Plymouth-born John Haley attended Montpelier Junior School and Devonport High School for Boys before training first in Law at Leicester and then as a Methodist minister at Wesley College, Bristol. After appointments at Mitcham, St Agnes, Barry and Inverness, John was pleased to be able to return to his home area. John has a special connection with the Rame Peninsula. His grandfather was born at Cawsand and his great-grandfather was born at Millbrook at what was then known as The Strand (probably above the old Barclays Bank) and belonged to the church until his death in 1932. The family association with the church continued through John's father, Raymond Haley, who, as a local preacher in the Devonport Circuit, visited the church at least four times a year from 1967-1989.
John's special emphasis in ministry is preaching and teaching the Bible. John believes that the Bible is God's word and that through it God speaks to us today. The Bible contains a unique and reliable record of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, his ascension into heaven and his promise to return in glory. John also believes that the traditional Methodist emphases on personal faith in Jesus Christ, the warmed heart and assurance of salvation are as relevant today as they have ever been.
John is a personal member of the Evangelical Alliance, Methodist Evangelicals Together (formerly Headway) and the Wesley Fellowship, and supports the work of the Peninsula Gospel Partnership.
John has published four books and contributed to one journal article:
- Foundations of our Faith: A Methodist Perspective, Blackwater, Teagle Print (1993); no longer in print but an edited version is available on the Ridgeway Methodist Church website.
- John Wesley, The Means of Grace and the Holy Life Today, Lutterworth, Wesley Fellowship (2003); available from the Wesley Fellowship or through the church office.
- 'A Little Body of Experimental and Practical Divinity': Hymns in the Wesleyan-Arminian Tradition, Lutterworth, Wesley Fellowship (2005); available from the Wesley Fellowship or through Ridgeway Methodist Church office.
- British Methodism: What Circuit Ministers Really Think (with Leslie J. Francis), Peterborough, Epworth Press (2006); available from Methodist Publishing House.
- The personality characteristics of Methodist ministers: feminine men and masculine women? (M. Robbins, L.J. Francis, J.M. Haley and W.K. Kay); Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40, 123-128, (2001).