Stan Ford

Stan Ford
Stan Ford was raised in a home where the mother was called upon to carry the entire load of "raising the boys". The father having died in the gas chambers of World War I, left the task upon the shoulders of this small but stout-hearted lady. Stan took up the sport of boxing, early in life and won the Boy Champion Of Great Britain title at age 13. Meanwhile the home situation was not very good. Stan decided to run away in order to lighten the load of responsibility on his mother. Turning to boxing for hire, led to his first income of five shillings, of which he sent half to his mother.

As time passed and the winter season approached, Stan decided to return home again. Later Stan was invited to attend a Bible class at a Gospel Hall on Sunday morning. The teacher that morning was named George Harper, later to be well known throughout Britain as a noted evangelist. Stan's visit to the Bible class lasted only a few minutes, whereupon he left before the first prayer was even given. But unknown to him, that small class began to pray for him, and continued to do so for the next three years.

Later an open tent meeting was held across the road from a pub frequented by Stan. Although only slightly interested, Stan did manage to listen to the singing from a respectable distance away. A young lady, later destined to become his wife, was giving out tracts that day. Stan inquired as to what these were, and was invited to attend the meeting.

This was to be his first real exposure to the Word of God. Bits and pieces began to make their impression on his heart and mind but as yet Stan was still very far away indeed. Soon there was another tent meeting held, and Stan encouraged his tavern friends to "let's go to the religious meeting and heckle the preacher, and have some fun." Upon entering the tent, Stan was handed a songbook by a young man who immediately ran to the evangelist and was seen talking avidly and pointing back. Unknown to Stan, this meeting was being held by the same Gospel Hall where three years before, he had sat down in a Bible class for about three minutes. He was now in the company of the same small group that had prayed for him for three years.

After the evangelist preached his message, Stan was asked if he would like to sit down and be shown some passages from God's Word. Stan replied by saying that there were numerous contradictions and proceeded to name several. Over the course of the next several hours, Stan was shown that these so called contradictions were indeed false. It is unknown whether this was the actual night of Stan Ford's conversion, but a saving knowledge of Christ did come.

Information from this point forward on Stan's calling into the ministry and his travels for the Lord, are unknown at this time. It is known however, that as of the year 1970, as many as thirteen new assemblies had come into existence in Britain, where none had existed before.