Some Good News About Goodnewsing

Jesus seemed to think that evangelism was an important part of being a disciple.  He told Simon and Andrew that to follow him would mean fishing for people.  He told those of his friends who stuck with him in Jerusalem that when he sent the Holy Spirit they would end up being his witnesses.  According to Matthew, his parting words make it clear that to be a disciple is to make other disciples.  It all seems pretty straightforward.  If we call ourselves Christians we are meant to evangelise.

The same is true if we call ourselves Baptists.  The official basis of our union only has three principles, one of those is that every disciple is to bear personal witness to the good news and take part in the evangelisation of the world. 

So, how’s that going? 

Ah, thought as much, sorry to hear that. 

More and more of us seem to have a problem with evangelism.  On the one hand we know we are supposed to, but quite frankly much of the evangelism we have seen puts us off. “If that’s what evangelism looks like I wouldn’t do it to my worst enemies.” Evangelism can so easily become intrusive, arrogant, pushy, manipulative, forced, artificial, dishonest - anything but good news.  However, it doesn’t have to be that way. 

If you are not a fan of some of the evangelism that you’ve seen, here’s some good news - not the good news, but some good news about the good news.

·      You don’t have to stand on street corners shouting at people.

·      You don’t have to pretend that you want people to be your friends, just so you can evangelise them.

·      You don’t have to devise a cunning strategy to get your friends to come to church even though you are pretty sure they don’t want to.

·      You don’t have to invite them to hear some minor celebrity who’s pretending to talk about being a celebrity when really that’s just an excuse to preach the gospel.

·      You don’t have to wear a wrist band and explain what the heart, the X, the cross and the question mark stand for, or be able to draw The Bridge to Life, or memorise The Four Spiritual Laws, or any other formula for that matter.

Those things aren’t what evangelism is.  They are just some of the ways that people have gone about evangelism.

OK, then, so what is evangelism?

To put it simply, evangelism is the communication of the gospel.  It’s all about helping people to find out about and understand the good news of Jesus in the hope that they too will want to follow him.  Evangelism is goodnewsing, getting on with life in such a way that people have a chance to discover Jesus for themselves.

If I’m right, and this is what evangelism is, another bit of good news is that it’s best not to limit evangelism to verbal proclamation.

We can communicate the good news as individuals or as churches by the way we are, and the stuff we do as well as the things we say.  Being, doing and speaking are all important modes of evangelism.  When we are the kind of church that is welcoming, friendly, outward-looking, generous and forgiving, we communicate the good news by embodying it.  When we work to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry and campaign for the oppressed, we communicate the good news by enacting it.  When we explain to our friends why we pray, how we came to follow Jesus or what God means to us, we communicate the good news by articulating it.

Of course these three modes of communication work best when they work together.  That way they make for a richer expression of the gospel.  Being on its own is too passive.  Doing on its own is too ambiguous.  Speaking on its own is too facile. Get it all together though and our message is more likely to ring true.

The next piece of good news is evangelism doesn’t always have to be the thing at the front of our mind, the thing we are consciously aiming at.  In fact it often happens best when it happens obliquely.  Ironically, if evangelism is always the primary motivator for everything we are, do and say we will end up actually undermining our evangelism because we will make it inauthentic, twisted, less than genuine.

So, for example, when the way we are bespeaks Christ, when our churches are hospitable, honouring the least and including the outsider, this is indeed evangelistic, it communicates the good news, but our primary intent here is not to communicate but rather, together as a church, to live a Christ-like life. Evangelism in this mode is more often than not a blessed by product of trying to be faithful, Jesus-type communities.

Similarly, if we only ever care for the needy or work for peace and reconciliation so that we can let everyone see what the way of Christ looks like, there’s something about our motivation that is not true to the Jesus we hope to communicate.  Again, gospel communication in this mode happens best when we are focussed something else, such as loving people, irrespective of whether or not they are interested in our message.

This also applies when we speak of our faith. When we explain to friends why we pray, when we offer a Christ-informed perspective to colleagues at work chatting about an event in the news, even on occasions such as these it is not that we think, “OK, now I am going to evangelise.” No, we just do it because part of what it means to live as a Christian is to speak as a Christian and therefor to speak of Christ.

Now don’t get me wrong here.  I’m not against intentional proclamation of the gospel as one means of communicating good news. There will, of course, always be those times when our primary purpose is indeed to get the good news across. But these are evangelism’s special occasions not its everyday way of being. This is evangelism in its Sunday best not the kind of come as you are and take us as you find us evangelism which is the staple of ordinary goodnewsing. This matters, because when we allow disciples to believe that the exceptional is what defines evangelism we run the risk of putting them off.

Nor am I suggesting that we don’t have to speak about our faith.  I don’t think St. Francis ever actually said, “Preach the good news and if you must, use words” but I wish it hadn’t got round that he did.  Piping up about Jesus is a crucial part of evangelism.  But it’s a part not the whole. And it’s at its best when it’s not contrived but rather when we just tell our friends about Jesus, when we say what we say because that’s who we are, not because we are targeting someone, seeking to assuage our guilt or trying the get the pastor off our back.

I don’t know if these thoughts will help.  Some might think I’m watering down evangelism.  In which case I’ve not made myself clear.  I think I’m trying to beef it up.  I’m also trying to help people see that it can be a commonplace part of ordinary Christian living; something everyday for everyday disciples; something that everyday disciples just get one with; something for which the Baptist flavour of disciple becomes known – in life and not just on paper.  If that were to happen, that would be good news.

This was originally published in the Summer 2016 edition of Baptists Together

Co-Principals Sought for Northern Baptist Learning Community

The theological college where I work is looking to appoint new leadership.  Here are the details of the position(s).

Want an exciting job in theological education in Manchester? The post(s) of Co-Principal of the Northern Baptist Learning Community in the stimulating Luther King House is about to be advertised.

Two Co-Principals
Northern Baptist Learning Community

Location: Manchester

Reward package: circa £30,000 per post (negotiable) + housing allowance

Happy 65th Birthday To Paul Fiddes

Together with others I would like to wish Professor Paul Fiddes a happy 65th birthday.  Unlike some of my fellow Baptist bloggers my own personal contact with Paul has been limited and rather intermittent.  My loss.   

Paul reminds me of one of my school friends, Martyn Moxon. I used to play cricket with Martyn.  I took a few wickets in the Barnsley schools league.  He went on to captain Yorkshire and play for England.  Thing about Martyn was he was so good he could afford to be modest.  Same goes for Paul.

In the spirit of this particular festblog here's a couple of quotes from Paul's Past Event And Present Salvation, the first of his books to find its way across my desk and deep into my head.

In creation God gives freedom to something over against himself; he limits himself by the freedom of others, his creatures, and becomes vulnerable to their decisions.  In the very act of creation then, he must preserve it from wilfully drifting away into nothingness and the void.  From the act of creation onwards he faces the tragedy of death, and seeks to win his own creatures into free and joyous fellowship with himself. (22)

Since he has identified himself with Jesus in both act and being, we may say that the Father himself embarks upon the agonising journey of discovery that forgiveness entails.  Far from simply forgetting about the sins of the world he journeys deeply into the heart of the human tragedy.  It is as if the Father is not content to go out on the road to await the return of the prodigal son, but actually takes the path into the far country to fetch the wayward son from the pigsty. (178)

Past Event And Present Salvation (1989) London: Darton, Longman and Todd

NBLC 2013 and Beyond - A Consultation

 

The Northern Baptist Learning Community (where I work) is consulting about it's future.  We are interested in hearing from Baptists in the North of England and the Midlands.  Here's the blog where youcan join in the conversation.  Please spread the word.

Baptist Future

Baptists in Great Britain are celebrating the movement's 400th anniversary this year.  They are also wondering and talking about the future.  Part of this is an online conversation about Baptist life "Beyond 400".  40 voices have been invited to contribute a discussion starter.  My warblings are now up on the Beyond 400 site.  Go read it here.  Or not.

Northern Baptist Theological Consultation

We are holding another theological consultation for Baptists in the North of England.  The idea is to stimulate conversation and encourage research (formal and informal) within the denomination in our bit of the country.

This year's event will be held from 10.00 until 3.30 on March 29th at The Blackley Centre in Elland just two minutes off the M62.  Come and listen.  Come and discuss.  Come and present your ideas.

Dr. Pat Took will give the keynote address. If you would like to present a short paper (20 minutes) on any area of theological interest please send a title and a 100 word abstract to Dr. Anne Philips at: Northern Baptist Learning Community, Brighton Grove, Rusholme, Manchester, M14 5JP.

The cost of the day is £25.00.  Please pay in advance sending a cheque (payable to Northern Baptist Theological Consultation) to Dr Sally Nelson at: 4 Station View, Church Fenton, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire LS24 9QY by 10 March please.

Church Family?

Warning!  This one's a bit Baptisty.

I find it hard to get too worked up about the wavelet of conversation about the language of church family or Baptist family currently swashing around the Baptist blogosphere.  Just worked up enough to have a bit of a blog myself.

Seems to me that family language became popular to emphasise the relational aspect of church.  This was part of the whole cuddlyfying process that was a much welcome dimension of the charismatic movement per se and the wider informalising of culture of which the movement was a manifestation.  As such it was part of the reaction against an overly formal expression of church life.  The use of family language helped to contribute to toning down the institutional feel of church that many of us encountered when getting involved for the first time in the 60's / 70's. 

Thing is though no one image can do everything.  Each metaphor runs the risk bringing unwelcome and unintended connotations to the table. That's in the very nature of metaphors, they are allusive, evocative not definitive.  

Some advocate speaking of the Baptist movement rather than family.  I can see why this might be attractive at a time when we wish to emphasise the missional nature of church and further downplay its institutional life.  But movement language might run the risk of de-emphasising the relational dimension of church life. 

We oughtn't to imagine that by switching metaphors we will somehow get it right.  I reckon that if we are to bespeak the (ideally) rich reality of church we need to deploy a range of metaphors.  By all means let's stir up the language, keep it fresh, use it to finesse our meaning and to promote our political priorities but let's not thin it out.  By all means emphasise movement but let's not stop aspiring to become family at its best.

Church Meetings - How to Fight Nicely?

There can hardly be a parent alive who hasn’t said to their children, “Now I want you to learn how to play together nicely.”  The other day it occurred to me that it would probably serve the next generation better if we helped them to learn how to fight with each other nicely.  I was sitting in a church meeting at the time.

Church meetings eh?  Don’t you just love ‘em?  Get a group of Baptists together and it won’t be long before someone pokes fun at, moans about or openly despairs of church meetings.  Fact is though I think church meetings are brilliant, or at least I think they could be.

I didn’t always think this.  I became a Baptist because I was convinced about believers’ baptism and because I was prepared to put up with church meetings.  I was prepared to put up with them despite the clogging of agendas with trivia; despite the way they were dominated by the same few people (my wife kept a tally once – 80 present, 12 spoke of whom ten were middle-aged men including her husband).  I put up with them despite not knowing how to deal with the high emotion that so often bubbled to the surface and despite the fact that I sat through a couple were there were threats of violence.

But now I’m well passed just putting up with them, I’m convinced that if only we learned how to do church meetings they could be a very taste of heaven, an example of the church acting its age, the post-Pentecost age of the democratisation of the Spirit, you know old and young, male and female all getting a good sloshing of the third person of the trinity so that everyone can join in finding out what God wants.

But for this to happen we do need to learn how to fight nicely.  Because fight we will – if by fighting we mean expressing deeply held and widely differing opinions.  Pretending otherwise is daft.  But what does it mean to fight nicely?  Well, I can’t claim to have it sussed but I reckon that at last I’ve begun to learn a handful of lessons.  Here’s just three.

Learn to listen.  If this is about finding out what God wants and not fighting for what I want then I need to remember that God has a habit of speaking through those I least expect.  If we really believe that the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh then we need to find ways to listen to those who find it difficult to speak in public.  Small groups can help here as can a skilled chair.

Learnt to trust.  Trust others to decide on details recognising that they aren’t necessarily going to do it your way.  Trust the membership to raise issues and initiate discussions; the leadership don’t have a monopoly on spotting the leading of the Spirit.  Trust God.  Being God is God’s job not the church’s job; we don’t have to obsess about getting it right because even when we get it wrong God’s good at sorting us out.  Relax a bit.

Learn to wait.  A good deal of our failure to fight nicely comes from rushing decisions.  It usually makes sense to separate listening to each other from making up our minds.  Have listening meetings first and deciding meetings later.

You may say that I’m a dreamer, and yes, perhaps I am the only one, but if I’m not and like me you still believe in church meetings, I’d love hear what lessons you think we need to learn.

My turn to do a month's worth of opinion pieces for the Baptist Times' "Outside Edge" column has come round again. With the agreement of the editor I'm posting my BT article here. To check out the Baptist Times as a whole click here.

A post in which I am rude about the Church of England

First of all let me say that some of my best friends are Anglicans … and now you know straight away that this week’s offering is going to be slagging off the Church of England.  Nonetheless that first sentence is not just a formality.  I really mean it.  We even have one of them on the staff here at NBLC.  Nope, I definitely like Anglicans.  As a matter of fact my wife was thinking of becoming an Anglican nun until we met.  Seriously.

What’s more not only are some of my best friends Anglicans but there are all manner of things about the established church that I really admire: things like their habit of reading big dollops of scripture in their services; things like their commitment to serve the entire country, every community and every square inch, as best they can;  things like the way they do communion and things like their bishops, well some of them anyway.

But then there’s the other stuff.  The stuff that gets up my nose and makes me want to tear my hair out.  The stuff that means that even if I wanted to become an Anglican (and there have been moments) I simply couldn’t bring my self to do it.

The stuff I have in mind is the priestly stuff, the deferential stuff, the hierarchical stuff.  Take the way they do church leadership for example. I mean to say, “My Lord Bishop”; “Lambeth Palace”.  Did I miss something the last time I read the gospels? Am I being simplistic?  Is it just me?

Then there’s the  whole clerical caste system thing.   “We get to dress up because we are special.”  Yes I know that’s not what they intend to say but it is what the fancy togs and the rest of the paraphernalia of the priesthood actually communicates, intentionally or otherwise.  And don’t get me wrong here, it’s not that I object to dressing up, but why can’t everyone join in?  Chasubles all round!

But hang on a minute why bang on about this in a newspaper aimed at Baptists?  Preaching to the converted?  A cheap and easy way of winning back a bit of approval after upsetting people with the last three columns?  Not really, more a concern that we as Baptists don’t become blind to similar tendencies in our own midst. 

You see, there’s much about Baptist church culture that irks me (as you might have spotted) but our avowed commitment to the priesthood of all believers and our anti-establishment, anti-hierarchical, inclusive, congregational ethos are not among them.  But how easily we forget these things. When we venerate pastors because of the position they hold, when we lust after ministries because of the power and status they will afford us, when we fail to do everything we can to mitigate the inherent tendency of fallen humanity to fall in love with status and position, then we betray our own heritage. 

We also fail in our ecumenical responsibility to serve the wider body of Christ by holding firm and holding out to others one of the treasures of our tradition.  You see this C of E bashing is really a way of being a good ecumenical.  No, really.  If relationships between different branches of the family are going to count for anything we’ve got to go on  sharpening our distinctives and using them to help each other to identify our blind spots.

Now, where’s my Church Times?  I wonder if it has an article on how to screw up the gospel … Baptist style.

My turn to do a month's worth of opinion pieces for the Baptist Times' "Outside Edge" column has come round again. With the agreement of the editor I'm posting my BT article here. To check out the Baptist Times as a whole click here.

Chaplains and Churches

Good day yesterday at the triennial Baptist Union sector ministries (chaplains) day in Sutton Coldfield.  I was speaking on Truth and Compromise: Dilemmas in Sector Ministry.  More importantly though I got the chance to listen in on the chaplains' discussions and join in a couple of Q&R sessions.  I was struck by the thoughtful, sensitive and missional approach that this group of men and women take to what is a challenging and sometimes lonely ministry.  An important ministry too and one that is often misunderstood and undervalued.

Chaplains are as much pioneer ministers as any involved in Fresh Expressions or other forms of church planting.  They are engaged in caring and bearing witness in places and among people where church presence is usually very thin on the ground.  Whether responding to radical Islamist students on university campuses, dealing with some of the most demanding issues of medical ethics or plunging in the name of Christ into the swirling seas of contemporary British spirituality, chaplains operate at the cutting edge of the church's engagement with our society.

My main observation reflecting on the day is just how much both our congregations and our chaplains would gain from finding a better thought-out and more substantial relationship than is often the case.  The chaplains would appreciate the opportunity for sensitive accountability and the chance to reflect with supportive and thoughtful Christians from beyond the world of sector ministry. Also our churches would be hugely enriched by being able to share the insights gleaned by these front-line ministers and to join in wrestling with the kind of important missional issues that are the bread and butter of chaplaincy.

So let's hear it for chaplains and let's make sure we hear more from chaplains.

Baptist Assembly, Anne Wilkinson Hayes and the Importance of Strategy

OK, my last word on the Assembly - can't believe I've got so caught up in this.  Just wanted to enter a slight qualification to the justifiable praise of Anne's W-H's sermon.  Let's be careful we don't give the impression that mission strategy is unimportant.  It's not all important.  It's not the most important.  But it does matter. 

Anne's prioritising of love and life-giving engagement with God and the flow of divine life is of course bang on the money.  However, please let's not leap onto the pendulum swing away from a misguided emphasis on strategy towards an unthinking, individualistic pietism.

Fact is the church is called to work towards a goal, to pursue a vision, to live in the light of the end, all of which implies the need for intelligent forward thinking.  Surely, to reflect on how best to serve people is strategic.  Surely, to seek the welfare of our communities, our country and our world demands some thoughtful planning.  If we want people to take note of the witness we bear, if we are serious about making disciples of all peoples then we have to ask how best to achieve these things.  To neglect this reality would be, well, unloving.

Now I'm not saying that Anne was proposing that we forswear all strategy but I do worry that her words were open to that misinterpretation.  Let's not hey?

Baptist Assembly Day 4

Decided not to stick around for the communion service.  Communion in mega-gatherings really doesn't work for me. 

The public issues session however offered further encouraging evidence of a shift towards a more interactive style, even if the feedback from the designated listeners didn't really work.  There was also one sour note, the man who's contribution from the floor included a quite deliberate reference to the presence of Islam in Britain, as "the Muslim threat".  Disappointing that, not to mention misguided and dangerous, but we can't have genuinely open conversation without the risk of such things being said.  At the very least it's more honest and open - a shiny surface of unity for the sake of morale and a smoothly run event does no one any good.  More positive was the round of applause that greeted David Kerrigan's questioning of Baptist attitudes to gay people.  OK, this did come at the end of list of other questions from David so maybe people were clapping the other stuff he said.  Don't think so though.  Hope not.  A cloud the size of man's hand perhaps.

So a  big thanks to those behind this shift.  More please.  What would be good next time would be longer for some serious conversation about issues such as the two we voted through this morning on nuclear non proliferation and human trafficking.  I guess the challenge in the future will be to keep on finding effective and creative ways to enable genuine interaction without losing the professional presentational skills of recent years.

By the way, I am pleased to confirm that Nicholas Winterton was indeed wrong.  I'm typing this on the train home and what's more I'm doing it, wait for it, in standard class.  If the chattering people around me are indeed, as Winterton sniffily suggested, "a different type of person" then I'd rather hang out with their type than his type.  Tories eh?!

Baptist Assembly Day 3

And the prize for the wisest words at Assembly so far goes to ……. Anne Wilkinson Hayes.  Another great Bible reading this morning.  Completely different style to yesterday.  Extrovert dial turned down quite a bit.  Real impact though thanks to Anne's typically quiet and incisive insights.  It really isn't about programmes and strategies.  It really is about the over flow of divine life that happens when people love God with everything they've got and love others with a passion.  Thanks for the reminder Anne.  (Someone offer her a job quick before she goes back to Oz.)

My seminar went OK.  Screwed up the timing though so ended up rushing and only got 15 minutes Q&R.  Still, think I got across most of the stuff.  Have to decide now whether or not to write it up properly for the Baptist Ministers' Journal.

The recognition of ministries in the main arena was as usual very moving but am I the only one who thought that it looked disturbingly male and worryingly elderly?

Tried to get into the late night Redux session but it was jammed did get to see something just a little bit freakish though.  Long long and oh so orderly queue for the bar - a queue for the bar!  Don't these people know how to behave?

Baptist Assembly Day 2

Cracking start to day 2.  It was good to use the Northumbria Community's morning prayer as the structure for worship.  Ages since I've sung it.  Particularly liked the soulful flute and whistle playing from the band's very own Richard Hammond look-alike.  Even better though was Karl Martin's sermon. Attentive to scripture, warm hearted, spiritually rich, appropriately humorous and very skilfully done.  Nice one Karl.  Look and learn folks.

Aside from a bunch of stimulating conversations the other main hi-light for me was hearing one of the students from Luther-King House, Lucy Berry, reading some of her poetry at the Prism do.  It made me feel irrationally proud.  Lucy writes some excellent stuff for which I can of course take absolutely no credit whatsoever.  She's not even a Baptist student for goodness sake.  Still proud though.   

Prism itself made me feel how "alternative worship" services nearly always make me feel.  I utterly approved of the approach they took but somehow couldn't quite get into it as an act of worship.  I'm convinced this says more about me than it does about this style of worship.  Maybe I'm more tied to sitting rows being led from the front than I'd like to admit.

Lucy reappeared at the after hours Assembly Redux which revealed BT editor Mark Woods to be a rather nifty host and interviewer.

On a personal note I enjoyed doing a seminar on mission, theology and The Bible with Roger Standing of Spurgeon's and Steve Finnamore principal of the Bristol College.  I liked the Q&R best.  I think one or two others enjoyed it as well.  Hope so.

Not entirely confident about my seminar tomorrow with the  Baptist Ministers' Fellowship.  I think it runs the risk of falling between two stools.  In its present form it's half way between a scripted lecture and notes for a more extempore talk.  I'll have to decide tomorrow which way to go with it.

Baptist Assembly Day 1

This is my first Baptist Assembly for a few years – apart from an occasional flying visit. These are my impressions after day one.

Encouraging signs from the mainstage – great spirit of cooperation between BUGB and BMSWM; professional presentational polish and high production values retained; good gender and racial mix; encouraging signs of the reintroduction of a more participative element, (response walls, commissioned listeners, some audience interaction) limited, but encouraging.

Found Amy Orr-Ewing's talk a bit disappointing.  For someone who takes a classic evangelical approach to apologetics which values reasoned argument based on the evidence what she had to say was full of non sequiturs.  Also a less than careful handling of the biblical text. Eph 1:7 does not say that redemption is ONLY to be found in Christ.  That might be true but adding in the word ONLY is not justified on the basis of the text.  I've heard she can be really good and I  seem to remember her making a good fist of things at Spring Harvest a few years back.  Maybe it was an off day.  Maybe I'll be way less than my best in my seminars.  It happens, but it was disappointing.

Delegates (and this is very impressionistic) – nearly all rather elderly, middle aged, middle England, conventional, dated, Isle of Wight, Daily Mail/Telegraph. Not that all of those things are in themselves bad but they are certainly not representative of the wider population – overall really rather dull in comparison. On the way down I read Cole Moreton’s "Is God Still An Englishman". Moreton paints a now largely familiar picture of the last fifty years and the changes in English society and in particular how we do God. This certainly feels much more like the old England, and not in a good way.

Mainstream North Leaders Day: 25^th March, 2010

A vision of the Kingdom

Exploring themes of equality, diversity and unity from Revelation 7

Bev Thomas is a freelance consultant and lecturer. For the last 20 years she has worked as a trainer and speaker on social justice and 'race' issues. Bev has worked previously as project development officer for Churches' Commission for Racial Justice, board member of Evangelical Alliance and the chair of the Christian Socialist Movement. Bev is a lay minister in the New Testament Church of God.

Timing and Venue

Blackley Centre near Huddersfield.

It will run from 10am to 3pm and cost £15 each, including lunch.

Booking your place

To book your place, please email the Mainstream North administrator, Hazel Gilbert, on hazel.gilbert@hbc.org.uk, or call Hazel at Hoole Baptist Church, on 01244 312037

Serious Concerns over Ministerial Competence

Pictures have come into my possession that raise very serious questions about the competence of the current generation of Baptist ministers.

Further comment I think you will agree would be redundant.  Please pray for our denomination.

Alexander Maclaren, liberal evangelism and a church's future.

Got to preach for the first time yesterday at Alexander Maclaren’s old church. Maclaren was one of the great Victorian/Edwardian preachers, the northern Spurgeon. Wonder what he would have made of it. Not the sermon, the church.

The folk at Union Chapel, Fallowfield, Manchester now meet for worship in what was the church hall, the “sanctuary” having long since been demolished. Just by way of a reminder though a slice of Maclaren’s pulpit stands in the corner of the vestibule, at once a piece of Baptist Heritage and a free church relic.

Just under thirty of us gathered to worship. The service was formal but relaxed and the morning followed the locally established pattern of an act of worship, a break for coffee (this week with added sliver wedding anniversary chocolate cake) and then a follow-up session exploring a particular theme. I had been asked to address the question of evangelism in a liberal church.

It was good to see a church creating space for interactive reflection. It was good to see that they were entirely at home with the process. Good too to see congregation that regards itself as liberal trying to get to grips with how they might evangelise in a way that is true to their own convictions. If my experience is anything to go by this is an emerging trend.

The issue is a pertinent one for the folk at Union. They find themselves between ministers wondering about the future of the church. What will they need to do if they are to have a future; what kind of minister do they need to help them find a viable and effective way ahead?

As I made my way home after what I hope was a useful discussion I couldn’t help but feel wistful, melancholic even. In Maclaren’s day the 1,500 seater chapel would have been full. Churches knew what they were and where they stood. They also knew what they had to do and as long as they did it well they would prosper.

We live in different days. The challenge facing congregations such as Union chapel are by turn daunting and challenging. Whatever future they fashion for themselves, one thing’s for sure it won’t be as a Victorian preaching barn. Here’s hoping though that it will be a future marked by the manifest blessing of God.

David Southall to give 2010 Whitley Lecture

Andy Goodliff put this together; I just nicked it.


David Southall is to give the 2010 Whitley Lecture entitled: "The Poetic Paul: On Creating New Realities for Righteousness in Romans".

Why does the Apostle Paul personify righteousness and sin in Romans 6? Why does the character "Righteousness" act out its role as a slave master in opposition to "Slave Master Sin?" In this seminar David J. Southall explores Pauline personification and makes the case that the Apostle uses the poetic ways of speaking as modes of character invention and then goes on to show that personified "Righteousness", becomes Paul's way of talking about Christ in passages which are rich in metaphor and the story of Christ.

Southall gives an exegesis of Romans 6:15-23 which affirms this view and looks at the implications of his position for aspects of Pauline theology including "the justification debate" and universalism.

Southall gained his PhD from Spurgeon's College with a dissertation on theology of Paul in 2007. It was published as Rediscovering Righteousness in Paul (Mohr Siebeck, 2008). See also his chapter 'The Personification of Righteousness within a Metaphoric and Narratorial Setting' in Bible and Mission (Neufeld Verlag, 2008).

He became Chaplain ar Worcestershire Royal Hospital in 2009.
You can hear the lecture at:

• 22nd February 2010 at Regent's Park College, Oxford, 2pm
• 24th February 2010 at South Wales Baptist College, 3.00- 4.45pm
• 2nd March 2010 at Northern Baptist College, Luther King House, 7.30 - 9.30 p.m
• and also at the Baptist Assembly in May.
• 24th March Spurgeon's College
  

Mainstream Theology Day on Preaching

The next Mainstream North Theology Day will be on the theme of preaching.  I'm going to be speaking along with Ashley Hardingham.  We'll be looking at stuff such as the purpose of preaching, whether or not preaching has had its day and how our approach to preaching is shaped by our personality.

Date Jan 28th
Time 10.00 - 3.00
Venue The Blackley Centre
Cost £15 including lunch
To book hazel.gilbert@hbc.org.uk