While researching the background of a new book (to be released in February 2025) I discovered the story of Pastor Dick Lucas and The Proclamation Trust.
This video (above) documents a few interesting chapters the history of St Helen’s Church in London’s financial district and the founding of the Proclamation Trust, primarily through interviews with Dick Lucas, Andrew Green, and David Jackman.
Proclamation Trust Formation – Video Summary
- In the 1950s, Dick Lucas was appointed to St Helen’s Church, which was located in London’s financial district where church attendance among men was very low. His appointment came after a memorable interview where his success at filling another city church was noted.
- The church began holding Tuesday lunchtime services, which became extremely successful. They offered quality sandwiches and biblical teaching, eventually attracting 600-700 people regularly. Lucas continued these services for 37 years.
- Ronnie Wilcox emerged as a key figure – a successful businessman who became a “gospel patron,” supporting Lucas’s ministry. He’s described as a generous city gentleman with instinctive wisdom, though humorously noted as not being a good automobile driver.
- In the 1980s, Lucas recognized a need for training new preachers in Biblical ministry. With initial funding of £50,000 (including £25,000 from Ronnie Wilcox), they established the Proclamation Trust.
- The Proclamation Trust started the Cornhill Training Course with 15 students initially. Over time, it has trained more than 1,500 people who have gone on to preach worldwide. Andrew Green claims that (besides Billy Graham), Dick Lucas has put more people in pulpits worldwide than anyone else through St Helen’s and the Proclamation Trust.
- The video emphasizes the importance of both capable preachers and generous patrons in supporting gospel ministry, using the partnership between Dick Lucas and Ronnie Wilcox as an example of how this can bear fruit over generations.
Founding of the Proclamation Trust
Background: Dick Lucas and Jonathan Fletcher held a conference on expository preaching in the summer of 1981. About forty men attended. Lucas served as Rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate. Fletcher worked as his curate.
They organized a larger conference in 1984. People called it the Evangelical Ministry Assembly (EMA). The Proclamation Trust (PT) was formed in May 1986. They created it to honor Dick Lucas’s 25 years of Bible teaching at St Helen’s.
David Jackman joined PT in 1991. He had previously led Above Bar Church in Southampton. Jackman started the Cornhill Training Course. The course trains about 90 students each year for ministry roles.
PT runs many programs. These include residential conferences for ministers, theological students, lay preachers, and ministers’ wives. PT provides training across the UK and worldwide.
The Proclamation Trust now focuses on two main activities. It runs the annual Evangelical Ministry Assembly. It also operates the Cornhill Training Course. The EMA attracts almost 1,000 ministry delegates each year. World-renowned speakers have presented there. These include Don Carson, John Chapman, Os Guiness, Jim (J.I.) Packer, John Stott, Phillip Jensen, Sinclair Ferguson, John Piper, and Tim Keller.
Critique: Cracks in the Foundation?
There are many positive aspects to the ministry of PT. Nevertheless, some criticism of it’s ministry has emerged in recent years. An article in the New Calvinist said:
“While claiming to be reformed and biblically driven, the Proclamation Trust, in contradiction of the great reformed Confessions of Faith … promotes the dogma of theistic evolution. The result is that most churches influenced by PT hold to a theistic evolution view of creation. Few students who have completed the Cornhill training course are prepared to defend the biblical view of 6-day creation, for they have been taught that the early chapters of Genesis are poetic, and therefore cannot be taken literally. Some no longer even believe that Adam and Eve were actual people. How they make sense of Romans 5.14-21, and 1 Corinthians 15.45 is a mystery.”