GBM Meetings

It was good to be at the annual meetings of Grace Baptist Mission in The Friends Meeting House near Euston once again on Tuesday. The morning meeting allows the 116 or so churches involved to have their say on how the mission is run and although this is obviously a little unwieldy it is unique and no doubt a better approximation to biblical norms than what happens in most societies. As we were reminded the council is also elected by the churches and so the input from local churches is strong. The difficulties that have been experienced in Kenya were rightly alluded to without any detail. It was good to have the report on all the various activities of the year and to know that financially there was actually a surplus this time round. Of course, the present climate means no-one can be too sure what will happen next and once again a tiny minority of churches refused to vote for the proposed budget.
It’s always good to see a large number of familiar faces at these events – not every name immediately comes to mind, sadly, but I had some nice conversations with various people. I grabbed a bite to eat and ended up chatting with the present minister at Over (it used to be Over Strict Baptist Church which if you say it quickly is as funny as St Thomas More Catholic Church which I saw again in Bradford on Avon on Monday). David Smith is from South Africa and seems a good hard working fellow with a heart for sinners.
The afternoon was spent running to various seminars. I managed to fit in three. First, one on training ministers. Jonathan Bayes introduced the work of Guelph based Carey Outreach Ministries and Robin Dowling spoke of his imminent return to FUSBC, the Seminary in Medellin, Colombia – short term at present but may be more long term. Every man and his dog seems to minister overseas these days (there were more examples later in the day of short trips to Armenia and Kenya – I’ve been myself on an occasion!). It’s all very good I’m sure but sometimes one wonders what happened to the Pauline method of going to a place, working hard then leaving the locals to get on with it. I suppose that the argument is that if Paul had been able to use jets he would have.
I bumped into the Days from Pontrhydyrun, Luke Jenner, now at Welwyn, fresh back from the Philippines in connection with CCM, Norman Hopkins from Strood in Kent to talk about the law and the new covenant Baptists and John Hall from Westerleigh who is always guaranteed to show that things are much worse even than I had thought, which in itself is cheering.
Next it was a GPT session with Maciek Stolarski talking about the work in Armenia (where Sin is serious a simplified Ralph Venning work and no 22 in a series, has just been translated) and Ruth Firth from Latvia explaining to Tim Curnow how she has almost finished a simplified version of Horatius Bonar’s Everlasting Righteousness. This reduction of English classics to simplified form ready for translation does seem a way forward. Sin is serious is now available not only in Armenian but also in Bulgarian, Burmese, Kiswahili, Slovak, Spanish and Portuguese.
I went on to hear Malcolm and Ruth talk about the work in Latvia in the main hall. There are lots of encouragements and this lovely couple are obviously working very hard. One senses an underlying discouragement however with the general lack of enthusiasm for things Reformed.
Several spoke at the evening meeting (chaired again by Geoff King) including Jonathan and Robin who I’d heard but also Anthony Green from Peru and Andrew Gullett, who with his wife is about to go out to Kenya to work. We also heard from Nathan and Urpha Javed who are planning to be involved in church planting in Bradford (not on Avon). What a task they have. It made me wonder if they should rethink parading people like that and let them get started first and then come before the meeting. On more than one occasion things have been announced with a fanfare and then come to nothing. Or could they not have asked someone like Tim Mills to talk about reaching people in Bradford? One also wishes there was more of a spotlight on others doing similar work, such as Robin Asgher in Cranford.
Anyway we sang, the tie-less John Benton briefly preached from Acts 1 and we headed home with our goody bags full of info for the folks who couldn’t make it. Nothing on earth is perfect but this is a bright spot in a dark world and I for one was glad to have been present.
Last night I showed the free DVD Comment entendons-ils? This has been done quite well by Roger Cook. Rather than simply focusing on Fiona Steward in Bordeaux (where Alan Davey is) he visits other works and let's them also plead for workers. Clearly the mission field there is vast, demanding and on our doorstep.