Acerbic.  Obsequious.  Indefatigable.  These are all big words.  But what do they have to do with John David Book, III?  I don’t know.

But if you’re like me, and I know I am, then you want to know more about the mystery that is John.  Which is weird, since this is him writing.  So you’d think he…I…would know about myself.  Himself.

The facts are plain: born deep in the heart of Kentucky, John is the son of a pastor/teacher.  After tumultuous years spent being a teenager in Vermont, John moved to Texas to attend Baylor University, studying film and television with a dream of directing Christian Rock videos, a dream that came to him in the bathroom of the Baptist Student Center one day when he realized that he didn’t have any idea what to do with his life.

Okay, so maybe the facts aren’t all that plain.  Moving ahead, we see that John had his life radically transformed by the love of God and the power of God during his third year at uni.  It turned his world upside-down, and the only thing he could think to do was to give his life to the cause of Christ.  This led him to a missions training school, time spent as a teacher reaching out to secondary school kids who needed revelation that God actually liked them, and 3 years in Central Asia planting a church in a Muslim city.

He married the amazingly gorgeous Ira, who is from that country, and dreamed of soon moving from there to the UK to plant a church among the English, with whom John felt an affinity, as he was mostly raised in New England, the section of the USA that most wishes it was actually still British.  God’s path was a bit more circuitous, but finally in early 2009 John, Ira, and their sassy daughter Nadia landed in Sheffield (well, Manchester, actually, and then they drove…), where John promptly was sick on the side of the road somewhere in Rivelin Valley.

But he soon felt better, and then his work at Antioch Sheffield began.  John, you may be surprised to discover if your only experience with him is reading this, is one of the elders of the church, and leads the School of Transformation.  He and his wife also help lead the Young Professionals ministry, and both have a heart for reaching the many Muslims in the city and volunteer at various services for Sheffield’s asylum-seeker community.  He and his wife have also recently had a son, Joshua Danil.

Besides that all-encompassing love for knowing God and spreading His glory, John also gets excited about quality, passionate music (not that bleepy-bloopy stuff Donnelly listens to), and travel/exploration.  (He’s been to 21 countries, if you count Vatican City as separate from Italy.  24 if you also count the airports in Switzerland, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.)  You could also easily draw him into a conversation about Lost, Community, or a good book.

He would also love to show you a picture of his amazing kids.

If you ask him about the pants-wetting incident at the baseball game, he will deny everything.