Busy weekend

I have had a very busy weekend.

Friday night it was our children and young people's meetings. Having had such a good Holiday Bible Club week we were wondering what numbers would be like at our first club after that. We are thankful to God that nearly 30 came. One of our deacons spoke on Jairus's daughter and then they worked on finishing the mural we started at the Holiday Club. Around 20 came to the older group too. I spoke to them on 'What is a real Christian?' using something I'd prepared for a meeting for ladies here the night before, then we played some hockey in our hall. My eldest son, another boy and our LTS man were away at the Banner Youth Conference.

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Then on the Saturday I went up to Welwyn for meetings of the European Missionary Fellowship. This year we had a morning and afternoon meeting instead of the usual afternoon and evening, which seemed to work well with about 60 present. Assistant Director Martin Leech chaired the sessions on 'London- emerging mission field'. Director Daniel Webber began by outlining the current challenge. Interesting statistics included 1M Poles now in the UK; 250K Russian speakers in London; 30% of London residents are born outside the UK (2001); 300 languages are spoken in London; there are some 50 non-indigenous groups of 10K or more; 565K immigrants came to the UK for a year or more (2006). Mr Webber emphasised the need to be aware of this massive mission field, to wisely deal with the practical problems this raises, to make good use of literature and to set people apart to reach these people.

Ken Brownell of East London Tabernacle then spoke on his own congregation's attempts to deal with this (they have some 35 different nations represented on a Sunday). In particular they have set up a Russian speaking congregation and Yuriy Vyshnevs'kyy spoke about that. After lunch, Istvan Salanki spoke about the rather different Hungarian work that he now heads in West London. Both clearly have many opportunities and have seen some conversions but are struggling to keep up with the fast changing situation. We had a short time for questions. Along with the opportunity for fellowship over lunch this was a stimulating time. Ken also preached a fine semron on the lepers discovering the departure of the Assyrian army.

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Then that evening I spoke on David Brainerd over at Newtown Evangelical Baptist Church, Chesham. This was the beginning of their anniversary meetings. Chesham, just over the Buckinghamshire border from Herts, I discovered is actually only 40 minutes from my door but a world away in other respects, being something of a country town with many commuters to London as well as many working locally.

I preached on the Sunday from 1 John 1 and Ecclesiastes 6/7. The morning congregation was around a hundred and with a fairly good age spread. I had not preached there before but I know the pastor Mark Richards through Grace Baptist Assembly and really appreciated the opportunity. I know some members of the congregation a little and it was good to meet others adn hear their stories. We had lunch in the church together and that added to the fellowship of the day. It is always difficult to know how to minster to people you do not know so well but when they are receptive to the Word it makes all the difference and I returned home to my wife at the end of the day thankful to God for the opportunity and warmed in my heart.