Heather Bellamy spoke with Jim Ford about his violent life and his Damascus Road experience that turned his life around

Jim: 'Jim you know where you ought to be. I want you.' I said, 'No, you've got no chance. You've got absolutely no chance. Why would I give up what I've got? I'm just not interested. I've had one encounter with this church life. You've got a snowball's chance of getting me to go to church.' Honestly this conversation went on for several minutes and in the end I sort of got teed off with it. I said, 'Ok God I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll cut you a deal'. I still talk to God the same way. God knows how I feel, so I might as well talk about how I feel. I said to him, 'When I went to church at 17, (I'm now 23), there was another gang leader that went to that church at the same time, and I've never seen, heard or spoke to him since that time. That's six years ago. I don't know whether he's alive, dead, or whether he goes to church. I don't even know where he lives'. I said, 'If you want me that bad you'll tell that man to come and knock on my door and say to me, "I've heard that you want to go to church"'. I said, 'Conversation over and that's it, end of story, get on with it. You just do what you do.'

The following Sunday, this is true, this man knocked on my door and he said, 'I've heard that you want to go to church'. The hairs on my neck just stood up! I thought, ok I'll go because I'm a man of my word. I was at least macho enough to say, 'Ok, I'll go to church and sit on the back row; I've done my thing; that'll do, I'll sit on the back row'.

I went to church that evening with this guy. He picked me up. But I walked into the church and he walked straight down to the front row. I couldn't believe that he would go and sit on the front row. His name was Kenny. I thought, 'Well I'm honour bound to at least go and sit with him'. I started to walk down this normal length church aisle and I started walking and it was almost like I went into slow motion. You've seen those films when somebody's running and suddenly they see one another and they go into this slow mo thing. I was just walking up this aisle and this voice said, 'Hello Jim' and I went, 'Oh spit', or words to that effect. I used expletives, 'Oh sugar this is' and it said 'Hello' and I said, 'Hello' and he said, 'I want you' and I said, 'Well' and he said, 'No, no, listen. If you leave this building without me in your life, without you giving me all that you have, that you are and you will ever be, you're finished'. It was a death threat. I know people out there may not think that God would do that, but I believe that God speaks to you in a language that you can understand and that was the language I understood. He said, 'You're finished; you're toast' and I went, 'Ok' and God had got my attention. He said, 'I want everything that you are; everything you have and everything you will ever be. I want all of you, unreservedly you give yourself to me tonight'. I'm still in slow mo. I mean this all happened and it could have only taken seconds. How long does it take you to walk 20 yards if that? By the time I got to the front of the church I said, 'Ok God, but this better work. This had better work, because if it doesn't I'll make sure your name is all over the place; it'll be mud'. I sat down at the front of the church and that was it. It really was quite funny because I can't tell you what went on in the church service, but the guy at the end of it who was preaching said, 'Hey I just want to tell you something, I just sense there's somebody in here that God has really challenged and you need to really get yourself sorted out'. He was looking at the back of the church and I'm sat on the front row and I'm thinking, 'Ok God you've made your point, I know', but my life from there absolutely turned; I mean it just changed.

Heather: What happened from there? How did your life turnaround?

Jim: Well it obviously turned around incredibly fast. I was 23 and God seemed to put me on a fast track with himself. Within five years, I was 28 and I was married and God had called me into the ministry. I pioneered a work in the city with a couple of other guys and ended up being one of the pastors in the church. It just went from there really. It was amazing when I went to work the following day; it was quite interesting because the guys I met said, 'Hey what did you do over the weekend?' I said, 'I went to church' and they said, 'What pub's that?' I said, 'No, I went to church'. I had everything thrown at me. One guy even said, 'Why don't you put a gun to your head and shoot yourself? You've got everything going for you.' I drove a Jaguar Mark 2. This was my life, driving round in Jaguars. I've never had one since by the way; I don't know why. I don't know what there is about that, but anyway. My life just turned round. They gave me everything from two weeks to three months that I would survive going to church.

Heather: And how long has it been now?

Jim: Forty years.

Heather: How easy was it for all that violence to fall away and the alcohol?

Jim: Honestly, it just turned around. One minute I was one thing and next minute I was someone else. There were a couple of things that maybe took a couple of weeks. Immediately I stopped swearing. I couldn't string a sentence together without having four expletives in it. I used to drink like a fish. I smoked like a trooper. When I was truck driving I was smoking 80 cigarettes a day. One morning I got up to go to work, we're talking six o'clock in the morning; I'd have a coffee and the first thing I'd do is I'd have a cigarette. I'd got a cigarette out. I lit it up and in a sense I was aware that I shouldn't really do this. Nobody had said thou shalt not smoke. It wasn't the 11th commandment or anything like that. It just felt like, no, as a Christian I shouldn't smoke. I'm driving along and I'm driving through Tunstall going north and I said, 'Ok God, if you don't want me to smoke you are just going to have to do something with this cigarette'. Now don't forget I've been smoking since I was 11 and I'm 23 smoking 80 a day; a harden smoker. I lit this cigarette up and the first drag I took on this cigarette I almost choked. It's like the first cigarette, if anybody's ever tried a cigarette, you feel queasy; you feel sick. My eyes were watering. I am a hardened smoker. I said, 'Ok God, that's it. I get the message' and I threw the cigarette out of the window and I've never had one since; never had the craving to have one since.

When God does stuff in your life he does a good job. My whole life literally turned 180 degrees. God opened up stuff for me and over the years I've seen God's protection; I've seen God's provision and all kinds of things. I think God has a sense of humour too. In 1989 I'm happily serving God in the church in Bucknall and God said I want you to go on a ministry trip. I want you to go out of the country. God sent me to India. Now don't forget I was racist and being completely honest, I hated Asians with a passion; black people were fine; Asians I just could not stand and God said I want you to go to India. I went, 'You got to be kidding me God' and he said, 'No, I want you to go to India'. I went to India and this is probably in a sense part of the healing. I went to India and had absolutely incredible encounters with God and God did some amazing stuff that I tell in my book. I had an encounter with a woman who was dying; she'd got hours to live. She was semi-conscious on the table and God just completely healed her and raised her up. She haemorrhaged and women will know what I mean by that; haemorrhaged for 16 years since she had her last child and God just turned her around. She was in the last throes of dying. She had major headaches and she was on the table ready to die. They'd laid her out on the table. I prayed for her and God told me to start with her feet. I couldn't believe that God would tell me to start praying with her feet. I prayed for her feet and went up her body and she got up and she said I want something to eat. She'd not eaten for a month and she was emaciated. This woman just got up. It's incredible. God just turned things around for me and I came away having a heart for India, which was part of the healing process that God took me through. I think God does do that. All through my life in the earlier stages of my walk with God, God turned things around slowly but surely. Nobody preached at me or said this is the 11th or 12th or 13th commandment. It was just a matter of God did it in his time and dealt with all the issues of my life. Since then I'm very privileged; God had a purpose and a plan for me, which I'm very grateful for. For a person that left school with no qualifications, I've ended up going half way round the world one way and half way round the world the other, just serving God and I count that an amazing privilege. That God would take somebody that's a nobody and make them into a somebody; that can only be God's grace. I could keep you here all night telling you stories and encounters that I've had and seen what God can do and the provision of God; the blessing of God; the grace of God; the mercy of God and all it took was responding that one night when I was 23, to God saying I want all of you.

I suppose my passion for God is more now than it ever has been. I think that scripture, to quote scripture, is he who is forgiven much, loves much and that's me. I just can't wait for God to do the next thing. I'm not 23 anymore, but I'm still the person God wants to use. For anybody out there, God can use you and take you and bless you and give you your heart's desires, because he's God.

Heather: When you wrote your book was that quite a healing experience?

Jim: Actually it was quite weird really, because it was almost deja vu. It was scary at times because I didn't know English; I'm not an English scholar and I just felt this desperate urge to write my story. Over the years people have said, 'Oh you ought to write your story down' and I've always said, 'No, I'm not an author; I'm not a writer. I'm just Jim Ford'. One day though, I was sitting in my office doing something and God said to me, 'I want you to write the book' and I went, 'You want me to write a book?' so I wrote this book.

The experiences I had doing it, it really was deja vu. I could actually still hear the conversations that I had. It was almost as though, if I can say this, God by the Holy Spirit took me back and I could actually see in my minds eye and hear the conversations of the events that I've put in the book. It took me a couple of years to write it because I didn't sit down one day and say, 'Alright I'm going to write a book', because I've got other things to do. It was just part of what God wanted me to do at the time. So I completed it and it sold pretty well really. I suppose it's almost like, people said, The Cross & The Switchblade, or Run Baby Run. I wanted it to be out there so that people could be inspired that God can take people no matter where they come from and do something with them.

You can buy Jim's book Wrong Way Right Way for only £5.69 from Cross Rhythms Direct.