"Mr Sparks", as he was affectionately known, was born in London, England in 1888. He came to know Christ as a teenager and later became a Baptist pastor. However, his "ecclesiastical" career took a decidedly different direction when a physical crisis brought him to a place of brokenness. At the same time God also delivered him from his previous prejudice against anything that was related to the "deeper life". As a result, he joined Jessie Penn-Lewis in the ministry of the spiritual growth of believers; a ministry to which he devoted his life and which also cost him his reputation and his career in the denominational circles of England.

He was based in southeast London at Honor Oak Christian Fellowship which is here Watchman Nee met and fellowshipped with him during a visit to England in 1933. Nee's refusal to disavow Austin-Sparks later became the grounds for him being disfellowshipped by the Taylor Brethren. It has been said that Watchman Nee considered Austin-Sparks as his spiritual mentor, and their fellowship appears to have been rich and fruitful.

"Understanding the New Testament, the New Testament Way and the very Christ Himself is not an instantaneous realization. Rather it is a dawning, a gradual dawning that requires both time and seeking. In the beginning the apostles still continued to go up to the temple, participate in the ordinanances of the temple and the ritual of the temple. They kept the time of prayer at the temple. Yet something was happening to them inwardly. The old things did not fit any more. The early believers were losing their commitment to the old things. No one told them what was right and what was wrong; it was only the deeper sense of life indicating, hinting, dawning. There was no direct ordinance to "leave this way", or "leave this denomination", or "come out of this system or that." No, it was just happening, inwardly, subtlely. There was no physical separation at first, only an inward separation. The early believers found themselves "out" before they actually left. In the old creation, God commenced His work from the outside; in the new, always from the inside, and in this spiritual dispensation it is that you just find yourself somewhere, perhaps where you never intended to be, expected to be, planned to be. But He has led; and the pattern will not change. God must first grow in us, give us new feelings, new realizations from the sense of life within. Then, and only then, can there be genuine change in living and conduct. At that time we can say we walk by faith, we walk by the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself to us."