, one of these men is the man nicknamed the ‘Prince of preachers’ Charles Spurgeon.

I began my early years as a Christian in Pentecostal Churches. Unfortunately they never taught us about Charles Spurgeon. However I always knew of him, but I never knew what he did or what his significance was. I intended to do my own research into Spurgeon, however I kept it on the shelf, and it was one of those things that you say: ‘I’ll get around to it’ and then never do! However this year was different. It started with me just randomly coming across a brilliant documentary on Spurgeon called: ‘Charles Spurgeon the People’s Preacher’, produced by Peter Morden¹.

The documentary is a great starter, for someone wanting to learn about Spurgeon’s life and ministry from scratch.

It’s very easy to sit back and enjoy the memories of great Christian leaders like Spurgeon. But living in Cambridge and working in a Church here, in an area that Spurgeon impacted so much made learning about Spurgeon so much more real. I felt compelled out of duty, having moved here last year with my wife. I wanted to know more as I felt that we’re a big part of Christian history. For example Midsummer’s Common is a green that Charles Spurgeon walked across in 1851 at the beginning of his ministry.

I was reading ‘Travel with Spurgeon’ that was published by Day One.² They have their brilliant ‘Travel with’ series which documents all the places a Christian leader took his ministry. Not only that, but they give you great historical insight into these places, without compromising the narrative of the story.

So I read the page in the book where it talks about where Spurgeon first pastored a Church. It was a small thatched cottage Church in Waterbeach, Cambridge. It’s known as Waterbeach Baptist Church. This Church was about a half hour cycle away from us. The Travel with Spurgeon book even gives you phone numbers of the Churches and places Spurgeon went.

I told my wife we must go and see this Church. So I pick up the phone and rang the Church and got through to Angela (the Pastor’s wife). She was very kind and wanted to help. However they weren’t able to open the Church at that time (it was short notice). But me and my wife went anyway to have a look from the outside instead. We had a lovely time visiting Waterbeach and reminiscing about Spurgeon and what the Lord Jesus had done through him for the Gospel in this town.

Angela had mentioned that a man by the name of Christian George was coming to their Church to speak about Spurgeon the following week. I hadn’t heard of Christian, but only the previous week I had watched the documentary ‘Through the Eyes of Spurgeon’, And Christian George was in fact starring in the documentary providing helpful insight into Spurgeon’s life. Later I found out that Christian nearly died in 2013 from a ruptured appendix. But he carried on researching and writing Church History.

Not only that but for many years George has been one of the leading Historians on Spurgeon. He has not only contributed to documentaries on Spurgeon, but he has written helpful books on him and has helped in incredible ways to translate some of Spurgeon’s lost sermons.

Christian serves as the Assistant Professor of historical Theology and curator of the Spurgeon library. He has also written many books such as: Sacred Travels (InterVarsity Press), Sex, Sushi, & Salvation (Moody Publishers) and Godology (Moody Publishers). He is editor of the twelve-volume series The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon: His Earliest Outlines and Sermons between 1851-1854 (B&H Academic, 2017-2024).

And more up to date he has contributed chapters to The Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia (Yale University Press, 2017), A Legacy of Preaching (Zondervan, 2018), The SBC and the 21st Century (B&H Academic, 2016), and Portraits of a Pastor (Moody, 2017). Christian also provided articles for the Global Sermon Editing Project (Yale University), Oxford University’s Journal of Theological Studies, Society for the Study of Theology, Theology in Scotland, Perichoresis Journal of Theology, Modern Reformation, Conversations, Credo Magazine, and Preaching, among many others.

He’s also made appearances on Fox News, Glenn Beck’s “The Vault,” and “The Eric Metaxas Show.” He has had his interviews headlining on Moody Broadcasting Radio, “Haven Today with Charles Morris,” “Janet Mefferd Today,” and many other well known nationally syndicated radio shows.

Wow what a small world! So when I realised that he coming to speak I thought we must be there to hear this talk! Angela sent me a poster for the Spurgeon event. I managed to share it with my Church community group the day before. I didn’t think anyone would bother to come to the talk, especially having seen the poster just one day before the talk would take place. But low and behold a man from my Church who is studying Church History happened to see the event poster and came along at short notice. It was a man by the name Jake from my Church.

I managed to meet Jake before the service, he greeted me with a big smile and was exited at being there for the talk. This South African was friendly and I could tell that he was someone who wanted to learn. It was a blessing to meet Jake, and my prayer is more people from my Church will want to come along to events like this one.

The day of the Christian George talk, I was working in my Church office. Angela had emailed me and advised that they had no one to film the talk! Unfortunately their planned video man, wasn’t able to make it for some reason. Without hesitation I said I’ll do it! I’ve had a lot of experience in photography, not so much filming.

However I had done some filming and wasn’t alien at all to it. I had a tripod that would be helpful in keeping a still video, it couldn’t be harder than filming my nieces and nephews running around now could it!?

So on the night I made the quickest fried egg sandwiches I’ve ever made for me and my wife! Then before not too long there was me and my wife struggling down the river cam path on our bikes with all this Camera gear! I didn’t care though I was on a mission. I didn’t know what it was, but something told me this was going to be a special evening. We left the house late as I had to pop to Tesco to grab a battery for the microphone. It cost £4.95 for one battery!! PoundLand would put Tesco to shame on this! But that’s another story.

I admire my wife for being so helpful to me, she sacrificed going to bed late for this trip. She also sacrificed some of our quality dinner time. Rachel has been so support and encouraging to me in my Christian history endeavors. Whether it’s watching something with me, or going to an event. She’s always supportive and goes with the flow. She also loves History which helps. It’s nice to cycle with Rachel I feel like I could talk to her about anything. The time went quick for us cycling and Rachel somehow kept up with me.

We approached the dark bushy area on the left to turn into Waterbeach, passing the pub across the main road on our right. Then we carry on along a long narrow path, until we get to the train station car park. Then we turn right onto a steep short path that flows out onto the road just before the rail road tracks. We arrived into the beautiful village of Waterbeach. We carried on along the main round, then past St John The Evangelist Church on the left, and round a big right bend in the road and eventually came to the Church right in front of a Zebra crossing.

We locked our bikes against a random electrical pole next to the Church and walk into the Church through the wooden panned clean glass doors. In front of us was a small setup of blue cushioned chairs with wooden backs, about 6/7 rows of them. We were greeted by the Pastor Martin and his Wife Angela, who said ‘you’re the first to arrive’. They were both so accommodating and were helpful while I set up my camera pitch. Then Angela introduced Christian George to me.

I think Christian is the friendliest American we’ve met. He greeted me and my wife with a warm smile, my wife having caught up with me near the front of the stage. I asked Christian did he get into Spurgeon from his Dad ? He looked at me suprisingly and said ‘yes how did you know that!’. I’m no physic as only God is all knowing, but usually when someone like Christian is so passionate about Spurgeon they are usually encouraged by

someone. Christian’s Dad emphasized to Christian about the importance of remembering Church history, and being inspired for Christ through Spurgeon’s legacy.  We had a chat about the great Spurgeon documentaries we’d seen including ‘The People’s Preacher’ one. I didn’t think it was fair of me to take up too much of Christian’s time, as I’m sure he wanted to be focused just before his talk.

I love people and chatting to them but I was very conscious of setting up in time before Christian’s talk. So I focused on that. I was planning on filming from the back of the room, so to cause little distraction. However this was not possible, as I had to get close enough to see Christian’s projector slides. So I set up on the front row with Rachel and Christian sitting on my right.

I was panicking a bit as I hadn’t done a mic check! However I just managed to scramble one in 5 minutes before it started! I set up my tripod, and the mic with the transmitter in front of me just in front of the stage. Then I thought ‘oh crumbs!’ I haven’t brought a mic stand! Rachel kindly held the mic as I thought she could hold it during the presentation. If anyone’s done camera and mic work they will know you never put a cyclinder mic on a chair, table or floor. However I didn’t want to burden Rachel with having to hold the mic all the way through the talk. Also the mic would need to be closer to Christian on the stage.

Aha! I had a thought! Why not ask the Worship music leader if I could use a mic stand? After he had finished the music set, I pounced on him and asked him for a ‘long stand’, thankfully he didn’t keep me waiting hahaha 😀 sorry bad pun! Anyway…. He gave me a stand and just in time I thrusted the mic in it and placed it near the music stand that Christian had set up with his Laptop on. I made sure the mic was on! It was incredible. By God’s grace I had managed to set all that up within 15 minutes! Coming early in preparation terms is time-worthy. People don’t prepare to fail they fail to prepare as the saying goes. It worked out fine by God’s grace, so I could relax… a little anyway. There was two worship singers who sang their hearts out at the front. It was so encouraging to worship the Lord, and also to see people with their musical gifts offering the Lord their Worship.

I got to enjoy one of the most special talks I’ve heard. Christian spoke in a style that felt personal and down to earth. He was clear and passionate but not overbearing. He told a story with a ‘beginning, middle and end’ as my English teacher would observe of all good story tellers. I’m sure Spurgeon would have been proud of the talk Christian gave, and how it encouraged us all in the faith.

My heart was warmed listening to Christian speak about what our Lord Jesus Christ did in Waterbeach.

And how he used a 17 year old country boy from Essex to bring about revival in the crime ridden area of Waterbeach. I had to stay half focused on my camera, as it does this annoying thing where it stops filming after 29 minutes! Then I simply press record immediately so it records for another 29 minutes.

There’s so many things I admired about Christian George. He was authentic as who he was on that stage was who he is one on one. He was down to earth and friendly, and encouraging to me and Rachel. I love Labrador dogs. If you’ve ever been in a room where a lab dog scurries in to meet people, he’s wagging his tail looking all happy. You can tell the Lab is happy and is very enthusiastic to meet everyone, it’s infectious. You can’t help but be charmed by it, even if he licks your face! Ok Christian didn’t lick anyone’s face, but he was enthusiastic and encouraging to me and others. Christian’s someone I could spend hours with talking about Christian things. And I pray in the Lord’s providence we will do so at some point.

How many speakers do you know that have no care about engaging their audience? How many speakers have you seen that are less engaging than a giant wooden telephone beam on the street? I often heard it said that the greatest preachers when speaking to the audience make it feel like they are speaking to the one. At one of my previous Churches, there was a Pastor who spoke so much so quickly, my mind couldn’t take a moment to even pause to think. He cared more about overloading the audience with information, he didn’t care to engage us in a dialogue. Christian like Spurgeon built a connection with the audience as we felt like we got to know Christian. He didn’t make it about himself, rather he was humble and was having a conversation with us.

It was lovely to hear about the early life of Spurgeon, and Christian’s face lit up as he began to talk of him. He gave a well-rounded talk and touched on the key issues in Spurgeon’s life such as: Spurgeon’s conversion at a small Church in Colchester, early ministry at Waterbeach Baptist, the call to London to Park Street Chapel and Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, The tragedies of the Surrey Gardens Music Hall and the Down Grade Controversy, and his sermons amongst other things. The greatest talks or sermons I’ve heard are those where you don’t want the speaker to stop as you’re enjoying it so much. The 114 minutes Christian was speaking went by quickly ‘time flys’ when you’re having fun’ as the saying goes.

I knew everyone else was enjoying the talk and I imagine the greatest speakers can always understand how their audience is responding to them. According to research 93% of our communication is NOT our words. Its things like: voice tone, facial expression and body language. I’m always good at picking these things up when I’m talking to an audience, or person. It’s always helpful as a speaker to have this intuition.

It was nice to meet some of the people at the Waterbeach Baptist Church. I can always get a feel of whether a Church is Christ Centered around the Gospel, or they aren’t. The people of WBC had a desire to serve Christ and were Gospel centered and were hungry for the Gospel. I’ve been to many congregations around the world where this isn’t the case. I’ve been to a Church in the midlands UK where after I arrived in the Church for the first time no one talked to me for the entire 40 minutes before the service!

I’ve also seen speakers in America, Canada, UK, Australia and all around the world, and many times speakers run away after speaking. Christian stayed and talked to everyone he possible could, before and after the talk as he smiled and encouraged them. He engaged them and put them before himself and I thought of Jesus when he said in Matthew 7:16 ‘by their fruits you will know them’. It was a joy to chat to Christian after the service and I asked him a question I don’t think he’s ever been asked about Spurgeon. I asked ‘What was Spurgeon’s favourite food’? Christian was speechless and my wife laughed! I’ll wait for you to get back to me on that one Christian! ;-)…

Amongst other things I pondered with Christian of how exactly Spurgeon would have sounded in his preaching voice. I was fascinated to learn from Christian that there may be a recording of Spurgeon somewhere in the world that’s yet to be discovered! How exiting! I would love to hear this recording. It’s sad to think that had Spurgeon only lived 5 more years we would have his sermon recordings to listen to. Nonetheless we still have his sermons in written which is a wonderful blessing.

After Christian’s talk he gave away 9 copies of limited edition copies of Charles Spurgeon’s lost sermon books. I was suddenly glad I was on the front row nearest to

them! These books took hundreds of thousands of pounds to produce and further more took hundreds of thousands of hours of research. Also with many people working around the clock to translate Charles Spurgeon’s writings in his old note pad books, full of blotches and tea stains. Did Charles like tea or coffee? Again I’ll leave that question to Christian! I like sugar in a lot of things like my tea and my Rice Krispies that I’m eating right now, well not right now as I’m typing but you know what I mean! But as Christian puts it we’re called to be ‘salt in the world not sugar’, although I’m not bitter about that saying I actually think it’s quite sweet hahaha :-D… sorry had to throw that in!

Oh and another thing how many speakers give away their books? In fairness there are some that do, but these were no ordinary ‘run of the mill’ paperbacks. These were big limited edition copies of a Charles

Spurgeon’s ‘Lost Sermons’ with gold coated page edges, and a presentation box, and with a leather spine and cover, and designed to have the same artistic cover as Spurgeon’s original old notepads. These were the transcripts of the sermons Spurgeon preached at Waterbeach Baptist Church. And Christian gave away 9 FREE yes FREE!!

I’m glad I had some British chocolate and a book to give something back to Christian. I was privileged enough to grab a copy of the Lost Sermons books he was giving away, although I felt a bit guilty taking one as I had money ready to give to Christian for his books. Everyone scrambled albeit conservatively to the small table on the right of the platform at the end of the front row. And they were gone quicker than you could say Waterbeach! These books retail at $79.99 in the USA, that’s £61.47 in GB pounds !

I’m tempted to say I’ve never known anyone before to give away something so valuable. But then I think of John 3:16 that says: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’. Our Father gave away his only son so that we could be reconciled to him through the cross’.

We sang a final hymn to finish the evening, and as I think of its lyrics I’m reminded of how God through the Lord Jesus Christ saved a sinful wretch like me: ‘Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see’…

^{1 ‘C H Spurgeon’ “The People’s Preacher” a documentary by CTA:  http://www.cta.uk.com/shop?cid=86&pid=194
2 ‘Travel with CH Spurgeon’ – Clive Anderson Day One – https://www.dayone.co.uk/products/travel-with-ch-spurgeon
For more information on Christian George please visit: http://www.mbts.edu/about/faculty/christian-george/}