Imagine yourself at the Houses of Parliament, where MPs vote on issues concerning the UK. With the building behind you, ziz-zag south-east through the Borough of Westminster. You'll pass historic buildings, like Church House, and Government departments. You'll see a sprinkling of think-tanks and private members' clubs. Soon you'll come to Marsham Street, a road with particular significance in the life of Gerald Coates.
Halfway down Marsham Street, opposite the Home Office, is a church: Emmanuel Evangelical Church. Behind the wrought-iron security gates, and the imposing brick façade, I'm told one finds an impressive interior.
I've found two important connections between Coates and this church. The first occurred in 1997, the year that Princess Diana died.
Coates seems to have spent a lot of his ministry talking about 'revival'. It's a term used in Christian circles to describe an upsurge of fervour for God in a given location. Revival is marked by people becoming Christians in large numbers and by miraculous events such as healings. Spurred by the Toronto Blessing and Brownsville Revival, Coates' talk of revival reached a crescendo in the 1990s.
For many years Pioneer published a quarterly magazine called Compass. Gerald Coates was always listed as the senior figure and often penned articles. In the mid-90s he changed the subtitle of the magazine to "Pointing the way to revival". And it did: every subsequent issue had articles about revival.
It's in this context that Coates began his 'Sowing the Seeds of Revival' meetings in that church on Marsham Street.
1997 - Sowing the Seeds of Revival events
I should say, it's hard to find information from this era. Few churches had websites in 1997, and the media organisations that cover the UK church weren't online.
For a number of years Coates had contact with an American preacher called Dale Gentry. In Only One Life, Gentry's biography, he describes the genesis of the Sowing the Seeds of Revival meetings:
"In 1997, I received a phone call from Gerald Coates, the leader of Pioneer People in England, saying that he had just met with over a hundred leaders. He told me they wanted me to lead a revival in the heart of London, near Parliament. Jean and I accepted the invitation, and we started the revival in June."
(Source: page 155)
He continued:
"We ministered for a month at the Emmanuel Centre on Marsham Street, with Gerald Coates leading the services. Tony and Carol Gemmel were a blessing, hosting Jean and I during that time. Every night, I concluded the service by laying hands on everyone and giving prophetic words. We experienced the glory of God. One night prior to the service, I was praying in [sic] small room, when the word of the Lord came to me saying, “there is a revival on Marsham Street.” We soon had people coming from all over the U.K., Europe, and America."
We should note that these words were written 26 years after the events. They were recalled by the main speaker of the meetings. As such, they may contain inaccuracies and they're likely to have some positive bias.
The Compass issue from the winter of 1997 had an article by Andy Read about the meetings that sheds more light on the involvement of Emmanuel Evangelical Church:
"Coates had met Pastor Chua Wee-Hian, leader of Emmanuel Evangelical Church who actually owns the building - previously the 9th Church of Christ Scientist. 'But to use the centre seemed impossible,' Coates recalled.
'For one thing, the church had only recently bought it. And it wasn't due to be opened for over a month! However, as I discussed the idea - meeting five nights a week in the heart of the capital, to seek God, get right with him and pray for revival in our land - with my advisors and others - the vision began to grow.
Through the trust and faith of Pastor Chua Wee-Hian and his leaders, we were in a position to make the vision a reality. So that's what we did!'"
The nature of the meetings changed after a month:
"Dale Gentry left England for Texas at the beginning of July, publicly passing on the mantle of revival to Gerald Coates,"
According to Read, Emmanuel Church were invested in the meetings:
"It was Emmanuel Church's Pastor Chua Wee-Hian who, towards the end of July, told Pioneer People, 'You've started something now, you can't go, you must not go!' That's added a new aspect to the meetings. The Emmanuel Church is mainly ethnic Chinese and has contacts with other minority ethnic congregations. Many have attended from those communities, bringing a richness and diversity to the gatherings."
(Source for all excerpts: page 15)
According to the Compass article the meetings ran for 4 nights a week. That's a significant investment of time from Coates, who was also leading the Pioneer Network, the Pioneer People church, co-leading March for Jesus and a trustee of Challenge 2000 / Together in Mission at the same time.
Long-time associates of Coates led some of the worship: Dave Bilborough, Sue Rinaldi and Noel Richards. In fact, it was significant enough to inspire music: an album from Bilborough and a song from Rinaldi. Dave Bilborough talked about the events in an interview 12 years later:
"Gerald Coates has [sic] successfully convened Sowing The Seeds Of Revival meetings in London's Marsham Street. They ran for many nights during the week and over a period of many months. Along with my fellow members of the Pioneer team (Noel Richards, Sue Rinaldi, etc) I was regularly invited to lead worship. These were significant times, not only for the congregation but for me personally."
How big were these meetings? The first Compass article claims the meetings were attended by 40,000 in total. An article in the following issue, 3 months later, claims 55,000 by that point.
Is that an inflated figure? There isn't an independent source available for the numbers. There's also no indication that they tracked people who attended multiple times, so it's probably a figure that double-counts many people.
In a 1999 interview extract posted on his website, Bilborough says the meetings lasted for 18 months.
Sadly, some editions of Compass are missing from the Coates Archive:
- Autumn 1998
- Winter 1998/1999
- Spring 1999
Those may have contained articles about the meetings that provided more information.
The last mention we have in Compass is from an article in the Spring 1998 edition. Looking forward, it says:
"Sowing the Seeds of Revival continues in the last week of March with Marc Dupont, Guy Chevreau, Gerald Coates and Martin Scott."
(Source: page 22)
It sounds like in 1998 Coates reduced his involvement, doesn't it? He was no longer speaking at every meeting. It's likely he was still present.
In recent months we've heard disturbing accounts of Gerald Coates' behaviour. And these accounts date back to the 1990s. According to the timeline provided by the investigation:
"Late 1990s - at Cobham Christian Fellowship (CCF) GC became increasingly focused on preaching about homosexuality, pornography, and sex addiction. GC was seen using the ‘holy kiss’ with young men."
(Source: Pioneer Trust Review, page 62)
Was Coates also behaving like this at the Sowing the Seeds of Revival meetings? It was a long-run of events with him as the most powerful figure. He would have had ample opportunity.
Were complaints made about him, and not dealt with properly?
2008 - Fire on Marsham Street events
11 years later, following his stint at Waverley Abbey, the closure of Pioneer People, and the opening of Church in the Theatre, Coates embarked on another series of meetings. He seems to have been inspired by news of the Lakeland Revival in Florida.
In a blog post announcing the venture, he said:
"Then through a further series of “accidents”, the pastor of Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Marsham Street and I met up, and after prayer and discussion sensed that on Thursday July 24th at 7.30pm we should open the doors of the Emmanuel Centre and invite the public in for worship, getting right with God, impartation, fresh anointings and “re-dig the wells” and that’s what we plan to do, by God’s grace, every Thursday until people stop coming or the Holy Spirit moves on."
This time around the meetings were weekly. Do you notice how this sounds like a joint venture?
That approach is evident elsewhere. On the Wayback Machine's archive of the Emmanuel Church website from 2008 we can see a plug for the event:
In a similar archive the church listed the meetings on their own events page:
In this period Pioneer had a new magazine: Library of Lives. As before, Coates held the senior role in the editorial team. And, as before, his archive is missing a number of issues.
An article titled 'Revisiting Revival' in Issue 12 of Library of Lives provided information about the meetings:
"In partnership with Emmanuel Centre pastor Wee Hian Chua, he is staging weekly meetings for ‘worship, prayer, healing and getting right with God’."
(Source: page 4)
Notice the phrase 'in partnership'.
Coates and Chua set up a website for the event: www.fireonmarshamstreet.com . It's no longer online, but can be viewed via the Wayback Machine. In the December 2008 archive we learn about another partner: Premier Radio.
That's interesting. Premier Christianity didn't mention the involvement of their sister company with Coates in their coverage of the investigation. Perhaps the current staff were unaware of the involvement?
The following year, an article from Church Times about the leader of the Lakeland Revival gave an overview of the events at Emmanuel Evangelical Church:
"Gerald Coates, of Pioneer, said: “Something went terribly wrong at Lakeland.” His own revival meetings at the Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, London, flourished for 18 weeks, and ended on 27 November 2008. For the first nine weeks, they were attracting between 700 and 900 people a night, and, initially, what happened at Lakeland did not appear to affect attendance. But a later fall in numbers, which may simply indicate that the Fire had run its course, could be attributable to the repercussions, he acknowledges."
The Fire on Marsham Street events happened in 2008. Let's turn back to the investigation into Coates. According to the timeline in the independent investigation there are some reports from this period:
"Aug 2003 – a young man is picked out by GC at a non-Pioneer Christian festival or conference. Ongoing contact is maintained culminating in the man moving in next door to GC."
and
"2005 – GC reaches out to a teenage boy via Facebook (FB)"
Was Coates behaving in the same way towards attendees of the Fire on Marsham Street meetings? 18 weeks of meetings would have provided ample opportunities for him to do so.
Looking at the comments below the blog posts about the meetings, Coates seemed strangely concerned with the ages of the commenters:
Will Emmanuel Evangelical Church investigate their involvement with Coates? Did they receive complaints about his behaviour at the time? Did staff observe any of the behaviours referenced in the Pioneer report?
One would feel more reassured if the Church had signposted the investigation into Coates. Or if they had issued a statement about the findings. Neither of those things has happened.
More Gerald Coates Blogs
The Gerald Coates report is only half the story
The troubling behaviour of Gerald Coates… did it also happen at Waverley Abbey?
