Peter Horrobin is the Founder and International Director of Ellel Ministries. Ellel Ministries International was originally established in 1986 as a ministry of healing for the north-west of England. But the work so grew that within a short time there were centres all over the world. By 2021 the work was established in over thirty-five different countries with over fifty operating centres.
The complete story of Peter’s life and ministry is now told in his book Strands of Destiny published by Sovereign World.
To review and order this book please go to sovereignworld.com/strands-of-destiny.
The following biographical details are a brief summary of the ground covered in the book.
Family Background
Peter was born in 1943 in Bolton, Lancashire, and was later brought up in Blackburn, also in the north of England. He has remained a life-long supporter of Blackburn Rovers Football Club.
His parents gave him a firm Christian foundation for life with a strong evangelical emphasis. His early grounding in the scriptures was to equip him for future ministry. After living in the south for a while he eventually returned to his native county after periods of time spent in Surrey, Oxford and Manchester.
Career
After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in chemistry, he spent a number of years in College and University lecturing, before leaving the academic environment for the world of business.
He founded his own publishing and bookselling companies and then, after fifteen years of writing, publishing and bookselling, the doors opened for the work which became known as Ellel Ministries to be established at Ellel Grange, a country house just outside the City of Lancaster. Throughout his university and business career Peter had known that he was only ‘marking time’ until his true calling, into some form of Christian ministry, would come to fruition.
The Call to Ministry
Peter first knew this calling as a young teenager, but he had to wait nearly thirty years before his life’s work was to begin! In his twenties he started to restore a vintage sports car (an Alvis Speed 20) but discovered that its chassis was bent. As he looked at the broken vehicle, wondering if it could ever be repaired, he sensed God asking him a question, “You could restore this broken car, but I can restore broken lives. Which is more important?”
It was obvious that broken lives were more important than broken cars. So, in 1970, the beginnings of a vision for seeing people healed and restored was birthed in his heart. The full remarkable story of how God used Peter’s lifelong interest in classic cars to birth the ministry that became his life’s work, is told in his book of motoring adventures, One Life, Many Cars. This full-colour, hard-back book containing over 220 fascinating photos can be purchased at peterhorrobin.com/olmc
Peter prayed daily into this vision for sixteen years before God brought it into being in 1986. Many Christian leaders affirmed the vision and gave it their support.
The Work of Ellel Ministries
After the establishment of a Prayer Support Group, the purchase of Ellel Grange was completed in November 1986. Since then, Ellel Ministries has grown very steadily – with each centre around the world running a continuous series of healing retreats, training courses and schools. Please go to ellel.org for more information.
Under Peter’s leadership the world-wide teaching and ministry team has seen God move dramatically in many people’s lives to bring salvation, hope, healing and deliverance. In a relatively short period of time, God has built a work of international significance. The work is a faith ministry, depending totally on donations and income from training courses for maintaining and extending the work.
Ellel 365 was a major online, twelve-month, training programme that was developed and pioneered by Peter for Ellel Ministries. Now Ellel 365 has been relaunched by Sovereign World Ltd as an 8-volume series of books under the general title Journey to Freedom and this has also been made available as a daily training programme on the main Ellel website: ellel.org.
Peter and Fiona retired from their leadership of Ellel Ministries International in April 2022.
Marriage and Family
Peter was first married in 1968. It was a great sadness and disappointment to him that this marriage irretrievably broke down. This was eventually followed by divorce after five years of living apart. The work, however, continued to be blessed by God and survived those very testing days with the help of a very dedicated team of committed workers.
In 1994 Peter married Fiona, who had also gone through the trauma of a painful divorce. Through their marriage God has brought great healing to them both and they have been privileged to serve the Lord together ever since in the leadership of Ellel Ministries.
Their four children are all involved in Christian work, two of them working full-time in different sectors of Ellel Ministries.
Peter and Fiona have travelled extensively to support and encourage the development of the many Ellel teams around the world and the ongoing development of the work. Together they teach and minister on many different aspects of healing and discipleship.
In April 2022, Peter stood down as International Director of Ellel Ministries after thirty-six years in leadership, entering a new season of their lives and ministries.
Other Interests
Outside of Ellel Ministries, Peter was the originator and one of the compilers of the amazingly successful and popular Mission Praise, the first volume of which was originally compiled for Billy Graham’s Mission England in 1984. The 30th Anniversary Edition of Mission Praise was published in July 2012.
Peter is also an enthusiast for fishing and Alvis cars. He still hopes, one day, to see the Alvis Speed 20, through which God gave him the vision for his life work, restored and back on the road! His Complete Catalogue of British Cars, which was first published in 1975, has long been the standard reference work on the history and technical specification of every model of every make of British car, manufactured between 1895 and 1975! During his years in academic life Peter also wrote and edited books of specialist technical interest about different aspects of building science and technology.
Through her pioneering work in seeing how God can bring great healing through the rediscovery of people’s creative gifting, Fiona herself discovered a talent for water-colour painting. Some of her paintings have now been turned into art cards and can be seen and purchased at fionahorrobinart.com.
Fiona’s latest book Healing Through Creativity is a ground-breaking and life-changing work bringing healing to many who rediscover their relationship with the Creator as they grow in the use of their creative giftings. For more details, please go to: sovereignworld.com/healing-through-creativity
For details of all the books written and published by Peter and Fiona Horrobin, please see Books and Publications.
For details of the current worldwide activities of Ellel Ministries International please go to ellel.org.
| Born: | November 1943, Bolton, Lancashire |
| Education: | |
| 1948-53 | Four Lane Ends Primary School, Blackburn, Lancs |
| 1953-55 | St Dunstan’s Primary School, Jubilee Road, Cheam, Surrey |
| 1955-62 | King’s College School, Wimbledon. |
| 1962-66 | Christ Church, Oxford studying Chemistry and doing research in Microbiology |
| Career: | |
| In Education | |
| 1966-68 | Lecturer in Building (Science and Maths), Oxford Polytechnic |
| 1968-71 | Lecturer in Building Science, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology |
| In Business (Publishing and Bookselling) | |
| 1969 | One of three founding Directors of the Medical and Technical Publishing Company Ltd (MTP) in Lancaster, England. |
| 1971 | Resigned lectureship at Manchester University to become a full-time Director of MTP alongside his brother David , who continued as Professor of Medicine in Nairobi University, Kenya and David Bloomer, the Managing Director of the Company |
| 1971-74 | Director of MTP |
| 1973- | Founder and Managing Director of Lancaster Editorials Ltd |
| 1974-82 | Founder and Managing Director of The Construction Press Ltd |
| 1975-99 | Founder and Managing Director of Lunesdale Publishing Group Ltd |
| 1975-89 | Founder and Managing Director of Carnforth Bookshop Ltd which eventually became well-known nationally as the largest second-hand bookshop in the region. It also had a philatelic department. |
| 2006- | Chairman of Sovereign World Ltd |
| In Ministry | |
| 1969-70 | First envisioned to believe that God wanted to use him in the restoration of broken lives. |
| 1970-80 | Progressively envisioned to pray for the establishment of a ministry in evangelism and healing in the North West of England |
| 1977 | Established The Christian Trust in faith, as a registered charity to be the vehicle for a subsequent ministry of healing and evangelism |
| 1982-84 | Local Area Chairman of Mission England. Originator of the hymn and song book for the Billy Graham campaign, first known as Mission England Praise and then simply Mission Praise. |
| 1986 | Founder of the healing and training ministry at Ellel Grange, subsequently to become known as Ellel Ministries and later, as it developed and grew, as Ellel Ministries International. |
| 1986-2022 | Director of the work of Ellel Ministries International and Chairman of the 11-strong Executive Leadership of the international ministry, now with operating centres in twenty different countries, and with students who have trained with the ministry working in well over forty different countries. |