Ian Fulcher
Ian is our Senior Minister and is married to Heather, and they have three girls who have all flown the nest. They moved to NBC in September 2007 after living in Rhyl, North Wales for nearly 12 years and immediately prior to that, Leeds.
Here we are in Ecuador when we led a mission team from church in August 2009 through Baptist World Mission.
Heather is a physiotherapist who has worked in a variety of hospital posts but latterly for quite a number of years in an Intermediate Care Team based in Abergele. When they moved to Norton she gave up physiotherapy to serve with Ian in the church where she is involved in a number of ministries including heading up the Pastoral Team.
Ian has followed an unusal career path in that he originally trained and worked as a research scientist working at the University of Leeds in renal biochemistry and physiology. He was awarded his Ph.D in this field in 1983. In 1986 he left academic research, much to the surprise of many, and joined West Yorkshire Police as a police officer. He worked in Leeds in both uniform and CID, specialising in intelligence work.
In 1993 he answered a call to pastoral ministry and left the police to train at Spurgeon's College, London, for two years. During this time and as part of the course he worked part-time as a student Pastor at Moortown Baptist Church in Leeds under the Revd. Stephen Ibbotson. In 1995 he was ordained at Moortown and in February 1996 answered a call to serve as Minister at Rhyl Baptist Church in North Wales. In 1998 the church planted another church in Rhyl, Grapevine Christian Church, using a Cell Church model and Ian left the mother church to help establish the new church plant headed up by one of the former Elders, Dr. Martyn Cooling.
During this time Ian returned to secular work whilst serving in non-stipendary Baptist ministry and worked again in policing with North Wales Police, initially as an Intelligence Officer and then as a uniform police sergeant. He did a variety of roles covering both rural and urban policing. The last four years of his service was as a Staff Officer to the Chief Constable's ACPO team which also involved managing a number of national police portfolios for which the chief officers were the national ACPO lead. These included UK Search & Rescue, National Police Driver Training and Police Pursuits, Diseases of Animals and some intelligence matters.
Grapevine came to an end in 2005 but Ian and Heather were not free to move at that time due to their youngest daughter just having started her 'A' levels. In September 2007 they answered a call to Norton Baptist Church and Ian left the police for the second (and last!) time to return to full-time pastoral ministry. A very unusual path to ministry but one which equips for the most difficult pastoral situations!
They both enjoy walking, cycling, campingand keeping on top of the vegetable and flower gardens! They also have a Welsh Border Collie called Zaccs and a cat called Kizzie who are both 15 years old this year (2011)!
