The Profile

Helen Thorne-Allenson is Director of Training and Resources at Biblical Counselling UK, where she helps churches to offer compassionate and theologically grounded care to those who are struggling.

She's worked with London City Mission and is an experienced speaker and counsellor, known for tackling difficult pastoral topics like mental health issues, domestic abuse, anxiety and sexual purity with honesty and Gospel hope.

She is the author of several books, including Hope in an Anxious World, Walking with Domestic Abuse Sufferers, 5 Things to Pray for a Suffering Friend, Purity Is Possible, and Mental Health and Your Church: A Handbook for Biblical Care, co-written with Dr Steve Midgley.

Her latest book, A Church That Cares: A Biblical Guide to Loving One Another Well, is out now and continues her focus on helping congregations to support one another through life's hardest seasons.

In this episode of The Profile she talks to Premier Christianity's AJ Gomez about her conversion to Christianity as a young woman, how you can tell if a church is fostering an emotionally open culture and what it was like marrying for the first time in her fifties.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK's leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity

At 16-years-old Terry Virgo became a Christian through his sister during the years of Billy Graham’s greatest impact on Britain. He went on to train at London Bible College at a time of the charismatic movement of the 1960s. It shaped his early faith and ministry.

Virgo spent 11 years leading an Evangelical Free Church in East Sussex, before moving to Brighton in 1979. From there a network grew into what became Newfrontiers, a movement that sought to combine Biblical principles whilst being open to the Holy Spirit. It now has more than 1,500 congregations in over 70 countries.

In this episode of The Profile Premier Christianity Editor Sam Hailes talks to him about his first experiences of becoming a Christian, how the Holy Spirit changed him and how being "born of the Spirit" is an idea that cuts right to the heart of Christianity.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK's leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

Bishop of Kensington and acting Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Dr Emma Ineson has spent more than 25 years in ordained ministry and now holdsone of the Church of England's highest-ranking posts.

She began with a curacy in the Diocese of Sheffield, moved on to the Lee Abbey community in Devon as a chaplain, and then spent years training the next generation of clergy at Trinity College, Bristol.

She became Principal of Trinity College in 2014, and in 2019 she was consecrated Bishop of Penrith in the Diocese of Carlisle. In 2021 she moved to Lambeth Palace as Bishop to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. In 2023 she became Bishop of Kensington, and since October 2025 she has also served as acting Bishop of London.

As well as a bishop, Ineson is also an author. Her 2019 book Ambition looks at what Jesus said about power and success, while Failure was the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent book for 2023. Her latest book is Middling: What Jesus Said About Perspective, Being Between Things and Not Yet Knowing Stuff

In this episode of The Profile she talks to Deputy Editor of Premier Christianity Magazine Emma Fowle about never knowing a time when 'Jesus didn't love me," what her journey has been like to become a female bishop and her latest book which treasures the 'middle' of things.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK's leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

Theology and National Director of Alpha UK, Chloe Swart was raised as a pastor's child, she had early exposure to stories of faith and the miraculous through her parents, an influence that shaped her later academic and ministry work.

Chloe holds a PhD in theology, where she studied healing miracles in Wales. Sending out questionnaires, she gathered testimonies from over 600 people who reported physical healing.

Her research found that healings typically came through prayer from an ordinary friend, colleague or family member rather than a senior leader outside church buildings, and that while 40% of accounts involved life-threatening conditions, 60% concerned everyday ailments like arthritis or sciatica.

In 2026, Chloe published 605 Everyday Miracles: Learning to Do What Jesus Did, Today (IVP), drawing on her research to help readers pray more boldly and live out an everyday faith of healing.

In this episode of The Profile she talks to Premier Christianity journalist AJ Gomez about her experience of studying those who've been healed and bringing Jesus's healing into people's lives herself.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK's leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

Canon Yvonne Tulloch was born into a Christian Brethren household and grew up attending church several times a day. From a young age she had a close relationship with God, married as a teenager, trained as a secretary but with her heart set on missionary work.

Following a series of powerful visions she felt God call her to ministry despite the fact that as a woman at that time, she was barred from entering. But she did go on to become an Anglican church minister and by 2008 was serving as a Cathedral canon.

Tulloch's later work in bereavement support grew directly out of personal tragedy when she was suddenly widowed following her husband's heart attack, a loss that upended her life. Within a few months she went from being high-functioning to facing job loss, home loss, and suicidal thoughts.

The experience taught her something she felt society as a whole had failed to grasp: that grief is poorly understood, and bereavement support in the UK was fragmented.

She began consulting with bereavement charity leaders in 2015 about creating a single, trusted place bereaved people could find the right support for their circumstances and the experience led to AtaLoss, a UK wide bereavement charity: raising awareness of bereavement issues; signposting to support; and equipping community support, in particular The Bereavement Journey run by churches in hundreds of locations across the UK.

In this episode of The Profile Tulloch speaks to Premier Christianity editor Sam Hailes about her childhood, her dramatic call to new mission and how the loss of her husband led to this new chapter where God is at work in churches growing and people coming to faith.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK's leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

British entrepreneur and Christian philanthropist Peter Vardy leads the Vardy Group, the automotive dealership business built by his family over three generations. Now 47, he is the son of Sir Peter Vardy, whose Sunday Times Rich List fortune is estimated at around £140 million.

Like his father before him, Vardy has shaped the family business according to his faith. It's one that was delivered to him as a child in a simple and direct way|: God loves you, look what he has done.

In his own business, every employee, from CEO to cleaner, wears the same uniform, reflecting his conviction that all staff hold equal value in God's eyes. He also made the contentious decision to close showrooms on Sundays, a policy that proved commercially successful despite early scepticism.

Alongside his father, Vardy is a prominent philanthropist. The Peter Vardy Foundation funds numerous Christian charities and ministries, including Premier, Alpha and The Message Trust.

In this episode of The Profile he speaks to Premier Christianity editor Sam Hailes about his favourite car (it's a BMW 507), the divisions within the Church and the power of hard work.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK’s leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

As a child, Lebanese-born broadcaster Rita El-Mounayer had first-hand experience of war. Both her parents were Christians, but came from different traditions. After her mother died, her father used to distract his family from the violence outside by hooking up a car battery and turning on a black-and-white TV. It fostered a lifelong interest in broadcasting and how powerful it could be.

El-Mounayer began her career studying History and Social Science at the Lebanese University in Beirut later training in communications. In 1996 she became the first presenter to appear on screen for SAT-7 when it launched with a two-hour weekly Arabic broadcast, hosting its debut programme Ears of Wheat which ran for twelve years and became one of the channel's most successful shows.

Later her role expanded to Programming Director for SAT-7's children's programmes when she launched SAT-7 KIDS, becoming the much-loved host of Bedtime Stories with Rita.

SAT-7 is the oldest and largest Christian satellite broadcaster in the Middle East and North Africa. It broadcasts free-to-air across 25 countries in the region and around 50 countries in Europe.

In this episode of The Profile she talks to Premier Christianity magazine journalist AJ Gomez about her childhood living under conflict, the honour she has had in broadcasting and working with children and who Jesus means to her.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK's leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

British Theologian and Apologist Dr. Amy Orr-Ewing began her early academic work at Oxford and holds a doctorate there in theology, later serving as President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

Her faith has shaped a career spent defending Christianity's intellectual credibility to sceptics, students and secular audiences worldwide, from university campuses to the UK Parliament and US Capitol Hill and in 1996 it took her to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, smuggling Bibles and engaging Islamic leaders in dialogue about faith.

She has authored several books, including the bestselling Why Trust the Bible? and her more recent Forgiveness, Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear.

In this episode of The Profile she talks to Premier Christianity's deputy editor Emma Fowle about early attempts of academics to dissuade her from her faith, receiving death threats in Peckham and the weaponisation of forgiveness.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK’s leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

WayMaker founder Andy Robinson grew up in a Christian household in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, describing Jesus as just 'always there'. As a younger teenager he took the opportunity to forge his own unique relationship with God and consciously became a Christian, deciding to dedicate his life to Christ.

He went on to have a family and a successful career in software, and, at the same time volunteered as a youth leader at Lifespring Church, later linked to Brighton Road Baptist Church in Horsham and went on to became a church leader.

In January 2023 Robinson was diagnosed with terminal stage 4 bowel cancer, given two to three years to live, a prognosis he has since outlived. Adopting the motto "The Big C in Me - Christ in me, not cancer," he wrote the 2023 memoir of that title, followed by a second book, The Thread.

Robinson also founded WayMaker, an international development charity which operates in Africa.

In this episode of The Profile he talks to Premier Christianity journalist AJ Gomez about what his relationship with God is like whilst living with a terminal illness, how he received a greater peace upon hearing the initial news and why he's stopped thinking 'why me' and now asks 'what's next?'

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK’s leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.

Cris Rogers is an 'urban theologian' best known for reviving church life on one of East London's toughest estates. He was born and grew up in a working-class environment in West Yorkshire and studied art before moving onto theology at Trinity College, Bristol, and later King's College London.

He became a priest in 2008 and was among the first clergy commissioned specifically to the Church of England's newly created "pioneer minister" track for planting churches in non-traditional settings.

In 2010, he and his wife Beki moved to Tower Hamlets to take on All Hallows Church in Bow, then down to around seven members. Under his leadership the church grew into a diverse, deeply rooted estate congregation.

Rogers has become a leading voice on Church planting in working-class contexts, arguing that no single model transfers between neighbourhoods and that planters must work "shoulder-to-shoulder" with residents rather than arrive as outside saviours. He champions small, relational congregations, incarnational mission rooted in local need, and multi-ethnic inclusion, while warning against imported megachurch or multisite models that can alienate working-class communities.

In this episode of The Profile he talks about his latest book: Positive Urban Theology: Finding God in the Grit and Glory of the City, realising that his humble beginnings were exactly what God had made him and how the 'social credit' of housing estates is close to heaven and the early church.

The Profile is brought to you by Premier Christianity, the UK’s leading Christian magazine. Enjoy thought-provoking Christian content, including the latest news, inspiring interviews, and exclusive commentary on all that God is doing in the world today. Grab the next 3 issues for just £6. Subscribe today at premierchristianity.com/subscribe.