June Newsletter
Welcome to our June Newsletter. This month Elaine shares with us her reflections from the annual national assembly of the Baptist Union of Great Britain which was held in Blackpool.
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It seems a long time since I travelled to Blackpool to attend the 2011 Baptist assembly and I had intended to give you more information during the last few weeks, but for one reason or another that hasn’t happened, so I’ll put it all down on paper and you can read it at your leisure.
The theme of the weekend was ‘Your Kingdom Come’ and we were challenged to think what it meant for us, in Britain in the 21st Century, to bring God’s Kingdom to where we are. There was much going on over the weekend and here I can only bring you a flavour of what was said in the main meetings.
On the Friday night the main speaker was Pat Took (Baptist Union President 2011-12). She spoke about the occasion when Jesus drove out the market sellers from the Temple who had been stopping people from worshipping God. Those who couldn’t afford the temple charges as well as the Gentiles were only allowed into the courtyard used by the market sellers. In doing this, Jesus was reclaiming the temple for His Father so that worship could once again become inclusive; the marginalised were not to be kept out of God’s presence they were to be allowed to enter freely.
We were challenged to be re-shaped, to be prepared to pay the ‘cost of the kingdom’ which calls us to give up our control and yield our allegiance fully to Christ – everything else must be held with a light touch. We cannot be exclusive and stop anyone coming to worship God just because it makes us uncomfortable. Christ makes the temple an inclusive place of worship.
On Saturday morning Wale Hudson-Roberts brought a message based on the parable of the prodigal son. He spoke of God’s kingdom being one of inclusion not of exclusion; not based on rejection but on embrace. He also drew out the idea of inclusion and justice being directly linked, explaining we need to be prepared not just to pray about situations of injustice, but to act too.
On Saturday evening it was the commissioning service for those going overseas with BMS World Mission and so Jeff Lucas spoke about ‘Commissioning a kingdom builder’ and how, if we were to be involved in building God’s kingdom, we needed to establish priorities, resolve regrets, move beyond pettiness and to give God our ‘now’. This is our challenge he said, to give God not just our past or commit our future to him, but to give him ‘now’.
On Sunday morning we were challenged about our inclusion of children into the whole life of the church, especially focussing on the communion service. Do we sometimes act like ‘bouncers’, keeping children away from a meaningful act of worship? What do our actions and attitudes show to those around us - especially to the children in our church?
On Sunday evening Julie Pennington-Russell spoke about ‘The Lunatic Farmer’, using the parable of the weeds and the wheat being left to grow together. She brought out that we like our churches and our lives to be neat and tidy, with no weeds and everything looking good, but she said, the weeds were to be left in the field and we need to get used to having a messy field, the good growing with the bad. It is not our duty to sort everything out; we’re stuck with an untidy world until the gathering time comes. “God loves the field,” she said, “and wants to grow what is good amongst the bad”. She challenged us to come to God in repentance and to give the whole field into His hands, because in God’s hands, the weeds can become wheat.
The Assembly concluded with a message from Jonathan Edwards, the General Secretary of the Baptist Union, who spoke about being salt and light in the face of apathy, cynicism and a diverse, multi-cultural society. We were encouraged to ‘hang in there’ as our work is not in vain; to become involved in our society, and to guard the liberty of expression, not only for other groups, but also our own liberty to speak for Jesus.
It was a very good assembly and there was a lot I was able to take away from it. I guess there were two key ideas which have stayed with me, which may be useful for us as a church to consider. One was the message of inclusivity – how inclusive are we? Do we like things to stay the way they are because we’re comfortable with them or are we prepared to ‘hold them with a light touch’ and be willing, for Jesus’ sake, to welcome those on the margins who might make our field messy? Secondly, being salt and light where we are – not just in the things we do together as a church, but where we are individually on a day to day basis.
Jonathan Edwards closed with these words: “This is our calling – it is not negotiable.”
