When asked to write about ‘some of the issues we currently face as a constituency’ I could have picked a number of issues, like evangelism (we could do better) or discipleship (we could do much better), or the pressures from contemporary culture (massive).
But actually, my initial thought was: who is our constituency? What kind of churches, organisations and people are in it? Am I in it? Where are the boundary lines? If en readers are a constituency, then what unites them? It’s the gospel, right? Isn’t that what unites all Christians?
Perhaps we are simply ‘evangelicals’? Well, we are, but I fear ‘evangelical’ doesn’t really narrow down the constituency enough. What about ‘conservative evangelical’? Sounds too political. ‘Confessional evangelicals’. Maybe a bit dated. How about ‘reformed, confessional, culturally-connected, mostly-complementarian practical cessationist evangelicals with kind hearts’. Sounds good.
