Sheppard was converted to evangelical Christianity whilst at Cambridge, influenced by Donald Grey Barnhouse, and trained for the ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge from 1953 to 1955, where he attended the lectures of Owen Chadwick and Maurice Wiles, and was much impressed by a visiting lecturer, Donald Soper.
He retired in 1997, and in the 1998 New Year Honours was elevated to a life peerage,[REF] taking the title Baron Sheppard of Liverpool, of West Kirby in the County of Merseyside [REF].