Dave's Blog

What are the essentials

2012-02-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

Since having the church website up and running I have, together with many others, been trying to make sure that not only is the site up to date, easy to use and informative, but also that we have every page completed. An email this week made me realise that some of the pages were still blank as one mother was trying to get the information about the location of our last youth celebration.

One of the blank pages was about what we believe. It would be easy to cut and paste a doctrinal statement from an organisation like the Evangelical Alliance or to put up the essential aspects of what it means to be a Baptist, but these all have shades of meaning an nuance that make them harder to understand. I could have copied out one of the creeds, but which one? Anyway, the creeds tended to be written as much for who they excluded as they were for who was included in the church. I could have put up the watchwords of our particular branch of the Christian family (Baptist, evangelical, charismatic) but again these are not phrases that mean much to those who don't know our jargon.

So I sat and tried to work out what are the essentials of our faith. I'm sure that if you look at what I have written you will see many gaps (no mention of baptism!) and somethings that seem superfluous or even contentious (different views of creation, anyone). I think part of the struggle is that a relationship with Jesus Christ is about so much more than being able to tick the relevant boxes of what I do or don't give intellectual assent to and yet there is something of that in there. God's love, my sin, God's forgiveness and my need to receive it, the place of the Bible and the role of the Holy Spirit all seemed essential, but so does a recognition of the relationship as something that grows and develops over time.

Please do have a look at what I have written at http://www.mpbc.org.uk/whatwebelieve.htm and feed your comments back either on this blog or by emailing me. Even while writing this post I have had to go back and revisit what I have written, tweaking a few details and trying to clarify some points. I'd rather avoid heresy, if you spot any, but I guess no one has ever produced one without anything controversial, such is the diversity of this glorious and mixed up body we call church.

The Church Family

2012-01-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

When Christy and I moved to Morden Park Baptist Church in 2008, we believe that God told us that we need to make our church an even more welcoming place for families to come to. There was already a lot going on with children and young people on Sundays and through the week but we needed to connect that more deeply into church life. We needed to be somewhere that was going to be helpful for people at any stage of life whether children, teenagers, single adults, newly married couples, parents, or seniors.

Over the last few years we have, as church together, been able to build up so many different parts of the ministry of the church. We have been able to celebrate weddings and help couples prepare for marriage. We have seen the youth and children's work grow. We have seen a few people publicly show their faith in Jesus through baptism. All this has been exciting and we have been thanking God for what we have seen, but there was still a feeling that there must be something more.

Over the last couple of weeks we seem to have taken a big step forwards in fulfilling this vision. A couple of weeks ago we started our latest Marriage Preparation Course to help a couple as they get ready for their wedding and their life beyond that.

On Sunday we were privileged to celebrate the dedication of a little girl whose family are now a regular part of our congregation. We have a few other young children who are likely to be dedicated later this year. We also had the joy of seeing four people getting baptised. For some this was to demonstrate a long standing faith and for others it followed quickly after discovering what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ. As we listened to their stories of what God has done in their lives I was struck by not only how different they were but also how they were all brought together in Christ.

Last night we launched our Youth Alpha course with many young people coming from our own and other local churches to explore questions of life and faith. For some, this is about fitting their faith together while for others it is more about discovering whether the Christian faith is for them or not.

In a couple of weeks we will celebrate with our seniors at our New Year meal. We are able to join with those within and beyond the church to build friendships and show something of God's love.

I find it so exciting to be part of this church family where we see so many expressions of the Kingdom of God for people at whatever stage of life. Praise God for the way he is building his family.

A new world awaits

2011-11-10T08:46:00.001-08:00

So I have finally joined the world of blogging. Now anyone can read my thoughts on what is happening in my life, in Morden Park Baptist Church and in the world.