Connect. Communities of Hope

Transcription

1 Connect Communities of Hope November 2018

2 Give me also springs of water For some time, the Lord has been speaking to me about our future through a few verses of scripture in Judges 1:12-15, with the key phrase being: give me also springs of water. It is the story of Caleb s daughter who has been given the dry Land of the Negev as her birthright. But the Land is barren due to its dryness, and she asks her father for a gracious blessing of springs of water to irrigate the whole Land. This passage came as answer to prayer for me. My prayer had been, how do I pray for our churches? How should I pray for this land? And this was his answer to me: pray, Give me also springs of water. We know the potential of our nation to glorify God. But we also know that the living faith which grew, and spread in and from this nation, has significantly dried up in the past few generations. I believed the Lord was saying, the Land can be fruitful again but it requires the refreshing flow of my Spirit to revive the church and to revive the nation. All this is good news but there also came a rebuke as I pondered this passage over months. I began to think of what I had been praying for years. And I think you could describe it like this: Lord give me a well for my field, give me a well to refresh Denny Baptist Church, give me a well to refresh Leven Baptist Church, give me a well to refresh Dumfries Baptist Church. Then it became give me a well for the Baptist Union of Scotland. Maybe you have prayed in the same vein. But the Lord had to show me that praying that way was not asking for good gifts. A well is a container of water. Wells get protected by people who have them, restricting access by other people. Wells encourage selfishness, arrogance and pride. Look at how healthy my fields are! Look at what is happening in our fields! A well of water would not have been a good gift. At Assembly we heard this as a call to prayer in our tri-jubilee year, a time for us to pray for every traditional denomination and every new church in Scotland. We need to see the whole church irrigated by the move of his Spirit and the whole land of Scotland refreshed. We must not contain our vision of what God might do in this Land to our own fields and our ability to spread water by the bucketload from our well. The nation of Scotland does not need our buckets; it needs streams of water flowing in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west, as well as in the central lands. My prayer is that our 150th year will be marked by a fresh and generous spirit of prayer amongst us, seeking blessing and refreshment in and from our nation.

3 Communities of Hope One of the things MIG (Mission Initiative Group) has been able to do over the past year or so is run some day conferences focussed on gathering people to equip and encourage them for mission. These have predominantly focussed on leaders. On Saturday 29th September, we ran our first event aimed at those who are at the coal face of mission in our churches. The day was called Communities of Hope: Doing the Stuff and took place at Larbert Baptist Church. We had Diane McWilliam helping us think about the why as well as the how of engaging with our local communities. We also had stories from around our baptist family of churches already doing great work in their communities. Perth Baptist church told us about their Home program for the elderly in their community, Stirling Baptist Church about the Haven project, Calderwood Baptist about the work they do around debt recovery, food parcels and supporting struggling families, Motherwell Baptist Church reflected on their work among the recovery community and finally we had Broughty Ferry Baptist Church telling us of the work they are doing in local schools with Romance Academy and also around mental health in schools. There was plenty fo time to interact and learn from those stories also. All in all it was an inspiring day for the around 60 attendees. We look forward to seeing and hearing about the fruit it will bear for the Kingdom in the years ahead. Keep your eye out for a follow up day in all are welcome.

4 Tribe - an interview with Sam Donaghey Sam graduated from the Scottish Baptist College in the summer of 2018 and is a member of Kirkintilloch Baptist Church. Over the past few years he s felt an increasing burden for a movement of prayer amongst students, which he calls TRIBE. Sam, tell us a little about yourself and about some of the significant influences that have led you to start TRIBE? I m 23 and I live in the Hillhead area of Kirkintilloch (as part of the Eden team). I am also a member of Kirkintilloch Baptist, and have been for a couple of years or so now. Some significant moments for me have been around the fact that God wants to make Himself known to me every day. God seems to have placed a favour and influence on my life that seems to be getting wider and wider. The journey this sets me on is of humility and integrity: humility in knowing that He is a God and I m not; and integrity in that if I m going to lead people into something, I need to be there already. Those significant moments have inspired you to establish TRIBE so in your own words can you fill us in on what TRIBE is and what it aims to do? TRIBE was started, initially in Glasgow, to bring students from across every denomination, every area, and every college and university together to pray Your Kingdom Come to grasp this personally but also for their friends, families, and campuses. By doing this we hope to raise a generation of students who live intimate, prayer-filled lives with Jesus and advance His Kingdom in college and university campuses. That sounds like a fantastic idea, where did the vision for it come from? The vision of TRIBE came from a particular passion for prayer and a vision that He gave me of an army of prayer-warriors who were advancing His Kingdom in Glasgow.

5 What does TRIBE look like in practice? One of the main ways we do this presently is by gathering on the third Thursday of every month in St. George s Tron in Glasgow to pray and connect with one another. We also want to do this by creating spaces for students to pray together outside of our monthly gatherings (campus prayer walks, and planned week of prayer at the end of January); helping resource students in their individual and corporate pursuit of intimacy, prayerfulness, and engagement with the mission of God; and partnering with churches and other para-church ministries to see the Kingdom of God come amongst students. My longer-term aims for TRIBE would be to see us increase our ability to resource students in intimacy and prayer that leads to the mission of God; secondly, I d like to see us equip others to do this in other cities across Scotland, the UK, Europe (if this could be you, get in touch!) Clearly you re passionate about TRIBE and your passion is infectious, so getting down to business, how can we get involved? First of all, if you are a Christian student in Glasgow come along! Find us on Facebook at TRIBE Students and you will find the details of our next prayer gathering. Second, if you are a church leader/ministry leader and are interested in hearing more please get in contact and let s have a coffee. Third, if you are a Christian student in another part of Scotland/the UK/Europe and want to gather students to pray so that they grow in intimacy and to see the Kingdom advance, get in touch! We d love to help you develop a student-focussed, unifying, Kingdom-advancing prayer movement in your city/town. Finally, as we grow, we d love people to support us in prayer, finances, resources, and encouragement. We might be about prayer ourselves but we need prayed for as much as anyone else A full version of this interview can be found at

6 A Leap of Faith After years of searching for a new home, a vacant office, highly suitable for conversion, caught the imagination of Thurso Baptist Church. The Baptist Union of Scotland immediately offered support in the form of a loan for 50% of the purchase cost. The congregation would have to find the other 50%, along with funds to convert, so pledges were requested. Within 3 days pledges amounted to twice the target, so an offer was made subject to gaining planning permission for change of use. Unusually, the vendor stipulated the payment of a 10% nonrefundable deposit. Would we risk losing this significant amount of money on the unknown outcome of a planning decision? However, the Lord placed a real desire in the hearts of the congregation to proceed. Despite a robust planning application for a building which clearly had an architectural design suitable for a church, our application was refused. By a quirk of the process, we had not yet paid the deposit before hearing of the planning refusal. Was the Lord giving us a get-out? We could back out now with no financial loss! An emergency church meeting was called, with the quick and decisive response to step out in faith again. We paid the money immediately, despite knowing that humanly-speaking our chances of success were now greatly reduced. Planning officials strongly recommended that councillors uphold their decision to conserve the building for business. However, every councillor present supported the church s application, citing that Jesus was always about His Father s business, and the original planning decision was unanimously overturned! Praise the Lord for His provision and for answered prayer, and thanks to our local councillors and BUS for their support. Having completed the first phase of our conversion, we moved into the premises in June, and have already paid back half our loan. The Lord has been so faithful to us and our desire is to reach out to our community with His love and for His glory.

7 Prayer Link November November 4th Baptist World Alliance Renfrew Baptist Church Rosyth Baptist Church Rutherglen Baptist Community Church Saltcoats (South Beach) Baptist Church November 11th Sanquhar (St Ninians) Baptist Church Selkirk Baptist Church Sheddocksley Baptist Church Shettleston Baptist Church November 18th South Leith Baptist Church Southside Christian Fellowship Springburn Baptist Church November 25th St Andrews Baptist Church St Mary s Community Church St Ninians Community Church Baptist World Alliance Give thanks for the many thousands of Baptist churches worldwide. Please pray for the work of the Baptist World Alliance as they seek to highlight justice issues and promote freedom of religion. Pray for Rev Dr Elijah Brown, the new General Secretary of BWA, that God would give him wisdom and creativity as he serves the worldwide Baptist community. Saltcoats (South Beach) BC We give thanks for our new Part-Time Associate Pastor (Youth & Children), Douglas Crabb. Please pray for Douglas and his family as they settle into the church and for Douglas as he works with our youth and children. As a congregation we have benefited greatly from being part of the first cohort of churches to be involved with Lead Academy. This process has facilitated us in changing some of the things we do as a church and developing new initiatives to serve the community. Please pray for us as we seek to be Loving God. Loving people. Serving the community. St Mary s Community Church - Numbers in our Sunday congregation are very small; along with this come financial issues. However, we are building relationships through community activities; pray that these will lead to people meeting and following Jesus. Pray that we will clearly hear God s voice for the way ahead. Sheddocksley BC - we praise God for His ongoing favour in our local schools and community work - that relationships continue to grow with young and old alike. Our prayer is that, in a re-shaping year for the church, each member would grow deeper in covenant family, and stronger in their partnership with the Holy Spirit in their everyday lives. Pray too for ongoing staffing and ministry changes, that people would find the right place to serve well.

8 Southside Christian Fellowship Please pray for our prophetic outreach and prayer space in Ayr town centre one Saturday a month from October - December; for our Give-a-Day Christmas ministry seeking to serve and bless the community and for planned changes to our Sunday gathering patterns taking place in the New Year. Pray also that we would listen faithfully to and follow God obediently in all we do - whatever that means for us! St Ninians Community Church We praise God for a great week of outreach in August which led to many conversations and new people coming along to services, including children, as well as bringing the whole fellowship together. Pray for the ongoing involvement in the community, especially through the Re:Fresh Cafe on Fridays and a possible Alpha Course coming up - that lives would continue to be changed by encounter with Jesus. St Andrews BC Though our main prayer point is for God to graciously guide us to a new pastor (after the retirement early September of Andrew Rollinson) the word vacancy seems a bit anomalous, as there is a staff team of five remaining. Pray particularly for: Paulus de Jong who is leading the staff team, our search group (led by our Moderator John Greenshields) and our elders and deacons. Pray for the continuing outreach of the church through our student ministry AWAKE, our fruitfarm ministry and our version of Messy Church. Selkirk BC We re excited about the many divine appointments and God-given opportunities for deeper relationships with neighbours, but we re in need of more workers and greater financial resources to make good the harvest. Pray for Godhonouring resolutions to some internal distractions. Stenhouse BC - We are loving getting to know our community better as more people from our church move into the area. Pray we could be good neighbours as Jesus calls us to be. Pray also for the work happening with ex-offenders and in the Saughton Prison. South Leith South Leith Baptist is presently in a period of transition, following pastoral changes. While we have been focussing on the way forward as a small fellowship the Rev Bill Cowie has been helping us over the last year and we are greatly encouraged by a good number of new people joining us. The addition of new people has enabled us to expand our programme of outreach activities for youth and also those with addiction issues.