Colin Patterson joined the Bridge Builders team in October 2005 and is the only Geordie on the staff of the London Mennonite Centre. As a boy he developed an abiding love of reading, music and outdoor activities, and committed himself to Jesus at the age of thirteen. Once Colin’s mother considered him old enough to possess a Bunsen burner, he started to grow crystals and cause explosions, and ended up teaching chemistry in a school in Bristol for nine years.

In 1980 he married Rosie and instantly became related to about quarter of the population of New Zealand. By 1986 a father of two boys (Jonathan and Campbell), he discovered that raising his own children is more demanding than teaching other people’s - but also more rewarding. Visit the Patterson home in Durham and you trip over musical instruments, books, half-finished paintings, walking boots and cats. You may get sucked into fiercely competitive board games.

Colin describes himself as a reluctant leader. As a self-conscious teenager he found himself up front because he could play the accordion, and pushed into giving talks at Christian Union meetings because somebody had to do it. So began a series of nudges from God, tests of faith that eventually led to ordination in the Church of England.

That brought six years of ministry in deprived areas, first in Blackburn then in Darlington, with important lessons about communicating the Christian faith in a non-book culture, amidst tensions in the church and in the local community. Colin became convinced that the church should put more energy into equipping its members to be ministers of the kingdom of God. He spent twelve years as a diocesan training officer, which involved running a nine-month-long discipleship course, helping churches to set up ministry teams, and training people to manage change.

Having worked with over a hundred different churches, Colin reckons he has seen a fair sample of conflict, much of it not handled well. In the year 2000, aware of a need for training in this area, he discovered Bridge Builders, undertook a five-day course in skills of mediation and facilitation, and learned to stop hiding from confrontation. Since then his ministry has increasingly focused on peace-making and training others to deal with disagreements constructively. He is the author of the Grove booklet How to Learn Through Conflict.

With the rest of his life, Colin wants to learn more about facing conflict with faith and courage, to delight in the family and friends God has given him, and to write music and books.