Who is Michael Forster?
Michael Forster is a writer and a retired URC minister - but it's a little more complex than that. His first career was as a music teacher before training for ordination, since when he's been minister of three churches and a senior chaplain in a large NHS mental health, community and learning disability Trust. That took up the greater part of his ministry and during it he gained a post-graduate diploma in counselling and psychotherapy. All these experiences influence his thinking, his faith and his writing.
He is at heart a communicator - whether on the written page, at speaking engagements, or through the medium of music as a clarinettist. In another of his parallel lives (Don’t ask how many he’s got - two are enough to cover here) he makes hand-crafted furniture and writes up his projects for craft magazines. |
Michael was first published in 1992 when the religious publisher Kevin Mayhew Ltd accepted a collection of thirty hymn texts. This led to commissions for further works in a wide variety of genres including children’s songs and stories, all-age worship, theology, and scripts for stage and radio that have been performed on four continents as well as on BBC Radio 4 and at the Royal Albert Hall.
As a Christian minister, he is passionate about the gospel of grace. His formative experience as a child was of a home life characterized by unconditional love and clear boundaries. In later life, he and his wife, Jean, were to face personal tragedy, while his ministry in urban contexts, mental health chaplaincy and counselling would give him insights into a broad spectrum of human experience and potential.
As a chaplain, he became fascinated by the connections between the Christian theology of grace and the work of American psychologist Carl Rogers, which inspired him to train as a counselor and to explore the connections in his own book, Being There: the Healing Power of Presence.
Michael finds the similarities between Rogers' values and the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels breathtaking.
So much, he says, for the stereotype of incompetent older drivers!
As a Christian minister, he is passionate about the gospel of grace. His formative experience as a child was of a home life characterized by unconditional love and clear boundaries. In later life, he and his wife, Jean, were to face personal tragedy, while his ministry in urban contexts, mental health chaplaincy and counselling would give him insights into a broad spectrum of human experience and potential.
As a chaplain, he became fascinated by the connections between the Christian theology of grace and the work of American psychologist Carl Rogers, which inspired him to train as a counselor and to explore the connections in his own book, Being There: the Healing Power of Presence.
Michael finds the similarities between Rogers' values and the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels breathtaking.
- Both sought to enable people to grow and to change, not by judging and criticizing but by showing love and acceptance.
- Both started from a positive view of the human spirit and its possibilities and enabled people to see themselves in new light.
- Both have inspired people to become the best they can be, and better than they had imagined possible.
So much, he says, for the stereotype of incompetent older drivers!