Meet a New Student

November 09, 2014

Adam Wilson, M.Div. Pastoral Student

Adam Wilson came to Westminster Theological Seminary from England with his wife, Genevieve, and one-year-old son, Judah. After spending several years working for Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), and on the advice of several mentors and friends, he decided to come to Westminster to train for pastoral ministry. We recently sat down with him to talk about how he came to be convinced of a call to the ministry.

Adam grew up in a Christian home but only took seriously the claims of the Christian faith when he went to university in Liverpool. “The pastor of Christ Church Liverpool stood up on a table after the service, just before we all had lunch together and said, ‘Welcome to all the new students who have joined our church. Before we say grace, I want to say one thing to the new students: While you’re at university, you’re either going to accelerate towards God or away from him. Let’s pray.’ That was a real ‘uh-oh’ moment for me.” At that point, he decided to explore matters of Christianity more deeply. 

Through the help of one person in particular, Adam began to explore the Reformed faith. “My first year, I met a Pastor named Steve Palframan, and we went through the book of Romans together. The first real Christian book that I read, he plunked down the two volumes of Calvin’s Institutes, and said  ‘You owe me 15 pounds.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?,’ not thinking that this was an amazing deal; I thought to myself ‘I’m not giving you money.’ But he said, ‘If you don’t buy it, you won’t read it. If I gave it to you for free, it would just sit on your shelf.’ So I took it from him. I don’t think I’ve ever actually paid him for it! Since then, he was the one who motivated me to take the claims of Christ seriously for my life. It was very formative for me.”

After university, Adam worked for Steve at a church plant in Liverpool as a ministry trainee for a year before moving with his wife to begin to work for UCCF and attend Emmanuel Reformed Baptist Church in Royal Leamington Spa. The time working for UCCF helped him as he thought through the possibility of becoming a minister. “[The] process of being on the front line to engage with students in evangelism, doing apologetics regularly, and seeing the pastoral needs of all kinds of people was hugely formative for testing and refining gifts and trying to see if the Lord was really calling me to full-time pastoral ministry.”

It was not only his own experiences that helped crystallize Adam’s decision. Westminster faculty books also helped him in a variety of ways. “I read Edmund Clowney’s book, Called to the Ministry, and that suddenly gave me biblical categories . . . to actually concretely start engaging with the question, ‘Am I called to the ministry?’ It was so formative to realize that the local church matters in this, and the call of the local church in the work of calling young men to be pastors is essential. That forced me to go to my elders a lot more and ask, ‘Are you testing to see if I have gifts, or do you think I have gifts and are therefore using me?’ They had helpful answers to that and were a really good influence.”

While he was attending Emmanuel Baptist church and feeling a call to the ministry, he was also slowly becoming more and more convinced of a Presbyterian understanding of baptism, the covenant, and polity. “There are fewer reformed Presbyterian churches in the whole of England than there are in Philadelphia city limits. When I came to the conviction that we were Presbyterian, my wife and I, we didn’t know what to do. Bizarrely, I ended up Skyping Carl Trueman. He was British, and he was Presbyterian, so I asked him ‘What should we do?’ He helpfully pointed us in the direction of Presbyterians and churches that he knew of in the UK. During that time, we were being encouraged by our church and in work with UCCF to think about pastoral ministry. So, should we leave our church and join a Presbyterian church, even though we’ll probably only be in England for another year or so? That was a tricky decision, but Dr. Trueman was really wise, he said, ‘No, stay put. The gospel is being faithfully preached there, and it’s a confessional church, looking after you.’ Also, the commute to the nearest Presbyterian Church was an hour and a half; it just wasn’t worth it.”

As Adam was reading and learning more about Christianity, he realized that he wanted to train at only one institution. “One of the books that I’ve found really helpful was Covenantal Apologetics. That really made me say ‘I don’t want to go anywhere else.’ After reading Edgar’s Reasons of the Heart, which is used by UCCF as required reading for their program, and then reading Oliphint’s stuff, it’s been absolutely fantastic in helping make Van Til accessible. I guess that’s what I want to be doing for a congregation in the future, make Van Til accessible—using language and illustrations and vocabulary to enable people to go do apologetics well, to find the point of contact, where they are suppressing the truth, and show them the beauty of Jesus.” So, he applied to Westminster and was accepted.

Adam’s decision to come to Westminster presented some immediate challenges, the most noteworthy being finances. However, God answered those concerns in a myriad of ways. “The international scholarship was pivotal. Basically, without those scholarships, we wouldn’t be here; it’s as simple as that. Knowing how generous Westminster and the donors are—that makes a huge difference. It really says something about the seminary, that its commitment to training is higher than its desire for the money to run the seminary. Those scholarships meant that it was no more expensive for us to study here and move to America, than it was to stay in England and train somewhere else. That was a big thing for us.”

“The other big problem was that wonderful thing: we need food, and shelter, and water, and to provide for our son. It basically meant that we’ve had to rely on the generosity of churches and friends and family to be here, so we have been support-raising. The way that we’re here is through the generosity of Westminster and through the generosity of my brothers and sisters in Christ who are committed enough to the gospel being proclaimed—even though they’re not Presbyterian—to support my wife and I and our son financially over the next few years.” 

There were several other challenges: Taking an only grandson away from grandparents, answering questions on whether it was worth it to move to a different country to study, and even a horrible flight over from London. However, as soon as he came to Westminster Adam began to see the decision paying dividends. “I went straight into summer Greek, which is the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done. I’ve never worked so hard and had to think so hard, but the rewards were so immediate. After five weeks of intensive summer Greek, I can go, ‘Wow, I understand the text of Scripture in a way I could never have, in the way it was originally written,’ and that’s just amazing. I know I have a long way to go, but even the small rewards that are coming already are really great.”

Part of the challenge of seminary for Adam is that his undergraduate degree was in physiology, and studying theology requires a slightly different mindset. However, as he studies theology he has come to realize that it is the study of a person, not just a subject. “It is a humanity, and it is a science. As we wrestle with theology, we are building up an understanding more and more of who this person is, as he has graciously revealed it to us in Scripture. It is a very analytical endeavor, and a lot of those principles are transferred. I think the big difference is that the mode of learning is really different, but I wouldn’t let that put anyone off coming because theology is for everyone. I’d really encourage them to think about it, and recognize that theology has a direct impact on the discipline they were really excited about in undergrad or are really excited about now.”

Adam came to Westminster with a view towards returning to England to plant a Presbyterian church. He is currently under care of the International Presbyterian Church (IPC). He hopes to spend his summers interning for various Presbyterian churches in England as he works towards the goal of church-planting. Would you say a prayer for Adam and his family as he studies to serve the church in England?