Building Biblical Churches for the 21st Century

God’s Glory Our Joy 2005

If the aim of this year's conference was to encourage the individual church member to  examine his/her own walk and commitment to playing an active role in the reformation of his/her own Church, then it must be considered to have been an overwhelming success. I'd be amazed if any of those who attended went away from the conference unchallenged. Personally it was a privilege to have been there.  If you didn't enjoy that privilege, then you must order the tapes - you need to hear the papers, your Church needs to hear the papers. You then need to go away and do something about what you've heard, as James exhorts us we need to "be doers of the Word and not hearers only".  Go and by God's grace play a part in the reformation of your local Church and bring glory to His wonderful name - only then can we truly enjoy Him forever!

The conference opened on Friday when about 35 pastors and office-bearers gathered to hear an encouraging and challenging word from John Palmer on "Reformation today and tomorrow".

Daniel Grimwade spoke in the evening on the topic of reforming inter-church relationships, drawing upon a number of examples from his own Church connections in Yorkshire. 

Stephen Reece's paper was entitled "A call to Biblical reformation". Stephen reminded us that every Christian who is loyal to Christ must be committed to reformation, it is not an option. He went on to outline what a New Testament Church should be and how much Christ loves the Church, each true local Church is so precious to Him.  The work of reformation will be costly, often slow and painful, but with God's blessing it can be blessed above all our expectations. The Church must be constantly reforming and all our thinking should be dominated and shaped by the five great reformation truths. When everything that we do in our Churches is governed by the Bible alone, driven by grace alone, points to faith alone in Christ alone and brings the glory to Christ alone, then and only then can we say that we are reformed!

Ali McLachlan then gave an extremely thought-provoking paper on reformation in mission.  I challenge anyone to hear this paper and remain unmoved by it!  Ali reminded us that the theme of Gods' glory extending to all the ends of the earth is a recurring one in the Old testament and when Christ came, He gave clearer instruction to His disciples: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...".  The problem then has never been with the nations or with God's glory - it is with the local Church and how it has viewed world mission.  In the New Testament it was very much an every member thing, always gospel led, always a church-planting exercise and invariably costly.  Since the 1800s missionary organisations have been springing up and taking over the job of the local Church. Ali finished with a bold and Biblical vision for mission - he challenged us to think about elders in the local church identifying individuals and training them and sending them and supporting them. A much more Biblical and therefore God-glorifying way to carry out missionary work.

David Harding addressed the issue of Reformation in children and young peoples work in an equally challenging manner.  He outlined the problems that we have today - we live in a world where the family has changed, religion is no longer respected and we are trying to reach young people who basically don't know anything - in the past evangelism was a matter of building upon what peopple already knew. We have a solution in that we have God's Word which is clear and then he outlined a strategy. We must focus on the family - instruct our own families first and then we can reach other families. David pointed out that so many today believe that we reach the parents through the children - but perhaps we should emphasize reaching the children through the parents? He finished with two questions that I've no doubt will stimulate much debate - always good when Christians are made to think!  Should we not do outreach to children?  Should we not send our children to secular schools?

The final sermon was entitled "Reformation in hearing. Beyond the amen".  Billy challenged us to really hear, believe and then apply God's Word. 

As always it was good to meet with God's people, the lengthy coffee-breaks between each session gave all who attended ample opportunities to meet up with old friends and new.