Meet the bloggers - Carl Laferton

I am the reigning TGBC fantasy football champion, and also Senior Editor. For someone who is paid to write for a living, I find scribbling these biography things really hard.

Interesting and not-so-interesting things about me:

• I have been a Christian since 2000. I’d been taken (reasonably involuntarily) to church as a child, but when I got to uni there was a guy down my corridor who was a “real” Christian. His lifestyle, and most of all his joy, challenged me, and I started going to his church, heard the gospel, and found the source of my friend’s joy.
• Before joining TGBC 18 months ago, I’d worked as a journalist, a youth pastor, and a teacher (in fact, I retired from teaching on the same day that I qualified as a teacher). So I’ve been quite indecisive career-wise, but looking back I can see that the Lord was using each job to fit me for what I’m doing now.
• I am married to Lizzie, and have a five-week-old son, Benjamin, who is a (tiring) delight. I am now an expert on the anti-leakage properties of Huggies and Pampers nappies…
• I have been banned from Twickenham’s press box (long story…)
• I used to work for a church in west Hull, St Andrew’s Kirk Ella, running the evening service. Hull is a considerably better place than most people think (with great, and cheap, fish and chips).

My role at TGBC involves doing loads of amazing things, and getting paid for it at the end of the month. I edit Explore, Good Book Guides, and various books that are coming out in the next couple of years; I worked on setting up christianityexplored.org, and I’ve written Real Men, Promises Kept, and Christmas Uncut.