Peter Jeffery
Peter Jeffery was born in 1937. In 1955, at the age of 17, he became a Christian — in spite of the fact that the very day he was converted he vowed, ‘I will never become a Christian!’. Peter married his high school sweetheart, Lorna, at the age of 21 and they had their first child two years later. Nine days after the birth the baby died of spina bifida. Though Peter had been preaching since he was 18, this incident was used by God to call Peter into his service. He was ordained to the ministry in 1963 and served as the Minister at Ebenezer Congregational Church in Cwmbran, Wales. In 1972 he accepted a call to Rugby Evangelical Free Church where he ministered until 1986. In 1986 Peter went to Bethlehem Evangelical Church in Port Talbot, South Wales (‘Sandfields’, where Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones had previously ministered), where he pastored until 1994.
Since then he has had an itinerant ministry of preaching and evangelism allowing him to preach at churches and conferences around the world. In 1985, Peter had his first heart attack, followed by a quadruple bypass operation in 1992. In 1995, he was forced to retire from full time work after a second heart attack which resulted in an end to his itinerant ministry. He continued to preach locally most Sundays when his health allowed and used his time to continue writing books. Peter passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family, on 10 August 2017. He had been preaching for more than 50 years. He wrote over forty books, which have been translated into many languages. He left behind his wife and three married children, as well as a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.