Grace Baptist Assembly 2025 Day 1/03

Great preaching this evening as we looked behinf the scenes with the aid of Revelation 12 with Mick Lockwood. A blessing to be here.

LIP Annual meetings

It was great to be at the LIP (London Inreach Project) meetings in Orange Street near Trafalgar Square last Saturday. I was there for a meeting of the trustees first over the lunch hour. Otherwise we had a news session from 1.30 pm mainly with Andrew Murray and Roger Carter (above) but also featuring Mick Lockwood of Haworth who said how encouraging the project was despite the uphill slog it has been. Mick was once approached about working with the project and although nothing came of it it eventually propelled him into his current church planting role in Haworth. Mick later preached and I chaired.

Later, after a lovely tea downstairs, I was in the chair as we met again and took opportunity to thank Derek Sewell (and family) for all his work and heard more from Roger and from Peter Jermyn our treasurer. Mick preached very encouragingly from Acts 17 especially verses 26 and 27. We were not heaving numbers wise but it was good to be there and a great encouragement. Back here we had a sort of barbecue at the house for church people. Nice time again though a little wet.

Grace Assembly 09 6

The conference here is called 'Good news for a dying world'. The second morning session was led by Mick Lockwood from Haworth in Yorkshire. He had four things to say to us on reaching the unreached.
1. Motivation

He spoke first of Ed converted through Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth who saw four people converted in weeks by badgering people. Why all that happened was that he knew the truth and further he was moved by the love of God and a desire to serve him. It is all about being like Jesus Christ. Love is the key here. Christ's passion for sinners is central. Without love to sinners we cannot be like Christ.
2. Luke 10
1 It is a matter of appointment - God wants you to do this work. How humbling and what an incentive.
2 There are more than we may expect.
3 We are not to work alone but with others - ministers must do this
4 We should think in Parish terms - we are to proclaim the Word where the Lord has placed us. We go with the prayer that where we go the Lord will come.
5 The importance of prayer and dependence on God
6 There are many bleak predictions today and we can feel fearful. That's when we are ready - we are lambs among wolves.
7 We do not need mega resources
8 When we go out we look for the person of peace, the sympathetic person
9 We have a message of peace in the gospel
10 Assimilation is important
11 We cannot do miracles but we can do people what good we can
12 There is also a need to warn those who refuse to accept the gospel
of the judgement
3. The basis for our joy
There is joy in seeing gospel success but rather we should rejoice in our salvation in the world to come. Jesus himself rejoices in the sovereign choice of God. We should join in that rejoicing. To say this is not to go off topic but to see that in evangelism today we need to remember God's mysterious ways. By way of example here he told how someone had complained that they were brainwashing school children in their schools work. The upshot was that the area RE advisor (a Hindu) looked at things and recommended more Christianity leading to greater opportunities.
4. Opportunities
Rather than aping each other we need to look to the Lord and see what he would have us to do. Doors open, doors close.
Great stuff!

Grace Assembly 09

The programmes for the next Grace Assembly, May 19-21, are now out. Hope you can read some of the detail. (Try double clicking pics).