Rico Tice
Rico Tice, son of a business man and nurse, grew up in in Chile, Uganda and Zaire, before coming over to England to go to school.
Rico says of his early religious experience that in church he would sit and count the bricks up the wall, and when it came to the bible he spent his whole time looking for references to rugby. His three favourites were John 9:1 on referees - "a man blind from birth"; one to prop forwards, which he was himself, in Exodus 32 - "they are a stiff-necked people"; and finally in Acts 13:3 to foul-play, where Paul and Barnabas are "sent off".
He writes of himself, "Though the Christian ethic was the backbone of my parents' life they did not know what it is to have a personal relationship with God and I found the church an utterly boring experience till the age of 15. Between 15 and 16 two things caused me to become a Christian. I kept a diary because I thought I was such a great bloke I believed I owed it to the world to keep a record of my life. As I wrote this I was cornered by my conscience and realised the need to seek forgiveness for the way I lived. Secondly, on the sixth of August 1983, my godfather was killed and I realised I needed hope for the future. Through a school Christian meeting I saw that Jesus Christ died so that I may be forgiven and rose so that I need not fear death, and having been on Scripture Union summer holiday camp I began to follow Christ. I spent my gap year working in the inner city of Liverpool as a youth worker and saw then that the Gospel could change any life."
Rico then studied history at Bristol University where he captained the university rugby side. When he left he worked for Hewlett-Packard, before going to Wycliffe Hall, an Oxford theological college, to get ordained. After that he went and joined the staff of All Souls, Langham Place, in London, where he has been a curate for 7 years. He describes his job as "being paid money to persuade people to become Christians!"