Losing parents drew me closer to the Lord

An evangelical who has been appointed to head up an inter-church body says losing both his parents at a young age drew him closer to the Lord.

Mike Royal (see photo), a member of the Evangelical Alliance Council as well as a church leader in Birmingham, who is also involved with various Christian charities, will become General Secretary of Churches Together in England next March.

As a teenager Royal recalls: ‘Being one of the only black kids in my school was tough. Racism was casual in the 1970s and the playground could be brutal. I began to get angry about deprivation, especially as experienced by black people in inner-city Britain.

‘Gripped by feelings of injustice, I came to faith at 14 years old when I reached a crisis in life where it could have gone one of two ways.’

More suffering came quickly. ‘Losing both my parents to cancer in my late teens shattered any illusions I had,’ he says, ‘but also tested the strength of my faith to the max. When you lose people in life who are most precious to you, you have two choices. You can blame God and run the opposite way, or you can embrace the only thing that stands the test of time when all else fails. For me, I was comforted by the Bible verse: “When your mother and father forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me” (Ps. 27:10).

‘My first permanent graduate job was working with communities across London, on participation in urban renewal schemes. By this time, I felt a real call in my life to go into full-time church pastoral ministry.

‘As I look back on my life so far, I’m grateful to God for the sense of purpose He has given me. Serving people is what gets me out of bed. I have a faith in Jesus that’s gritty, challenges injustice, and deals with the real issues people face.’

It’s summed up in Micah 6:8 – ‘acting justly, loving mercy, walking humbly with God’.