THERE was much to celebrate on Saturday, October 2, for the senior pastor and founder of Souls Harbour Church, Camelford, who not only launched his book ‘Lockdown Talks’ but also received a High Sheriff’s award.

But it all started with a short Facebook video. Explaining how the book had come about, Pastor Flanders said: “On the first day of lockdown I thought what am I going to do for 12 weeks? How can a communicator be incommunicado? I started to record a Facebook video to my church members telling them about my predicament when suddenly I realised —this is it!

“From that day I recorded a daily three minute talk on Facebook, writing every one down first so that I didn’t waffle. I started recording them in my office and then the garden, then often on location. Before long I had up to 600 viewers a day from around the world.

“I was amazed by the effect my devotional talks had on people in all kinds of lockdown situations — loneliness, bereavement missionaries and people whose churches were closed and people who hadn’t been to church for years.

“As lockdown continued I realised I would probably be doing it for a year — and I did. When I reached 100,000 words I thought, hold on, this is a book.”

He sent the rough manuscript to a publisher and almost by return they said: “We want to publish this, it needs to be in print.”

And so, on Saturday, October 2, 50 Christian leaders, friends and family members from all over Cornwall gathered in the conference room of Trethorne Leisure Park for the launch of Pastor Flanders’ book Lockdown Talks.

There were a number of speakers at the event, including publisher Luke Jeffrey, High Sheriff of Cornwall Mark Thomas (from South Petherwin), as well as a keynote address from MP for St Ives Derek Thomas and Pastor Flanders himself. His daughter, Joanna Waters, also read a sample of the comments from all over the world written in appreciation of the online talks.

He said: “The launch of my book on Saturday evening went incredibly well!“Mark Thomas presented me with a High Sheriff’s award for ‘great and valuable services to the community on behalf of the people of Cornwall’. “Derek Thomas MP spoke eloquently highlighting sections of the book that had spoken to him personally. He said that, in the talks on Joseph, my observation that Joseph maintained a good attitude and used his time wisely was advise that he would carry with him to parliament and indeed the rest of his life. He commented that this was obviously something that I had done in the lockdown.“Luke Jeffrey gave a lovely commendation on my writing telling the gathering that “David is a master-chef of the word of God”.”The book is available from the author, Launceston Christian Bookshop, all good booksellers, Amazon (worldwide) and all e-readers in digital format.