Bulkington Church History Lecture Anne Steele

It was good to be in Bulkington Congregational church up in the Midlands last night once again. It is remarkable how they are able to gather a score or two people from various churches in the area with an interest in church history. The pastor Peter Mckenzie chaired and I spoke on Anne Steele and got over the story quite well, I hope. It was good to chat with people over a cuppa afterwards as well. It was a pleasant drive up in the sunshine too.

I Quite Like Mondays

The last three Mondays have been pretty busy ones and I've not really reported the good things I've been enjoying. So time for a quick round up.

This last Monday (13th) I was giving a historical lecture at Bulkington Congregational Church. My good friend Mike Iliff had kindly recommended me and it was good to be in the lovely little chapel there near Nuneaton for the first time and to meet their minister Peter Mackenzie. A good crowd gathered and it was good to see a mix of familiar and unfamiliar faces and to meet several when tea was served after the lecture (available here).

The Monday before was the first Monday in the month so I was down at the Westminster Fellowship. They have put us in a new room. It's a bit poky and has the humbling words Welcome to the creche on the wall but I'm sure it will do us fine. About twenty of us were there to hear Chris Jenkins of Christchurch, Baldock speak on his experiences with Evangelical Anglicans and then to discuss the matter. It seemed to me to confirm my suspicion that the Anglican approach is almost entirely pragmatic and that they really don't think at all as people like members of the Westminster Fellowship generally do. Chris's point was that may be we can learn something from them and may be we can or at least we can not bemoan the way things go with us partly because we have made the choices we have.

The Monday before that (if that's not considered ancient history) I was at the John Owen Centre leading a discussion group on the Paul Copan book Is God a moral monster? which we liked a bit because he was at least trying to defend the Bible against the atheists. Some of his exegesis got us nervous, however, and so we were reluctant to commend it too highly. It's one of those books that are worth reading even though you are bound to disagree with certain things. In the evening I was chairing the Cranford Support Trust followed by the support group meeting. Robin Asgher was then fresh back from Pakistan where, among other things, he was preaching in a church in the place where Osama Bin Laden lived and died, Abbottabad. (St Luke's Church, is as old as the town [see pic]. "A melancholy Christian cemetery can be found 500m up Circular Rd" according to Lonely Planet). Fascinating!