The Revd Chris Oldroyd writes:
THE Revd Trevor Dearing’s early life was marked by deep insecurity. This vanished on his conversion to Christianity, at the age of 19, but it returned towards the end of his life. He gave a lifetime of powerful Christian service.
Having started as a Methodist minister, Dearing entered the Church of England and was ordained in 1961. He served in Yorkshire parishes for six years, before moving to Harlow to become head of religious studies at a comprehensive school, and a curate at St Paul’s, Harlow.
In 1970, he became Vicar of St Paul’s, Hainault, on a sprawling east London council housing estate. It was here that a modest Anglican church with a small congregation became a centre of revival for many hundreds; the power of God’s presence was manifest in commitments to Christ, healing and newfound empowerment for Christian life and service. Reported widely in the national press were accounts of the deaf hearing, lame walking, immobile limbs released, addictions eradicated, occult bondage eliminated, prostitutes transformed, and new ministries launched. Dearing was interviewed on television some twenty times, often when healing would happen on set. In one, after prayer, a woman with cancer and confined to a wheelchair, got up and ran around the studio; she later discovered that the cancer had disappeared.
Dearing’s ministry became so wide that, in 1975, he embarked on full-time mission throughout the UK and overseas. On one mission to the US, he was offered the rectory of the large and growing charismatic church, St Luke’s, Seattle. After a long period of discernment and prayer, he and most of his family moved there, and he led missions throughout much of the US. This, however, eventually led to physical and emotional breakdown, to the extent that his consultants predicted that he would never preach again and advised a year of complete rest.
He and his wife and faithful partner in ministry, Anne, knew that the time had come to return to the UK; it was a painful decision as three of their then adult children decided to remain in America. Moving to Anne’s home town of Stamford and after too short a rest, Dearing resumed a wide ministry, but he never fully recovered from the physical and mental consequences of earlier overwork. Anne’s death in 2015 continued to affect him deeply for the rest of his life. As he became more infirm in his later years, many came to visit him for prayer and counsel. He was the author of 18 books which have worldwide reach.
His sermons flowed effortlessly with clear progression and powerful expression. He never needed notes, undoubtedly a consequence of the three hours of prayer and meditation that he devoted to the early hours of each day. Every sermon evoked a call to action on the part of his hearers and led to life-transforming response. He spoke to hearts and not merely to minds. Cor ad cor loquitur. Although a biblical-languages scholar, he put words into action. For him, as for St Paul, the Kingdom of God was not in words but in power. Over his lifetime, countless thousands were affected by that power.
It was this last tenet that caused his consistent estrangement by the establishment. Sadly, he outgrew the Church of England to which he remained staunchly faithful to the end. It could not contain him, a constant source of pain throughout much of his life. Many throughout the world, however, did see the hand of God upon his ministry.
The Church has lost a true, faithful, and faith-filled servant of God.
The Revd Trevor Dearing died on 24 February, aged 89.
