Pastor David Daniel: The full interview with the Brit gospel stalwart

Wednesday 1st September 2004

The full Tony Cummings nterview with Pastor David Daniel.



Continued from page 3

Tony: Tell me about that.

David: When I was quite young, about 8 or 9 I found myself very much leaning towards evangelism and very much interested in really understanding the Bible, so I would speak to my teachers at school about the  Lord      and I would speak to my peers about my faith, even in secondary school.  I went to school with Bishop John Frances and I actually happened to be witnessing to him. One day, before he was like kinda getting to the ? Mode   and we kind of forged a great friendship from that time, but my whole life has always been to see people come to know Christ.  I was always involved in the crusades like Luis Palleau and Billy Graham and "Mission to London" just being one of the counsellors, and things like that.  I tried my best just to see people come into God's Kingdom, that has always been my passion.
When it came to 1993 I felt very very strongly.  I had a very good job and I was getting promotion all the time.

Tony: What kind of job were you working?

David: I was working for Islington Council and I was Office Services Manager and I was getting promoted and I was earning some good money but I just felt this real passion and hunger to just leave it all, give it all up and go to Theological College and I just spoke to some people and prayed with some people like Pastor David  ? and Les Isaacs and Doug Williams, people like that and I received a lot of encouragement and gave up my job and went to Bible school.  When I came out of Bible school there was no job for me so I did a bit of teaching, gospel vocal training and did a few sessions here and there and a bit of backing singing and stuff like that for a little while. While I was an elder in my church and my church eventually employed me as one of the pastors.

Tony: What year did they employ you as one of the pastors?

David: That was about 1997.

Tony: What was the church?

David: It's called the "Peoples' Christian Fellowship".  It's an evangelical church.

Tony: What year was that formed?

David: The Brethren Church was started way back in the 1950's in England.

Tony: That's fascinating.

David: Yes it is.  I have been there almost 50 years, I was born in the church.

Tony: One of my old pastors when I live in the West Country, he was expelled from the Brethren Church for trying to bring gifts of the spirit into the church.  They had a struggle back when the charismatic movement was at its' height.  Gifts of the spirit  first really manifesting themselves in the church.

David:  In my church it is very much into the gifts of the spirit. It is very charismatic now.  We have the prophetic word and everything but the change for us in a way is the people who started coming to our church.  Because our church is very family orientated, it was very friendly, people would come along, they would hear the good word, they would meet genuine people and fall in love with the church and they would come in great excitement.  We had a lot of young people coming into our church and that kind of started to change the flavour and the pattern of our church and we started to look in other directions.  Hence we started to move towards the more charismatic side of things.

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Reader Comments

Posted by Evangelist Daniele in Luton, ENGLAND @ 10:21 on Nov 19 2008

Gospel music digs deeper than any other music throughout the world today. And those who make it so, and those who have made it so in the past, form an uncompromising band of Christian saints men and women, who have spent decades in contention with all manner of difficult circumstances.

Few performers have had it quite so tough as gospel singers and it shows in the way they commit themselves within a song: The Christian vision of deliverance from spiritual and social shackles has always held out the greatest hope to those with least to lose and the gospel song is essentially a song of deliverance. The real, breathtaking power of gospel singing cannot be understood as anything less than the ecstatic victory shout of a soul set free at last. There is no music quite like that of gospel music, no drama like the drama of Christians rejoicing, the sinners moaning and repenting, the tambourines shaking, and all those voices coming together in unity, crying holy unto, the LORD. I have never seen anything during my Ministerial life as an Evangelist, to equal the fire and excitement that gospel music carries, without warning can fill a church with the awesome power of God's glory.

Nothing that has happened to me since, can equal the majestic power and the glory that I sometimes feel when, in the middle of a worship song, I knew that I was somehow, by some miracle, really carrying, really singing, as they say, the WORD, when the church and I are singing and dancing, in anguish and rejoicing at the foot of the altar. So let your heart exult wordlessly into joyous song by breaking down all barriers in the immeasurable fullness of your countenance by the words of your songs, whether at the harvest table, in the vineyards, or elsewhere. For true, really, true gospel singers, groups or bands they will always worship God in Spirit and in Truth, and recognise that He and He alone gets all the glory, AMEN



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