About Peter Horrobin

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 a river! 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 wanted to say the broken car! But he knew that was the wrong answer! He responded to what God was saying, and he never forgot the moment when God said to him “I can restore broken lives”.

Praying every day

From that point on Peter continued to seek God, with a committed group of people who gathered regularly to pray with him for the establishment of this healing ministry. 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 there was 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.

Gaining Understanding

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 see God set people free. The Lord gave understanding to 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.

Many lives were impacted. The Lord showed them principles in the bible and how, when applied, God’s power is displayed and available to bring deep healing to individuals. These principles 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 were looking to help people in their own region of the world.

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 was largely taken up by the ministry, but he still managed to work on his beloved Alvis occasionally until a time when he took the car to a specialist engineer to begin work on completing the restoration – which is still ongoing.

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 had 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.

Family Background

Peter was born in 1943 in Bolton, Lancashire, and was later brought up in Blackburn, also in the north of England.  He has remained a life-long supporter of Blackburn Rovers Football Club.

His parents gave him a firm Christian foundation for life with a strong evangelical emphasis.  His early grounding in the scriptures was to equip him for future ministry.  After living in the south for a while he eventually returned to his native county after periods of time spent in Surrey, Oxford and Manchester.

Career

After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in chemistry, he spent a number of years in College and University lecturing, before leaving the academic environment for the world of business.

He founded his own publishing and bookselling companies and then, after fifteen years of writing, publishing and bookselling, the doors opened for the ministry to be established at Ellel Grange, a country house just outside the City of Lancaster.  Throughout his university and business career Peter had known that he was only ‘marking time’ until his true calling, into some form of Christian ministry, would come to fruition.

The Call to Ministry

Peter first knew this calling as a young teenager, but he had to wait nearly thirty years before his life’s work was to begin!  In his twenties he started to restore a vintage sports car (an Alvis Speed 20), but discovered that its chassis was bent.  As he looked at the broken vehicle, wondering if it could ever be repaired, he sensed God asking him a question, “You could restore this broken car, but I can restore broken lives. Which is more important?”

It was obvious that broken lives were more important than broken cars.  So, in 1970, the beginnings of a vision for seeing people healed and restored was birthed in his heart.

He prayed daily into this vision for over ten years before God brought it into being.  Many Christian leaders affirmed the vision and gave it their support.

The Work of Ellel Ministries

After the establishment of a Prayer Support Group, the purchase of Ellel Grange was completed in November 1986.  Since then Ellel Ministries has grown very steadily – there is now a full-time team of over 300 people, running a continuous series of healing retreats and training courses and schools in all the Ellel Centres around the world.

Other Interests

Outside of Ellel Ministries, Peter was the originator and one of the compilers of the amazingly successful and popular Mission Praise, the first volume of which was originally compiled for Billy Graham’s Mission England in 1984.  The 25^th Anniversary Edition of Mission Praise was published in July 2009.

Peter is also an enthusiast for fishing and Alvis cars. He still hopes, one day, to see the Alvis Speed 20, through which God gave him the vision for his life work, restored and back on the road!  His Complete Catalogue of British Cars, which was first published in 1975, has long been the standard reference work on the history and technical specification of every model of every make of British car, manufactured between 1895 and 1975!  During his years in academic life he also wrote and edited books of specialist technical interest about different aspects of building science and technology.

Through her pioneering work in seeing how God can bring great healing through the rediscovery of people’s creative gifting, Fiona herself discovered a talent for water-colour painting.  Some of her paintings have now been turned into art cards and can be seen and purchased at www.fionahorrobinart.com