Team Detail

BA, MPhil, PhD, FRHistS

Contact Peter: mordenp@bristol-baptist.ac.uk

Before becoming Principal, Peter was Minister / Team Leader of a multi-site church in Leeds. Previously to this, he was on the staff of Spurgeon’s College for ten years, latterly as Vice Principal and Director of Training. Peter has a passion for missional discipleship and for training, releasing and supporting new generations of church planters, pioneers, and pastors. He is also passionate about equipping the whole people of God for the work of mission and ministry. He is well travelled and has preached and lectured in a number of different countries, including Ghana, the United States, and South Korea. He is a trustee of the West of England Baptist Network, sits on the Theological Advisory Group of the Evangelical Alliance, and is a member of the continuation committee of the International Conference of Baptist Studies.

His doctoral work was on the spirituality of the nineteenth-century preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, and he has published widely in the fields of Baptist and evangelical history and spirituality, with a particular interest in the intersection between spirituality, discipleship and mission. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Peter is married to Cheryl and enjoys friendship, family, walking and anything to do with sport.

Research Interests:

Evangelical and Baptist history, with particular interest in the theology of Andrew Fuller and other eighteenth-century Baptists in his circle; the nineteenth-century preacher C.H. Spurgeon; the interface between discipleship, history, and mission; and spirituality, especially missional spirituality.

Publications include:

Books:

The Message of Discipleship: Following Jesus in Today’s World (London: Inter-Varsity Press [Bible Speaks Today], 2018)

With Ruth J. Broomhall, ‘To Be a Pilgrim’: 40 Days with the Pilgrim’s Progress (Farnham: CWR, 2016)

The Life and Thought of Andrew Fuller, 1754-1815 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2015)

‘Communion with Christ and his People’: The Spirituality of C.H. Spurgeon (1834-92) (Oxford: Regent’s Park College, 2010 / Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014)

John Bunyan: The People’s Pilgrim (Farnham: CWR, 2013) (Also published as John Bunyan: The People’s Pilgrim [Korean edn.] (Seoul: Duranno, 2016)

C.H. Spurgeon: The People’s Preacher (Farnham: CWR, 2009) (Also published as Predicatorul Poporolui: C.H. Spurgeon, trans. Emanuela Geabou [Bucharest: Uniunea Baptista din Romania, 2011]) 

Offering Christ to the World: Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) and the Revival of Eighteenth-Century Particular Baptist Life (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2003)

Edited Volumes:

Andrew Fuller on Missions, edited text with 30,000-word introduction (Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2023)

With Stephen Copson, Challenge and Change: English Baptist Life in the Eighteenth Century (Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, 2017)

With Anthony R. Cross and Ian M. Randall, Pathways and Patterns in History: Essays on Baptists, Evangelicals and the Modern World in Honour of David Bebbington (London: Baptist Historical Society and Spurgeon’s College, 2015 / Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2020)

With Pieter J. Lalleman and Anthony R. Cross, Grounded in Grace: Essays to Honour Ian M. Randall (London: Spurgeon’s College and Baptist Historical Society, 2013 / Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2020)

Select Articles and Chapters in Books

‘‘Be reconciled to trying disciplines’: Andrew Fuller’s Pastorate at Soham, 1775-82’, Journal of Andrew Fuller Studies, 1.1 (September 2020), 31-45

‘The Holy Spirit and Holiness in the Ministry of C.H. Spurgeon’, in Johnson T.K. Lim (ed.), Holy Spirit: Scripture, Sermon, Society (Singapore: Armour/Word N Works, 2018), 185-93

‘Andrew Fuller and the Revival of Eighteenth-Century Particular Baptist Life’, in William J. Pitts (eds), Baptists and Revivals: Papers from the Seventh International Conference of Baptist Studies (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2018), 141-59

‘Evangelical Spirituality’, in Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones (eds), Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism (Farnham: Routledge, 2018), 57-72

‘Continuity and Change: Particular Baptists in the Long Eighteenth Century (1689-1815)’, in Stephen Copson and Peter J. Morden (eds), Challenge and Change: English Baptist Life in the Eighteenth Century (Didcot: Baptist Historical Society, 2017), 1-28

‘Continuity and Change: Particular Baptists in the ‘Long Eighteenth Century’ (1689-1815)’, International Congregational Journal, 15.1 (Summer 2016), 1-30

Articles on ‘Assurance’, 72-73, ‘Andrew Fuller’, 354-55, and ‘John Gill’, 363, in Martin Davie, Tim Grass et al (eds), The New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016)

‘Samuel Pearce (1766-99): An Example of Missional Spirituality’, Evangelical Review of Theology, 40.1 (January 2016), 14-27

With Ruth J. Broomhall, ‘‘The Pentecostal Wind and Fire’: The Holy Spirit in the Preaching of C.H. Spurgeon’, in Johnson T.K. Lim (ed.), The Holy Spirit: An Unfinished Agenda (Singapore: Armour / Word N Works, 2015), 299-304

‘‘The Forgotten Spurgeon’: A Reappraisal of the Life and Ministry of James Archer Spurgeon (1837-99)’, in Anthony R. Cross, Peter J. Morden and Ian M. Randall (eds), Pathways and Patterns in History: Essays on Baptists, Evangelicals and the Modern World in Honour of David Bebbington (London: Baptist Historical Society / Spurgeon’s College, 2015), 99-121

‘Andrew Fuller and the Birth of ‘Fullerism’’, Baptist Quarterly, 46.4 (October 2015), 1–13

‘The Bible for the Masses: The Popular Preaching of C.H. Spurgeon’, in Ian D. Stackhouse and Oliver R. Crisp (eds), Text Message: Preaching Scripture in a Multi-Media Age (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2014), 100-16

John Bunyan: A Seventeenth-Century Evangelical?’, in Pieter J. Lalleman, Peter J. Morden and Anthony R. Cross (eds), Grounded in Grace: Essays to Honour Ian M. Randall (London: Spurgeon’s College / Baptist Historical Society, 2013), 33-52

‘‘So valuable a life…’: A Biographical Sketch of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815)’, Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, 17.1 (Spring 2013), 4-14

‘Nonconformists and the Work of Christ: A Study in Particular Baptist Thought’, in Robert Pope (ed.), T. & T. Clark Companion to Nonconformity (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2013), 185-212

Biographical articles on ‘John Bunyan’, 552-53, ‘Andrew Fuller’, 604-605, ‘John Gill’, 606-607, ‘John Ryland Jr.’, 669-70, and ‘Anne Steele’, 684-86, in Robert Pope (ed.), T. & T. Clark Companion to Nonconformity (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2013)

‘C.H. Spurgeon and Prayer’, Evangelical Quarterly, 84.4 (October 2012), 323-44

‘The 2010 J.D. Hughey Lectures: The Spirituality of C.H. Spurgeon’: ‘I. Establishing Communion: A Convertive Piety’; ‘II. Maintaining Communion: The Lord’s Supper’; ‘III. The Outworking of Communion: Active Exertion’, Baptistic Theologies, 4.1 (Spring 2012), 1-80

‘C.H. Spurgeon and Suffering’, Evangelical Review of Theology, 35.4 (Autumn 2011), 306-325

‘Andrew Fuller and The Gospel Worthy of Acceptation’, in John H.Y. Briggs (ed.), Pulpit and People: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Baptist Life and Thought (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009), 128-151

‘The Lord’s Supper and the Spirituality of C.H. Spurgeon’, in Anthony R. Cross & Philip E. Thompson (eds), Baptist Sacramentalism 2 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), 175-196

Other:

‘Philippians’ in Encounter with God Bible Reading Notes (Bletchley: Scripture Union, September 2022)

‘1 Corinthians 9-16’ in Encounter with God Bible Reading Notes (Bletchley: Scripture Union, September 2021)

‘2 Corinthians’ in Encounter with God Bible Reading Notes (Bletchley: Scripture Union, August 2019)

Historical consultant for drama documentary, John Bunyan – The People’s Pilgrim (Farnham: CWR / Christian Television Association, 2016)

Growing Together with The People’s Preacher: C.H. Spurgeon (Home Group study notes and DVD resource) (Farnham: CWR, 2010)