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The Gospel of Healing and Discipleship

From beginning to end, the Bible echoes with the eternal story of God’s love for mankind, whom He especially created for personal relationship with. It didn’t take long for the love story to go awry and sin entered the world, causing a deep division between God and mankind and allowing Satan to rule the world with sin at the centre. From there, we read of God’s heart and audacious plans to restore mankind back into relationship with Himself. This is the ultimate goal for every heart of every person and the core of the Christian message.

Two thousand years ago when Jesus walked on the earth He was in the business of changing lives in dramatic ways. He wasn’t afraid or put off by people’s problems, struggles and needs, even when society shunned and rejected them. Whether physical, emotional or spiritual, Jesus embraced everyone, including those with broken lives, offering miraculous hope, freedom, life and wholeness.

As Scripture says in Hebrews 13:8, ‘Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever,’ which means His passion, desire and ability to offer healing and restoration has not changed. In fact, quite the opposite is true as He left this earth with a clear commission for his followers to fulfil, ‘To preach about the Kingdom of God, heal the sick and cast out demons.’ (Luke 9:1-2; Matthew 28:18-20).

At Ellel Ministries we know He is still passionate about bringing healing and freedom to all those who look to Him for help.

Facing the Personal Issues

We have all suffered at the hands of sin; both sins against us and sins we have committed ourselves. We have experienced hurt and pain through rejection, abuse, relationship breakdowns and illness, to name but a few.

We also face the consequences of our own bad choices and sinful responses to others and to what has happened to us. Guilt and shame can become a constant companion in our lives, overshadowing everything we do.

These issues start to affect our beliefs about ourselves, others and God which leads to more fundamental issues that add to our growing list of things that aren’t in right order and therefore doing us more harm than good.

Facing these issues in our lives can seem overwhelming, impossible to untangle or can even be labelled as ‘just who I am’ and hopelessness can soon set in. The issues we can face can seem endless but the true and full solution is found in God, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hope for All

When we read the Gospels, we read of Jesus who loved and lived with those in need, the ones that society rejected and looked down upon.

‘All the tax-gatherers and sinners were coming to hear Jesus. The proud religious law-keepers and the teachers of the Law began to speak against Him. They said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”’ Luke 15:1-2

Jesus actively resisted the proud and shamelessly embraced sinners, prostitutes, the destitute, the demonised, the ill… those who had lost hope for life. As followers of Him, our commission is to do the same and at Ellel, we welcome all people who want to know more of who God is and how a relationship with Him can literally transform lives.

See our Blog for articles on healing & discipleship.

It Started with a Car

It all started with a car; a 1933 Alvis Speed 20 Sports Tourer and a young English man called Peter Horrobin who loved classic cars. He especially loved old Alvis cars, but he couldn’t imagine being able to afford a Speed 20 of his own. Not until one glorious day in 1970, when a friend from the Alvis Owners Club phoned to ask, “Would you like to buy an Alvis Speed 20 for £50?” Oh yes he would!

But why was it so cheap? Well, unfortunately it had been stolen, crashed, vandalised, set on fire and dumped in the River Mersey! But the friend had arranged its rescue, recognising it for the special car that it was, even in that broken state.

Peter was thrilled to purchase his own Alvis Speed 20 and began to strip down the car to the bare chassis. At about 4.00am one morning, after a night working in the garage, he made an awful discovery – the chassis was bent. The car could never be driven safely with a bent chassis and he began to think that he would never be able to restore this lovely old car. And then, out of the blue, at that moment of terrible realisation, Peter became very aware of God speaking to him, there in the garage.

Cars or people?

Quite clearly, Peter heard the Lord say “You could restore this broken car, but I can restore broken lives. Which is more important? Broken cars or broken people?” Peter responded to what God was saying and he has never forgotten the moment when God said to him “I can restore broken lives”.

Over the next ten years or so, Peter ran his own publishing company and among other things became chairman of the local Inter-Church Fellowship. As a child Peter had sensed a call from God to serve Him in full-time ministry, but somehow the Lord didn’t seem to open any doors.

Then one day he received another phone call. The caller was another member of the Inter-Church Fellowship, Sister Aine. She needed his advice. A woman, who was terribly distressed, had come to her at the hospice where she worked. Sister Aine didn’t know how to help. Peter agreed to come but the poor woman was sobbing so much that she couldn’t speak, so neither Peter nor Sister Aine had any idea what the real problem was.

However, as they prayed, God supernaturally revealed to Peter the exact nature of the problem and the distressed lady was amazed. They were able to pray for her effectively and she received both God’s healing touch and a glorious reassurance that the Lord really did know her and care for her. She had begun her journey of healing.

As Peter drove home that night, he again sensed the Lord speaking to him, saying “I want you to spend the rest of your life bringing healing to those in need and teaching others how to do the same”. In that moment he remembered the night when God had spoken to him over the Alvis and suddenly it all began to make sense. It was the same voice. The call of God was unmistakable.

Are you willing?

He started to pray about the vision God had given but immediately encountered a problem. He couldn’t pray! It was as if heaven had suddenly closed its gates and prayer was no longer possible. After some time of frustration, he eventually came to the end of his own efforts and heard the still small voice of the Father saying, “Before I can let you pray into this vision, you need to know that walking with me in obedience may cost you everything you have and everything you are. Are you willing?” Slowly, step by step, the Lord took him through every area of his life – home, family, possessions, status, reputation, hobbies etc. God did not say he would lose any of these; He just asked whether he was willing to. It was only when victory had been won in every area that he was at peace and able to start praying about the call to bring healing to God’s people.

Praying every day

From that point on Peter prayed every day about the vision. He studied the Scriptures diligently, seeking for a biblical understanding of how to bring God’s healing. As he studied, he identified many of God’s key principles for healing, such as forgiving those who harm us, repentance from sin, God’s acceptance of us as His children, God’s heart for restoring us after failure, a Christian’s spiritual armour for protection and so on.

As Peter continued to seek God, a committed group of people eventually gathered regularly to pray with him for the establishment of this healing ministry which God had called him into. As they prayed, they felt the Lord wanted a Christian healing centre to be established in the northwest of England – and this vision burned in their hearts as they prayed for it year after year.

A home for the Ministry

The vision was finally realised in 1986 when agreement was reached with the owners to buy a large country house near Lancaster, called Ellel Grange. An appeal went out and many churches and individuals responded with gifts and loans.

The team were greatly encouraged and continued to pray. On the completion date, when the full amount had to be paid to buy Ellel Grange, Peter sat at his desk to find out whether he had enough money. He could hardly believe what he saw! On one side of his piece of paper was a list of everything needed for the purchase, together with all the expenses to date, and on the other side was all the income received from gifts and loans. The income exceeded the costs by just £6! God had done it, Ellel Grange was purchased, and the work of Ellel Ministries started with great rejoicing on 31 October 1986.

Finding the keys

The team of prayer ministers which formed in the early days started a journey in which there were many, many blessings, but also many trials and tests. They learned much from others already experienced in the healing ministry and through perseverance and faithful resilience they also learned their own lessons in how to set people free. The Lord revealed key biblical principles of healing through their patient, persistent work with one person at a time. There were victories and failures. There were times when they wanted to give up. But they refused to accept that anyone’s problem could be too hard for God, however deeply broken the person was.

Eventually there were major breakthroughs. The Lord showed them where the keys could be found in His Word for deep healing of individuals and how to apply them. These were shared with God’s people through training courses and, later, on longer-term residential schools. New centres were started in the UK and then around the world in response to the requests from people who said “we need this ministry where we live!” As more keys were found, the number of courses increased, books were written and even an online training programme called Ellel 365 was developed. These hard- won keys for personal freedom can be yours too.

What happened to the Alvis?

What about the Alvis? Was it dumped? Certainly not! Peter wrote to the manufacturers and obtained a copy of the blueprint from which the car was produced. Using this he was able to get the chassis heat-treated, straightened and restored. Peter’s time is largely taken up by the ministry, but he still managed to work on his beloved Alvis occasionally until more recently when he took the car to a specialist engineer to work on completing the restoration work.

We may believe there isn’t too much wrong with us, or we may even think we’ve been broken beyond repair. But our Father has the blueprint. He made you and He knows how to restore every part of you. It may take time, it may cost something, but each person is far more precious to God than Peter’s Alvis car has been to him. The Alvis is just a picture of God’s desire to restore you, even if you are not in great shape right now! He gets right to the foundations, to the roots of the problem. He rescues, He restores and He makes new.

At Ellel we believe in structural order and accountability. The following shows the structure of how we operate as an organisation:

The Charitable Trusteeship of The Christian Trust comprises members of the senior leadership team who are responsible for the legal and financial elements of the work.