| John Affleck |
|
John Affleck survived an abused childhood only to become a violent and restless adult. His former headmaster has told his mother that ‘Your son is useless; his life will never amount to anything. He will probably end up sleeping in a ditch.’ CHALLENGE INTERVIEW
‘I came to a point in my life when I was morally, spiritually and financially bankrupt... I called out to God with the following thought, ‘To hell with it, I will give my life to J...’ I just got the ‘J...’ of Jesus out, when at that instant God met me; He saved me and loved me. I realised that all I ever really wanted in life was to be accepted and loved. 
he felt drawn to read the book that he had rejected in his prison cell. 
‘I soon realised there was nothing available that guides you through the stories of the Bible in a simple way,’ he explained. He felt ‘inspired’ to devise Bible games and a picture Bible. But the odds seemed stacked against him. ‘I had no Bible knowledge, no artwork skills, no story lines, no money and having never read a book in my life, and with no love or understanding of games or business, I set out on this mammoth task,’ he tells Challenge readers. His first task was to employ an artist. John knew what he wanted the pictures to look like. He used matchstick doodles to brief the illustrator who produced the first 300 pictures for what was to become The Glory Story – a ‘talking’ Bible. To complete the task, John made some phone calls to other Christian illustrators. He left an answer machine message for one contact. Not realising he’d misdialled the number John takes up the story. ‘The chap rang back saying I must have the wrong phone number. Then he asked me what I was doing and I explained about the talking Bible. He said “well, if it’s Bible pictures you want, my boy, you better come and see me.” And we did go and see this chap Bernard Norris. Bernard had collected Bible pictures all his life. That’s where the rest of the pictures came from.’ John spent thousands of hours putting the pictures together with his straightforward Bible text. ‘You have to realise that when I became a Christian I was Bible illiterate. I was learning the Bible as I went. Because I don’t come from a strict theological background, I felt I had the freedom to keep cutting the script back till there was just the spine of the Bible story. Once you know the big picture then you can start putting the meat on the bones.’ His initial plan was to make the books available with accompanying tapes which told the Bible story. Where appropriate, the tapes could then be recorded in other languages, to make the talking Bible available to a wider audience. But technology moved on to MP3 files, DVDs and downloadable images. After 12 years hard work, John had to rethink how he would take the ‘talking Bible’ into the 21st century. ‘Then one day, in a flash of inspiration, I saw I could make a film of the whole Bible in chronological order – The Glory Story. The rest, as they say, is history.’ The Glory Story gives an overview of the Bible on just two DVDs. The 20 x 6 minute chapters last just two hours using all of the books from the Bible, which connect together to make just one story. The Glory Story uses around 1500 colourful illustrations and the text is narrated by actor Andrew Harrison. To date The Glory Story is being used in at least 30 different countries, Wycliffe the Bible translators and other international mission organisations are translating the film into many of the world’s languages. John is happy to retell his story and to making The Glory Story widely available. To book John to share his inspirational testimony with your group This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call Tel. 07977 309393.
The website www.TheGloryStory.com gives full details. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|