Noel Stanton

Noel Stanton (25 December 1926 – 20 May 2009) was the founder of the Jesus Army. He was born in Bedfordshire in the East of England and educated at Bedford Modern School. His parents were farmers. When he was 18, he was conscripted into British military service with the Royal Navy. The navy sent him to Sydney, Australia, where he was approached by evangelist Frank Jenner, who asked him, "If you should die tonight, where would you go? Would it be heaven or hell?" Stanton felt convicted for several months afterwards and consequently converted to Christianity the next year. When World War II ended, he attended a Bible college and then went into business. In 1957, he became the pastor of a Baptist church in Bugbrooke, Northamptonshire. Under Stanton's leadership, the church took on characteristics of the Charismatic Movement and then of the 1960s counterculture. In 1973, he began turning the church into an intentional community modelled after early Christianity, and the resulting movement became the Jesus Army. He wrote the book Your Baptism Into Jesus Christ and His Church, which was published in 1998. Stanton remained the Jesus Army's leader until 2009, when he named Mick Haines the new leader before dying on 20 May.