Peter was born in Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, on
5th September 1940 and grew up in South Hylton, a village near Sunderland. The
Brumby family were Methodists, though his paternal grandfather was a Salvation
Army captain. Peter was converted through the ministry of the village chapel
but soon sought deeper spiritual teaching. On leaving school, he became an
apprentice electrical engineer and eventually had to move to the south of
England. There he came under the teaching of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and his expository
preaching. This had a profound effect on him as he was then a Methodist lay
preacher considering offering for the Methodist ministry.
Before his Methodist theological training, he spent
two years at the Bible Training Institute, in Glasgow. There he met his future
wife, Jean Purves, daughter of Jock Purves, writer of Covenanting books and a WEC
missionary. They married in 1966. Peter studied at Bible College in Leeds and
Bristol and his first appointment was to the Whitby circuit, in North
Yorkshire, in 1968.
Peter’s arrival in Whitby was at a time when rural
chapels of Methodism were closing. An elderly lady explained to him: “We not
had a gospel ministry here for over forty years, Mr Brumby.”
There were practical obstacles to ministry. Getting
to a service on time in an Esk Valley hamlet depended on the height of the
water in the ford!! Though well equipped to continue itinerant preaching in the
chapels of Yorkshire, Peter’s growing concern was to provide regular
consecutive ministry. He arranged with his superintendent to go against
Methodist convention by preaching for three consecutive Sunday mornings each
month at the same church, Briggswath Methodist Church in Sleights.
An amazing few years followed when God's Spirit
blessed the minstry in that village and many were called by Christ. This became
the talking point in the whole area - something was happening at the Methodist
chapel! But Peter began to be troubled by trends within the Methodist
denomination and felt it was impossible for him to continue in it. He realised
that his doctrinal position had moved firmly to a Reformed position. He left
Whitby in August 1973, to be minister of an English congregation near Fuengirola,
in southern Spain.
Earlier in 1973 a small number of people, several
converted under the Whitby ministry, had covenanted together to begin a new
biblical teaching work. In January 1974, the small congregation called Peter
back from Spain to become the first appointed minister of what would become Whitby
Evangelical Church. The church met in a house and then a village hall and later
Stakesby School in the town. After buying its own premises in Skinner Street in
Whitby in 1981, the church flourished.
Although Peter was always conscious of the
awesomeness of his calling and spent himself unsparingly in the fulfilling of
his commission, he often expressed his own sense of a lack of ability and a
feeling of being ill-equipped for the task. Yet those who sat under his
ministry were aware of no such lack, but rather saw an earthen vessel well
prepared for the work and strategically used by the hand of God. He had a deep
awareness of the preacher’s role in the pulpit and rarely referred to himself.
His preaching was expository, seeking to share the whole counsel of God. He
preached with earnestness and winsomeness.
He was an expert in wielding the sword of the
Spirit to expose hidden and secret sins but that same ministry would lift the
broken hearted and downcast.
Peter had a godly jealousy for the church and a
love for corporate worship. He had a deep conviction of the value of church
membership and the spiritual character of the member’s meeting, its privileges
and its responsibilities. He was undoubtedly a man of prayer. No one saw or
heard him pray in the secret place, but the fruit of those prayers was evident.
His prayers in leading worship were arresting. There was a sense of the
greatness of God, his majesty and holiness and the congregation would be led
into God’s presence but then the prayer would lead on through the grace of
Christ into the sunshine of his love.
During his time at Whitby his concerns for the
North of England and the need to encourage other labourers continued to press
upon him. Peter organised the first North of England Conference for Ministers
and Office Bearers, which was held in Whitby in 1988. Leaders from small
isolated churches and larger congregations met each other for the first time.
The annual conference continues to this day.
In 1990, Peter’s long-felt burden for the North of
England led to his relinquishing the pastorate of Whitby Evangelical Church and
embarking on a wider itinerant role in what became known as the North of
England Ministry. The Whitby church, along with others, supported the
initiative, which was a response to the ongoing cries for help from isolated or
struggling congregations in the dales and on the moors of Yorkshire. Peter’s
wise counsel combined with his godly humility brought a timely reassurance to
many situations.
Another burden on his heart was a desire to develop
leadership skills among young Christians and provide training for a lifetime of
discipleship and service. In 1991, Bill Dyer and he organised Whitby first September
Bible School. Not knowing what the outcome would be, he had an overwhelming
sense of thankfulness that the first School brought in over 70 young people.
With much appreciation from the young people themselves, some of whom entered
into full-time Christian Service, the venture continued to take place each year
under his leadership and still continues. Peter’s own contributions focused
mainly on devotional and pastoral issues to promote Godliness in talks such as ‘Bringing
Our Best in Worship’, ‘Redeeming the Time’‚ ‘The Quiet Time Tradition’, and ‘Temptation:
Don’t be so Naïve!
While he was advising on the development of Newcastle
Evangelical Reformed Church in 1999, he was asked if he would be its pastor. He
accepted, seeking to lay a foundation upon which others would build. Ill health
caused him to step down in July 2003, and he returned to Whitby. He was called
to his true home on Christmas Eve 2003.
Special treasures of God’s grace often accompany
the closing of a dear saint’s life and for Peter Brumby this was no exception.
The verses of Psalm 36:8 ‘You give them drink from the river of your pleasures’
had been the subject of his meditations during the days of his advancing
weakness.
Peter had a fascination with the lives of the Lord’s
servants from previous generations such as John and Charles Wesley and
especially George Whitefield. The study of Whitefield was his great delight:
collecting his writings, researching his letters and even walking his journeys.
It was a fitting tribute that at his funeral, the lines of Charles Wesley’s
great hymn ‘O for a thousand tongues to sing’ sounded out across Whitby, and
not long afterwards, at a bus stop, a local man was heard to remark to a
friend: ‘I was at a funeral the other day at the Evangelical Church, I’ve never
heard singing like it before.’
With thanks to Roger Norris.