James Tredgett has worked as an evangelist for London City Mission since 2014.
ET: James, tell us about your background
JT: I was born and raised in northeast Essex. I was ‘dragged’ along to church as a kid, but never really got along with it. I grew up thinking and asking a lot of questions about life, but I also felt like a lot of hypocrisy was in church. One of my relatives would go regularly, but I was aware that he kept up a hidden life of pornography use behind the scenes. This troubled me from a young age.
Aged 16, I joined the Army; I didn’t stay for long, then fell into a job fitting windows and doors around Essex. I then got a job in security work at bars and clubs in Ipswich – a bouncer, in other words. I also drifted into a life of drink and drug abuse, as well as promiscuity.
I lived this way for about three years, but all along there was a ‘hole’ in my heart – a sense that something was missing; lasting happiness and fulfilment kept eluding me, despite my pursuit of pleasures. Eventually, I reached rock bottom after a messy relationship break-up. I was brought to my knees. One of my brothers suggested I try church – that I had nothing to lose, but that it could make all the difference.
