‘I was 19 years old on my first life-changing excursion outside Oxford. I had lived a sheltered kind of life and a few months ago had considered myself an agnostic. Willie was 45, a tough old lag of four convictions. He was married and had several children. He still thieved for a living, if lately on a less grand scale. What had we in common? I was far more afraid of having no message for him than that he wouId pinch the silver.’
Garth Lean writes: ‘One to one helping people towards faith is perhaps the most neglected of all the ways which Jesus himself used and of which he left us many examples.’
‘There is no human technique whereby peoples' lives can be transformed. Only God can change people. Yet it would seem that he sometimes uses human instruments.’ Lean has learnt some elements of this art and tells stories of how the most varied people have responded and found a wider commitment to God's purpose for the world.
‘It is the art of unfolding the possibilities there are in people and offering them that transforming friendship with God which Jesus promised.’
Garth Lean studied Law at Oxford but has devoted his life largely to the written word, encouraging authorship in others and writing several best-sellers himself.
English