Lifestyle Christianity – Christian Counterculture

Michael Westwood Carr

Michael Carr is now semi-retired and although he does not lead a church, he preaches wherever invited. His last full-time calling was as the pioneering senior minister of the Harrow International Christian Centre, which he founded on 6th December 1987, in the Safari Cinema, Station Road, Harrow, Middlesex. Before that, he ran a house group in his home, in North Wembley, which grew to 50 with 35 in attendance in one year. The house was full! Concurrently, he was the associate minister at Kensington Temple, Elim’s premier church in London, and bishop of the metropolitan region for Elim. He resigned from both those positions to run HICC, which has grown into a flourishing Pentecostal Church of some 50 nations, and several hundred people mingling in joyous harmony. He was born in 1934 into a working-class household and attended a local college to become a mechanical engineer, but changed to civil engineering and building. He completed his BSc in construction technology at Aston University in Birmingham, and eventually entered the lecturing profession when he was 37 because his first wife became critically ill. He gained his MPhil degree at Reading University in estate management and became the subject tutor for three degrees in building studies when Birmingham Polytechnic became the University of Central England. He pioneered his first church when he was 25 in Kings Heath, Birmingham, and built two church buildings, and resigned from that work soon after he entered lecturing. He ran his own radio programme at peak listening time called “Your Home” for Radio Birmingham, which dealt with defects and problems in buildings. He was an MCIOB (Member Chartered Institute of Building) and could handle most questions asked, even without the specialist members of the panel, which he organised. He retired at 50 in 1984 from lecturing and was inducted as the associate minister to Rev Wynne Lewis at Kensington Temple, the leading and largest church in the metropolis. Before this, he was the associate of David Carr, his younger brother, who founded Renewal Christian Centre, Solihull. Whilst living there, he became chairman of the churches – all together in Solihull. He was also the representative for all the Pentecostal churches in the West Midlands on SACRE (Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education) for religious studies in schools. In London, he was appointed leader of all the men’s groups for participating churches in the last Billy Graham Crusade held in the metropolis. As superintendent for Elim, he pastored, taught and managed 55 churches, ministers and their elders making approximately 400 leaders. Coming out of the building industry, he relates to men in particular. Whilst carrying out these anointed callings, he also had time to take his doctorate in ministry, and thus fulfil his overall education having never attended Bible college. He relies on God’s Spirit to underline and underscore his teaching. He was, however, the lecturer in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit at Reagents Bible College for Elim for several years. He has three adult children, his eldest son is a qualified architect and dean of Battersea for the Anglican Church, his second son is a doctor in New Zealand, and his daughter is a fashion designer and consultant specialist in kitchen design. His first wife, Patricia, died in January 2014 and was senior pastor of the church in Harrow. Together they have forged God’s kingdom wherever they went, and complemented each other in their passion and desire to see Christ exalted above all other.