In Depth:  JEB

An Association AGM is usually a duty that must be done and no more. But that of the Association of Grace Baptists in the South East on 6 October, at St Giles’ Mission, North London, turned into a real joy.

Four new churches joined the group, from Chelmsford, Hythe, Streatham and Ebbsfleet. The new book Pure Church, show-ing the biblical basis for the Association’s ecclesiology, was launched. Graham Nicholls, the director of Affinity, to which the Association belongs, articulated the aims of his work for wider fellowship.

The LGBT issue is beginning to cause difficulties among conservative evangelicals. All say they stand on the Bible and agree that homosexual acts are forbidden by Scripture. Yet two camps are sadly emerging – especially on the back of a US conference called ‘ReVoice’ which took place recently.

There are those who feel that same-sex attraction is something unsought by many. It is not their fault and therefore, while not expressing their attractions outwardly, they must live with it, as it were making a truce with their condition. Others feel that this position involves a compromise. All that does not conform to God’s righteous ways is to be repented of and fought, whether or not we feel it was a deliberate choice on our part. This issue was addressed directly and helpfully at the UK conference of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, by ex-football star Gavin Peacock, who is now a pastor in Canada.

The London Men’s Convention took place at the Central Methodist Hall, Westminster.

There were two sittings – morning from 9.30 and evening from 3.30. Big crowds gathered on Saturday 2 June to hear John Piper and the queue to get in stretched right around the building.

Our society is changing quickly and radically. The last rites of the UK as a ‘Christian country’ is likely to take place in the next decade or so with the disestablishment of the Church of England.

The need to return to Scripture and learn again what God’s Word says about church could not therefore be more relevant.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph at the end of October, marking 60 years of the Today programme on Radio 4, John Humphrys said that the three-minute Thought for the Day was ‘deeply, deeply boring’ and irrelevant in a country now with few practising Christians.

Both Humphrys and Justin Webb said they were tired of hearing the message that ‘Jesus was really nice’. Webb said that the message always seems to be ‘let’s be nicer to each other’, but that actually many religious people (not just Christians) ‘don’t want to be nice to each other…it really annoys me.’

Accurate exegesis of the Bible does not necessarily guarantee good preaching.

Spirit empowered preaching is something more and it brings deep conviction of sin and changed lives. Some of the main NT texts which address this vital matter are found in Acts 2, 1 Thessalonians 1 and in the Upper Room discourse in John’s Gospel.

As a young Christian, Erroll Hulse had prayed that if the Lord were to call him into the ministry could it be to a small out-of-the-way church down a country lane, so that when good things happened everyone would know it a work of God and all the glory would go to him.

In the early 1960s he was called to just such a church, Cuckfield Baptist Church in rural Sussex. Constituted with just 12 members, from there many were converted and a worldwide ministry among Reformed Baptists took off.

It wasn’t easy to find the Barbican Centre for this year’s Evangelical Ministry Assembly (EMA) amid London’s burgeoning road and building works. But it was worth the tricky navigation for Tuesday – Thursday, 27–29 June.

The conference theme was ‘Bearing Fruit and Growing’, with the morning Bible readings coming from Ephesians. These were given by Andy Gemmill of the Cornhill Training Course in Scotland and reminded those there that, amid the spiritual battle, ‘your church is what Christ’s rule looks like now.’ We need to ‘do church’ (I’m not sure I like that phrase) by faith, not by sight, because for all its present flaws the church displays God’s wisdom to the astonishment of the heavenly powers.

A new page has been turned. For over 50 years the Banner of Truth ministers’ conference met at Leicester University. This year (24-27 April) the venue changed.

Around 300 men gathered for the first time at Yarnfield Park in Staffordshire. It is a purpose-built conference centre and proved to be rather a pleasant upgrade.

Understandably, Luther and the great matters of the Reformation took pole position at the annual Carey Conference for pastors and wives and Christian workers this year.

Held at the Hayes Swanick, 3-5 January, there was quite a raft of different speakers. Paul Gibson, pastor at Wheelock Heath, roared away from the start with an excellent biography of Martin Luther that focussed helpfully on the great Reformer’s weaknesses. Anfechtungen became the buzz word! There were superb Bible readings from Rupert Bentley-Taylor on the power of the Word (Isaiah 55) and the power of the gospel (1 Corinthians 1) – very much Reformation concerns. John Benton spoke on lessons for leaders from the psychology of Samson. Linda Alcock did a brilliant job with the women’s track, leading the sisters through Titus, and Ian Fry gave a sparkling and yet very disturbing talk on the needs of children and the work among young people in today’s church.

Overseas missionaries are still very much needed. The title of this year’s conference of the Grace Baptist Mission was ‘Here Am I, Send Me’. No punches pulled there!

The meetings took place this year at the Friends Meeting House next to Euston Station in London on Saturday 29 October. It is a convenient place to travel to and people came from all over the country in their hundreds to this challenging and very uplifting day. There was a plethora of seminars given by serving missionaries from Brazil, the Philippines, Poland, France and central Asia, as well as reports concerning radio work and outreach to Asian communities in various cities in Britain.

Duke Street, Richmond was the venue for the second Healthy Churches Conference which took place on 5 September and is from the ‘9Marks’ background.

Last year the speaker was Mark Dever of Capitol Hill Baptist, Washington. This year, with the focus on evangelism, it was Mack Styles of Redeemer Church, Dubai.

Promoted by the Christian charity Prospects (formerly A Cause for Concern), 11 September was celebrated by many churches across the UK as ‘Ability Sunday’.

This was an opportunity for churches to recognise and honour the abilities of disabled people in their congregations and communities. There was an emphasis on the support of adults with learning disabilities.

‘If a church is small and the greater percentage of those who attend have grey hair and are over 70 then close it down.’ That is a caricature, but it does represent the outlook of some Christians.

The Grace Baptist Partnership (GBP) is different. It takes the view that because every church belongs to Christ we need to do everything possible to refresh and revitalise churches before any idea of closure is contemplated. It was under the auspices of GBP that 150 leaders and others from 48 small churches gathered at The Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick for three days of consultation, teaching and fellowship on 24–26 August.

On Friday 15 January the Primates meeting of the Anglican church, called by Archbishop Justin Welby to discuss the moral and spiritual crisis in the Church surrounding attitudes to homosexuality revealed that they had voted to explicitly reject same-sex marriage.

After five days of discussion they concluded it is a ‘fundamental departure’ from Anglican teaching. They also decided to exclude the US branch of Anglicanism, The Episcopal Church (TEC) from key bodies and decision making for 3 years because of their embracing of same-sex marriage, but it remains a part of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Church of Canada which takes a similar stance to TEC but has not yet officially endorsed same-sex marriage services escaped censure.

The Carey Conference is a conference for ministers and their wives – which makes it almost unique in the UK.

The conference met at the Hayes, Swanick in Derbyshire, from 5–7 January. The numbers were slightly down this year: this may have been because the main speaker, Mike Bullmore, is perhaps not yet a well-known name in this country. But his ministry to the men and women there was truly outstanding. Mike is the senior pastor at Crossway Community Church, Kenosha, near Chicago. He taught preaching at nearby Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, but then 17 years ago felt the call of God to plant a church with the help of some Trinity students. The church now numbers 1200 and they have recently planted another. Mike is one of the behind-the-scenes ‘founding fathers’ of the hugely influential Gospel Coalition and has a wealth of both ability and experience that the evangelical scene in Britain would be wise to tap into.

These days, the annual get-together of supporters of Grace Baptist Mission alternates between venues in London and the Midlands. On Saturday 24 October it was the turn of the Renewal Centre in Solihull.

Around 650 people gathered and the theme highlighted the needs of Europe under the banner ‘A Light in Every City.’ Graham Field, chairman of the Mission’s Council, began the day emphasising that our mission is determined by our master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Daryl Jones, mission coordinator, used a cricket analogy to emphasise the need for partnership in mission, especially between the churches and GBM.

Christian conferences are often strong on the great matters of the gospel but offer little guidance as to the nuts and bolts of church life.

9Marks Ministries, headed up by Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, D.C., majors on local church related issues and Tuesday 1 September saw the first 9Marks conference in this country. With around 100 church leaders in attendance, it was hosted at Duke Street Church in Richmond where the pastor is John Samuel. The main mover behind the day was Jonathan Worsley of Kew Baptist Church, himself a former intern at Capitol Hill.

The ministry of Alan Harvey and his wife Pat has been very blessed at Limes Avenue Baptist Church in Aylesbury in recent years.

As Alan moves towards retirement the church has appointed two men to come alongside in the leadership. Saturday 12 September saw the induction service of Matthew Benton as assistant pastor and the recognition of Tom Copperwheat as pastoral assistant. It was both happy and serious with both men and their wives answering questions about their calling to the church and their commitment to Christ and the work of the ministry before local believers and well-wishers who had travelled from Emmanuel Leamington Spa and Chertsey Street Guildford.

It is with great sadness we report that Elisa Beynon died suddenly at home on 5 May.

At the time of going to press, the circumstances of her death were unclear. Elisa worked for a short while for en writing articles and covering some news. She was the author of the The Vicar’s Wife's Cookbook.

‘Afflicting the comfortable’ could be taken as the keynote of this year’s Carey Conference held at the Hayes, Swanick, 6-8 January.

The main speaker was Professor Greg Beale of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. He is the author of a landmark and voluminous commentary on the Greek text of the book of Revelation and he treated the participants to a magisterial introduction to John’s apocalypse. The book is meant to be understood symbolically, according to its opening verse. The dramatic word pictures of the apostle will sedate the nominal Christian but shock God’s true people into action. There are seven churches addressed in the opening chapters of which only two are faithful. The others must change or be judged with the world. Hence John’s writing is addressed first to the whole professed church, but only the faithful remnant will ultimately benefit.

In October the Daily Telegraph ran a piece with the headline ‘There is evidence of life after death, say scientists’.

It focused on work at Southampton University examining evidence from more than 2,000 cardiac arrest patients at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria of near-death and out-of-body experiences. Of the 2,060 cardiac arrest patients studied, 330 survived and 140 said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated. Dr Sam Parnia, formerly of Southampton but now based at the State University of New York, says that many more people may have experiences when they are close to death, but drugs or sedatives used in the process of resuscitation may stop them remembering. The study was recently published in the journal Resuscitation. Dr Jerry Nola, editor of that journal, said: ‘Dr Parnia and his colleagues [have produced] a fascinating study that will open the door to more extensive research into what happens when we die’.

July 8-10 saw the second year of the experiment to relocate the Evangelical Ministers’ Conference to London’s Barbican Centre.

It is a venue with lots of space and dignity about it, and though many people loved the buzz of the old days the acres of room at the Barbican makes it a much better experience than playing sardines at St Helen’s. However, going for a well-used secular venue does have it’s difficulties. The Barbican had double-booked (with Sir Simon Rattle I was told) and so EMA had to be deferred two weeks from its original place in the calendar. This was reflected in the slightly fewer numbers who attended. That was a shame because these were great conference days.

The March issue of Christianity Magazine carries an article by the celebrity Christian, Steve Chalke, in which he sadly attacks the reliability of the Bible.

He sees it not as one book, but as a library of ancient books, some parts of which are irrelevant and even contradictory. He states, ‘The idea that the whole thing was dictated by God, without error or contradiction – that it’s infallible.... is extremely misleading.’

At the instigation of London City Mission (LCM) a comprehensive study of churches in London was carried out last year. The results have now been published and there is much which is encouraging.

The research was carried out by the Brierley Consultancy and LCM were particularly interested to see what information could be gathered which related to the extent and effectiveness of church planting in the capital.

Christ Church, Deeside, in North Wales, had been without a pastor for the last couple of years. During this time the work of preaching and shepherding the flock had been largely taken on by Stuart Olyott who came out of retirement to help.

July 6 saw the induction of a new pastor, Matthew Francis. Matthew is now one of five elders after Geoff Conway conducted the act of induction — see photo.

Westminster Chapel, Buckingham Gate, was full for the morning of May 18, hosting this year’s London Men’s Convention.

Sticking to the repeat format of ‘early’ and ‘late’ opportunities to attend, it was a little less full in the evening. The theme of the day was ‘Love Life’, exploring masculinity, sex, marriage and holiness. In the morning three sessions were addressed by Graham Beynon, Jonty Alcock and John Tindall. In the evening, Matt Fuller, of Christ Church Mayfair, subbed for John Tindall, and spoke well from Ephesians 5.