Following a short spell of teaching at Lancing College,[3] an independent boarding school located close to his family home, he enrolled at Spurgeon's College, graduating with a second BA degree in 1978.[4] He entered the ministry of the Baptist denomination,[3] beginning as a student minister at a large Baptist church in Enfield, north London,[5] and subsequently as Assistant Minister at Upton Vale Baptist Church, Torquay; later studying at London Bible College (where he was the Laing Scholar), obtaining a Master of Philosophy degree in 1986.[4][3]
Church of England
Mercer's theological studies eventually led him from the Baptist Union into the Church of England, where he self-identified as an anglo-catholic, later stating that he had been a "closet anglo-catholic" since his university days at Selwyn College.[3] Following training at Cranmer Hall, Durham, he was ordained as a deacon in 1995, and as a priest shortly afterwards, in the same year.[4] In his autobiography, published in the anthology "The post-evangelical debate" (1997), Mercer speaks of a growing realisation that he was no longer a conservative evangelical, despite his continued deep Biblical faith.[3] After curacies in Northwood Hills and Pimlico he was Director of Ministry for the Diocese of London from 2003 to 2007. He was Diocesan Director of Ordinands (overseeing a team of Directors) from 2007 to 2017. He was a Prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral from 2008 (around the time of his appointment as Vicar general) to 2017. He was also honorary priest in charge of St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate in the City of London from 2015 to 2016.[6]
He retired in 2017, on reaching the customary Church of England retirement age of 68 years.[4] He was appointed an emeritus Prebendary of St Paul's cathedral, and an emeritus Archdeacon of London, on his retirement.[7]
