During the ’60s and early ’70s, a dynamic Welsh preacher achieved what many of his peers at that time thought impossible: he was able to be fully Pentecostal in outlook, pastor a thriving and growing church, and yet also command the deepest respect of christians from many different denominations.
And at his funeral, the great preacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones called him a ‘spiritual statesman’, saying: “I have rarely known a man who had a larger and clearer worldview of the present situation of the Christian church and what we should all be doing.”
Born into a mining community at Crosskeys, South Wales, in 1916, WTH ‘Billy’ Richards came to Christ at the age of eight under the preaching of a Welsh pastor called Tom Mercy. His family suffered a terrible tragedy when his older brother was killed climbing a quarry for a ‘dare’ when only 11 years old, and during the great depression of 1929, Billy found himself the main family breadwinner at the tender age of 14.
For the next six years while he worked underground, Billy gained a sound knowledge of the Bible and learned many secrets of prayer. In his late teens he gained a reputation as an evangelist, conducting rousing underground hymn singing, preaching in the open air and leading popular youth rallies.
At the age of 20 Billy went to London. He was so raw that when he saw his first underground train come out of a tunnel, he threw himself against the station wall in fright! He enrolled in a Pentecostal Bible college, but his funds ran out after 11 weeks. However, he was allowed to stay on providing he led a newly-formed work in Barnet, and by the time he was 27 he had also helped to build a church in Hammersmith and pioneered another of around 100 people in Ealing.
However, it was in 1943 in the midst of a heavy WWII air raid that Billy received the call from god that was to shape the rest of his life. He later wrote: “It was the name of a town that I had never visited... I knew nothing about the district and did not know one single person there. The name of the place was Slough.”
This story is from the #30 Apr-Jun 2017 edition of Heroes of the Faith.
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This story is from the #30 Apr-Jun 2017 edition of Heroes of the Faith.
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