Heather Bellamy spoke with David Carr about overcoming phobias, dyslexia and going on to work with footballers and pastor a church.

Heather: You've also worked with a lot of footballers, what was that part of your life like?

David: Well that was unique, because when I fully committed my life to Christ I learned to read over two years by reading the Bible. Then over a period of about five years I could do maths in my head and I went into the finance industry. By divine, I think, guidance I met a football coach who was in debt and I managed to get him out of it. He introduced me into football and within the proceeding years I finished up managing 700 of the country's leading footballers; many of the household names and people in all the major clubs and many international footballers taking them all around the world.

Heather: And now you're a pastor. So working with so many different types of people in your life, from being a bouncer, to working with footballers, then being a pastor, how do you handle that?

David: Well, it's training for reigning isn't it? When Jesus called disciples, he didn't call them from theological college. I don't want to upset people, but he called those who had been in real life - fisherman, tax collectors, doctors and people who could experience life in itself and could talk to people on that level. As I say to people, I don't throw people out now, I throw them in. So every Sunday now I throw them into church where I used to throw them out.

When I dealt with footballers they were very complex, because the whole of their life was 15 years maximum. So I saw people through the whole of their life. I saw all the pressures on their life - their marriages, finances and their personality. So dealing with these people gave me a wonderful insight into human nature and equipped me for being a pastor.

Heather: So why did you start a church?

David: Why? That's a good question. I felt the Lord said to me one day when I was praying, "Who gave you all this?", cause I was touring the world, a guest on the Orient Express stopping at Boca Raton and Monte Carlo. And I said, "You did" and he said, "I brought you from a simple background, from a council house I brought you to this, who gave you this?" I said, "You did." He said, "Now I want you to do something for me, I want you to go plant a church in an area next to Birmingham called Solihull", which to we Birmingham people is the promised land. It's flowing with milk and honey. In 25 years of my life I'd never ever been there and it was only seven miles away. I was like a pig squealing, you know, in a sack, I didn't want to do that. I didn't feel that was me; I've never been trained as a minister, but I went there in 1972 and I've been there ever since.

Heather: And what have been the main highs and lows on that journey?

David: The lows I think are when you see people who you've loved for many years and you see them through to death, even though you know they have a faith. You lose friends. The lows are when you fail with people that you love dearly and they slip away from faith or get disillusioned. The highs of course are the many lives you've seen change. We've seen people who have been given up in palliative care healed; we've seen lives that were persecuted and demented totally transformed. To see a whole family brought back together and to see people's lives directional - you can't put finance on that.

Heather: Now for a lot of people, church to them is boring and dead, but like you've just touched on there - you've encountered a lot of the supernatural in your walk and in your church - can you tell us a bit more about that side of your life and your church life?

David: Christianity is not a religion - it's a faith. There's a big difference. Religion means to bind together and a lot of people are bound together by their tradition good or bad, by their liturgy, good or bad. But Christianity is life itself, it is faith in a living God. So it has its sadness and its solemnness and its respect, but it has its gladness and it's fun. The Bible says it was good for us to go to the house of God, but we don't go to be bored, we go to be blessed. I think when people come in from outside, we attract 2,000 people every week, the people are coming because they want joy. I was in football for 21 years and you don't have to teach football supporters to sing and chant; you don't have a worship leader, they just sing, chant, cheer; they embrace and they dance. Well then if you can do it for football, why can't you do it to God?

Heather: Another thing that you've done is set up something called The Order of St Leonard's, what is that?

David: That is a very precious thing. An order is a lifestyle. There's 33,000 known denominations in the world. Jesus actually prayed in John 17, 'I would that they be one as we are one'. And you think well hang on, 33,000 denominations and you're not in church, which one do you join? I don't think the issue is how many denominations are there, but how many Christians are there who share the same faith. So The Order of Saint Leonard is a lifestyle of unity and oneness, which attracts leaders from all different denominations. We disagree over many things theologically, but do we have faith in Christ? If the answer is yes then we must learn from each other, teach each other the various aspects that we hold sacred and minister to a dying world. So we're now in ten nations, with three million people. We've got Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostal, Evangelicals and Orthodox. We are feeding the poor, caring for each other, with care centres and health centres. We're ministering into people's lives without the label of our denomination, so we're not leaving our denominations, but we are not holding to them in our unity.

Heather: Another part that's I imagine very central to your life and your faith is that you're a family man. What does being a father mean to you?