More on the IPC Catalyst Conference, etc

Greatly enjoying the IPC Catalyst Conference here in Ealing. Yesterday I skipped the session introducing the International Presbyterian Church. My father-in-law Geoff Thomas took myself and two others for a pizza. An interesting moment was when I asked Dick Gaffin if he had known the Westminster teacher E J Young. This is the equivalent of someone asking me if I know Geoff Thomas. He was very kind about it. Apparently the conference next year will be June 18-20. That means it won't clash with the EMA which will be June 25-27. I shoud mention that another joy this week has been stocking up bookwise courtesy of the Evangelical Bookshop, Belfast.

Banner of Truth 2015 08

Earlier this evening we listened to my friend Alan Davey on  helping our missionaries. He began with the Apostle Paul and moved on to Adoniram Judson to some modern examples of missionaries in tight spots. His focus was on how we can help such people. Suggestions included recognising that there is a price for them to pay and the need for us to prepare them and pray for them. Visits and sending helpful things can also be a help but we need to let them make their sacrifice.

Banner 2015 - Five Minutes of fame

Jeff Kingswood, Alan Davey, Stuart Olyott, GB, Kevin Deyoung, Geoff Thomas

(I deliberately stood between Stuart Olyott and Kevin DeYoung to impress my sons)

EMA Stuff

I've saved you my usual moans about the band. I think it's the drums that annoy me most somehow. The building doesn't bother me though on Day 1 I was stuck in "the south transept" - not much fun. There must be hundreds of people here - slightly less on Day 2 than Day 1? Near St Helen's in St Andrew's Undershaft there are just loads of books. I was pleased to see my books on sale. I've not bought anything yet except the £1 offers  - Derek Prime's Bible Answers and David Bentley Taylor's My Dear Erasmus. Tomorrow it's David Cook on Romans. Nice idea. It's always good to meet different people. It's been nice to have Alan Davey here. He spoke about Bordeaux in our meeting last night.

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.

Why two Sunday services?

Alan D picked up on this here. Thanks Alan.

New Feature

Hope you like the new feature - blogs to see. It's for my own use as much as anything. I sometimes miss things. Do check out these links featured at the time of writing this: one serious (interview with Philip Eveson) and one for fun (Ben Thomas sglefrolio amser maith yn ol).

Drink Root Beer

Okay now it's almost a series. Alan was slightly ahead of me but I had thought to cover root beer next. Like him my first experience of it was in MacDonald's (Golders Green in my case). In the early years (typical Americans) your choice was root beer, coke or something else. They eventually caught on. It reminded me of the dentists. I'd not realised that taste is cloves. According to Wikipedia root beer is the same as sasparilla (which I thought was going to be next in my series) and is a carbonated beverage originally created from sassafras. Root beer, popularised in North America, comes in two forms: alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
The soft drink version is generally made using extracts or flavoured syrups diluted into carbonated water. It is not as widely popular as other soft drinks and constitutes only 3% of the US soft drink market. The alcoholic version is made by fermenting a solution of extract and sugar with yeast. Typically this will yield a beverage with about 0.4% alcohol, compared to more than 4% for most regular beers. Root beer extract may contain a variety of flavours, coming from the wide range of ingredients. Bark from the roots of the sassafras tree was the typical flavour in root beer historically, and is the primary flavour most individuals associate with the beverage. It is slightly red at times. Sassafras bark was banned in the US in 1960 because of the carcinogenic properties of its constituent chemical safrole. A safrole-free variety is now used, with some claiming that it has a weaker flavour than the pre-1960 variety (they would). Acacia is also used.
There are hundreds of root beer brands in the USA, produced in every US state and there is no standardised recipe. The primary ingredient, sassafras, is complemented with other flavours, common ones being vanilla, wintergreen (which is why it tastes like germoline - did you get that Alan?), cherry tree bark,liquorice root, sarsaparilla root, nutmeg, anise, molasses, cinnamon, clove (that;'s what I thought). Homemade root beer is usually made from concentrate, though it can also be made from actual herbs and roots. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic root beers have a thick and foamy head when poured, often enhanced through the addition of yucca extract.
Root beer was sometimes used as a herbal medicine. Throughout history, the beverage was often mildly alcoholic. As a medicine it was used for treating cough and mouth sores.
Commercial root beer was developed by Charles Elmer Hires in 1866. Hires presented root tea powder at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, and in 1893 he began selling bottled, carbonated root beer. His choice of a name seemed unfortunate at the time, as the word "beer" drew the wrath of the temperance movement. However, Hires had his product tested by a laboratory, and trumpeted their conclusion that root beer contained less alcohol than bread. His His beer became the "Temperance drink"— among other slogans. There was an upsurge in the popularity of root beer in the US during Prohibition. It was at its most popular in the period during and after prohibition, and has since declined in popularity. Today, root beer is often mixed with ice cream as a root beer float.

Banner of Truth 2008

[Pics: Andrew King; Keith Hoare; Graham John talking with Keith Hoare adn Jeremy Walker with Ani Ekpo from Nigeria]

So the Banner was a great time as ever with that excellent balance of Calvinistic methodism or experiential Calvinism that is its strength. Perhaps it was more weighted to the experimental this time but we are celebrating Calvin next year and may be that will be more the other way. Gwynn Williams kicked us off with a carefully crafted and very methodist reminder of the need for the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. Gwynn later introduced John Aaron's long evening paper introducing the massive 2 volume 1600 page Tadau Methodistiaid which he has now translated and that Banner will be publishing this summer. Two things struck me about this. Firstly, I am familiar with the phrase 'Wales the land of revivals' but I had not really appreciated this as a simple fact of history (1735-1850) rather than anything else. Secondly, a sketch of this history explained how Dr Lloyd-Jones could be so disappointed with what he knew in his day. From a high point of 53% of the population attending evangelical churches in 1851 to the present point where only 2% attend any church at all is a roller coaster story of gain and loss. For any believer this is of interest. For a Welshman it is particularly poignant.

The main speakers at the conference were Joel Beeke (on preaching Christ), Stuart Olyott and Ian Hamilton (Cambridge). All had useful things to say. I like Stuart Olyott's clear cut, no nonsense style in particular. He spoke about pastoral ministry and on training up young men and gave the closing sermon on 'the message we always need to hear' about forgiveness (1 John 1). Joel and Ian use a more difficult style but had good things to say.

We also had brief sessions of Spurgeon (from Jonathan Watson) and the matter of unction (from Andrew King). There was also a news session and a question and answer time, always quite stimulating, as are the late night chats with various groups of twos and threes and more. It's great to see old friends like Bernard Lewis, Alan Davey and Keith Hoare, fellow bloggers like Guy Davies and Martin Downes, my father-in-law, the other Welshmen, etc, etc.

Paradise Found

Regular visitors to this blog may have noticed a predeliction for the hymns of Charles Wesley. This year is the 300th anniversary of his birth and to mark that date one of the things that has been done this year is the release of a CD, which I have just purchased. It is by Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band. Maddy Prior came to prominence in the seventies with the folk rock band Steeleye Span (All around my hat, etc). The Carnival Band specialise in old instruments. I believe they came together to play some Christmas carols at first (they have three or four good Christmas CDs by now) and then later did a collection of 18th Century hymns ('Sing lustily and with good courage'). I remember being in the car with my friend Alan Davey one day and he played this latter album on CD. I was immediately struck and had to get it which I did. More recently I managed to track down a CD version which I've continued to enjoy.

I'd not noticed Paradise Found, which came out back in May, but there was a reference to it in The Times the other week and when I looked there it was on i-tunes and Amazon. I wouldn't want a praise band in church but this is very pleasant (a remarkably old fashioned idea by the way). Everything is done in the folk (rather than operatic) idiom which I think is a better way to sing hymns. There's plenty of well known stuff on this CD (Love Divine All Loves Excelling, Ye Servants Of God, Soldiers Of Christ Arise, Jesu Lover Of My Soul, etc) but often to an unfamiliar tune. There are also new ones to me like Dead Dead The Child I Loved So Well and Come On My Partners In Distress (not all the verses below but some of them). There's a very bouncy 'Come away to the skies' that grabs my fancy most on first listening.

Come on, my partners in distress,
My comrades through the wilderness,
Who still your bodies feel;
Awhile forget your griefs and fears,
And look beyond the vale of tears,
To that celestial hill.

Beyond the bounds of time and space,
Look forward to that happy place,
The saints’ secure abode;
On faith’s strong eagle pinions rise,
And force your passage to the skies,
And scale the mount of God.

See where the Lamb in glory stands,
Encircled with His radiant bands,
And join the angelic powers.
For all that height of glorious bliss,
Our everlasting portion is,
And all that Heaven is ours.

Who suffer with our Master here,
We shall before His face appear
And by His side sit down;
To patient faith the prize is sure,
And all that to the end endure
The cross, shall wear the crown.

Thrice blessèd, bliss-inspiring hope!
It lifts the fainting spirits up,
It brings to life the dead;
Our conflicts here shall soon be past,
And you and I ascend at last,
Triumphant with our Head.

That great mysterious Deity
We soon with open face shall see;
The beatific sight
Shall fill the heavenly courts with praise,
And wide diffuse the golden blaze
Of everlasting light.

The Father shining on His throne,
The glorious co-eternal Son,
The Spirit one and seven,
Conspire our rapture to complete;
And lo! we fall before His feet,
And silence heightens Heaven.

In hope of that ecstatic pause,
Jesus, we now sustain Thy cross,
And at Thy footstool fall,
’Till Thou our hidden life reveal,
’Till Thou our ravished spirits fill,
And God is all in all.

Check this too

Another interview here of someone moving in the right circles. Thanks Guy and Alan. Cymru am byth.

Alan Davey, etc

My old friend Alan Davey breezed through here the other night asking questions. See his blog here. I got a brilliant find on the Utsira question thanks to someone on the island itself. The wonders of the internet. (Talking of which I could also find the Norwegian for many thanks [tusen takk] at the flick of a key. See here. Looking for a pic of Alan I also discovered that there's an Alan Davey in the rock band Hawkwind [Do you wanna ride in my silver machine, See yourself going by in a silver machine?] which I'd not known).

Anyway, the point of this post is that Alan (who clearly has a poor taste in music as he also took exception to Ekseption - official site here) asked about the phrase 'bang to rights' and I can't find anything about it on the net, beyond the fact it's criminal/police slang, which I might have surmised. Anyway can anyone out there help us?