LINDA PEARCE travels the UK ministering the gospel through song. Dave Massey tells Linda's extraordinary story.

Linda Pearce

At one point life was nothing more than a four-letter-word to Linda Pearce and church was a place filled with dear people with faces almost as long as their services, with an aversion to music that would have taken the wind out of even Gabriel's silver trumpet. Her debut album 'Tears of Love' has grown out of a missionary zeal and ministry that will have many a Christian running for the safety of their preconceptions. She spoke to us about her first impressions of Christianity.

"My father was a Brethren lay preacher and I was brought up in a very strict Christian upbringing. I found it extremely difficult to live up to expectations. Music was very formal and, as a child, I remember a young preacher coming to our church, near Liverpool. H e entered with his guitar and half the church got up and walked out when they saw it. That's how I was brought up and why I left the church completely. I couldn't understand why every body seemed so unhappy with what they'd got. By the age of 15, I'd had enough of walking into church and seeing people who would prefer to be at home watching Dallas. It felt like 'doom and gloom' and I wanted to find out what else there was."

Following that desire Linda left Liverpool as soon as she could and headed for London where she lived and worked for a while as a Nanny, finding that church people could be just as hypocritical in The 'Big Smoke' and life could be just as lonely. One day found her sitting at a London roadside trying to pluck up the nerve to throw her into the traffic. Already, at the age of 16, she was suffering bouts of depression and taking tranquillisers.

"I don't know what made me do it, but one time I was sitting there at this roadside and there was another girl there. I asked her if she wanted to come to a church that was open and we were turned away because we did n't have hats! At that point I was sure that I would never enter a church again in my life. I didn't like Christians at all and felt that they were all two-faced. I kept trying to commit suicide but could never quite do it - something always stopped me. There is a place in London called Suicide Bridge - I tried there but couldn't go through with it; I went through a long period of depression. I got married and moved to Chelmsford and were gobsmacked to find I was living next door but one to a Christian couple - one evening there were at least 30 people singing in the back garden and having a barbecue, while I was in the kitchen having a nervous breakdown - by this time I was a manic depressive. I remember saying to myself, 'Woe betide her if she ever tells me to go to church!'"

Unwittingly, Margaret (the neighbour) took her life in her hands and wandered round to ask Linda if she'd like to go to church with her to the local Elim. She went and greeted the pastor with 'Don't try and convert me 'cause I'm a Christian already, right?' Inside she felt like she'd just entered a funny farm convention - people were actually smiling - mouthing off at the ceiling and clapping their hands. "I thought they were all a load of nutters and I realised that they'd probably got more of a problem than I had-I certainly believed that when they started speaking in tongues. I went again on another Sunday just to prove to myself that they couldn't get out of the bed on the right side two weeks on the trot, but this time all I heard was what the man was saying. I realised that it doesn't matter what you yourself go through and when the Lord speaks to you it's in love - and it always has been in love, and that happened to me on that Sunday. I'd met the real Physician - tablets don't work, but I wasn't healed overnight. It was a realisation that I could lean on someone and get to know Him and His love. After about five months the tablets weren't so necessary. My husband used to come home to find me in a heap on the floor, screaming my head off and when he asked why, it would be something silly like, 'I can't find you a pudding' - or he'd have to pick me up off the floor because I'd taken my tablets too far from the bedroom. The Lord has released me from all that past, I don't need it and it hasn't left me in a vacuum. When He takes away something so negative, He puts something else in its place. He's given me joy."

Linda had always enjoyed singing in clubs and pubs (mainly folk material) and had sung once or twice at the llford Palais. She was asked if she would sing at church and this surprisingly simple situation was to open a can of worms that she had forgotten was there. "I remember rehearsing and rehearsing for this one song with my little guitar and, when evening came, I was waiting to be called on to do my bit - all my family were there to see it - and he forgot me! Something that had been bottled inside me came out that night: when the pastor came up to see me afterwards, I went to hit him and he took hold of my wrist and said 'That has to go'. He started praying with me and I was released from that anger; from there on things really started to turn."

At Elim's conference in Bognor (1989) Linda heard God calling her to go out and 'preach the Word' - not only to preach it but sing it as well. Her immediate response was, "Send someone else - I get dyslexic in the mouth." She said, "It was new to me. I was being told to speak, not just to sing; but I'm a woman and women must keep silent in the church, it's the w ay I was brought up. I did it, though, and since then I've seen people released, delivered from depression and diabetics healed thro ugh my ministry. I had no desire to make an album, I just wanted to sing, but there were so many people who kept asking me if I had a tape, so I phoned up a guy called Bob Cranham and when he told me how much money recording costs, I said, 'No way!' His reply was that if the Lord wanted it, He'd provide the finance. Amazingly enough, that's just what happened. When I'd done the recording, I sent it to some record companies and 'Bob's your uncle', so to speak."

The Bob Cranham-produced 'You Build Me Up' was released in 1989 on Marshall Pickering, a label which had recently been bought from the old Pilgrim/Marshall's company by Birmingham-based Anfield Music. It's Marshall Pickering which have now released Linda's second album 'Tears of Love', produced by David Anfield; a skilful mix of foot-tapping CCM and more easy-listening devotional ballads. Linda comments on her album 'Tears Of Love': "I wanted more emphasis on the Cross, because His love was there as well - so many Christians dissect the Cross, but I think this album presents His love that culminated there."

Entertainment is not a concept that sits well with Linda when referring to her musical activities. " I'm not an entertainer - of course there's an element of entertainment in music, but some places see it only as entertainment value. I want people to see that the re is a ministry so that people who hear it are affected. 'You Build Me Up' affected a young girl of 17 who was dying of leukaemia; just before her death she came into that period where she didn't feel any pain. She asked her Mum for her stereo and played the song and said 'Now I can go' and she actually died listening to that song. That's what I mean, there is a need in music to show that it is more than entertainment."