London Baptist Association

Don't know anything about it, but I emailed the topic to a BB member who is a friend and pastor in the London area.

 

I didn't know about this site either. Thank you for the info.

Blessings

Sheila

 

It's a regional association of the Baptist Union of Great Britain:- http://www.baptist.org.uk/Structure/assoc_map.htm

My church is a member of the Southern Counties Association of BUGB:-

www.lhfc.org.uk

BUGB's home page is here:-

www.baptist.org.uk

Any more info needed?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Interesting information. If anyone wants to know why this great land of ours (Great Britain) is going down the tubes rapidly, this site may help to clarify the problem. This land needs Gospel preachers, not the fixers of social ills. The church of God (in general) in the UK has become weak, liberal, ecumenical and ineffectual; the gospel is watered down so that it has become of no use. Please note the priorities of the LBA, WHERE IS THE GOSPEL? WHERE ARE THE PREACHERS? WHERE IS JESUS CHRIST? SALVATION? REPENTANCE? These things in themselves are neither wrong nor bad, but to be the priority I am afraid it has missed the mark. May God help us if this is the best we have to offer the people of London and the UK.

Excerpts from the site are below.

The LBA Board has identified the following as priorities for the next two years:

o Racial Justice—developing a mission based approach to racial justice which includes a gracious understanding of other faiths—ongoing

o Training—continuing to develop a varied and relevant programme of training events for ministers, officers, deacons and church members—May 2005

o Home Mission—increasing London’s giving to Home Mission to achieve the target of £500,000—Dec 2004

o Smaller churches—continuing to develop links with smaller churches and increasing their involvement in the Small Church Connection - May 2005

o Children’s work— developing an action programme to support children’s work in our churches through the ‘Working with Children’ task group—Dec 2004

o Youth Work—continuing to support the development of youth work across London with the LBA youth Co-ordinator—ongoing—and exploring the viability of fulltime youth work in the LBA—Dec 2004

o Mediation—continuing to establish and develop the work of a team of mediators to work in and with churches—Dec 2004

o Civic Affairs—reviewing Baptist involvement and establishing an action programme to increase our effective participation in the civic and political life of the city—May 2005

o Ownership—exploring new ways of encouraging participation in association life among the churches including a review of our current means of communication with churches and their members—May 2005

o Co-operation—ensuring the LBA is appropriately represented on ecumenical forums in London and establishing guidelines for relating with other Christian organisations in London who wish to work in partnership with the LBA—Dec 2004

o Annual Appeal Fund—developing the churches’ appreciation of the mission opportunities afforded by the newly launched Annual Appeal Fund—May 2005

Baptist Union Five Core Values
In 1998, the Baptist Union of Great Britain issued a statement setting out the Five Core Values which it believed should characterise Baptists as they seek to be a Gospel people. These Five Core Values are:

A Prophetic Community: Following Jesus in....
o Confronting evil, injustice, and hypocrisy.
o Challenging worldly concepts of power, wealth, status, and security.

An Inclusive Community: Following Jesus in....
o Transcending barriers of gender, language, race, class, age and culture.
o Identifying with those who are rejected, deprived, and powerless.

A Sacrificial Community: Following Jesus in....
o Accepting vulnerability and the necessity of sacrifice.
o Seeking to reflect the generous life-giving nature of God.

A Missionary Community: Following Jesus in....
o Demonstrating in word and action God's forgiving and healing love.
o Calling and enabling people to experience the love of God for themselves.

A Worshipping Community: Following Jesus in....
o Engaging in worship and prayer which inspire and undergird all we do and are.
o Exploring and expressing what it means to live together as the people of God, obeying his Word and following Christ in the whole of daily life.

 

Thanks for the detailed information Roy. I appreciate the Biblical perspective.

 

Thank you for your post Roy. Very helpful information and much appreciated.

God Bless

Sheila

 

Er...I don't see anything wrong with BUGB's core values. If you read the website you will see that evangelism is right there eg: "A Missionary Community". Evangelism and social justice are two sides of the same coin: British people tend not to respond to the Gospel if they don't see that the church preaching it is being faithful to Jesus' teaching.

Yours in Christ

Matt (proud to be BUGB member)

 

Sorry Matt,
You have missed my point. I did not say that these things were wrong or bad. As values they are good, but my problem is that the social issues are the priority. As they have put it"A Missionary Community". What in the world does that mean to the average British person, even to the average British believer! Also note how far down the list this is. Did the Lord place the social issues off the day above the Gospel? I think not. Did He seek to amend what was wrong in society before He preached, NO.

Let’s look to the Lord for His missions statement.
Mt 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Where is this in the LBA, statement and I mean as a clear statement of fact, not something that I have read into it or presume is there? I admit that I have not searched every document online, but what I have read, the great commission has not been there.

A social gospel will not save a soul. Adam and eve were in the most perfect of social environments and still fell in sin. So what makes us think that if we fix the social ills of our society that souls will be saved. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, not justice in an unjust world.

Once again as values I have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM, but as a PRIORITY, YES. The priority is JESUS, anything less we miss the mark. 1Cor 15:34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. It is to the shame of the Church of God in this country that MANY do not have the knowledge of God.

Without giving them Jesus everything else is pointless. All that we will do is help send fit, healthy, social and judicially content souls, now wait for it to “HELL.” Which one will say thank you for the injustice that you fixed in my neighborhood, for the health and wealth, for the expanded fellowship that your churches had. But why did you wait so long to tell me about Jesus.

This was the thing that made me angry after I was saved. For 21 years the Churches in my area had fellowship meetings programs and social events, but not one told me a bout salvation. If I had died I was on my way to hell, but their social conscience was salved, but my soul was lost.

I am sorry if this has become a bit harsh, but souls are on the line. The Church is not in the business of being a social fixer, but a soul fixer in that we bring them to Jesus.

Without that, let’s pack up Church and call our selves a social club.

Roy.

 

Roy,

If your gripe is with the neglect of the Gospel, then I would agree. But I see no evidence of that in my own BUGB church (eg: I'm leading an Alpha group at the moment), or indeed in my wife's former church, West Croydon Baptist (BUGB and LBA member) who do a lot of social action (there are a lot of immigrant comunities in their 'parish') but also use it as an opportunity to preach the gospel eg: they organise social functions for asylum seekers where the gospel is then preached usually by relatively low-key 'witnessing' - as a result, many of thes guys who were Muslim have come to know the Lord. So I see no evidence of the Gospel being relegated

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Matt,

All that I can talk about is generalities, not specific Churches. Within every group and denomination there are always the exceptions. The neglect of the gospel is my problem with such organizations. Often the organization becomes the goal, its maintenance and structure. You mentioned two things in your Church and your wife’s former church, the Alpha course and low- key witnessing.

The Alpha course has its own issues which may have covered in greater detail else where on the BB. But all that I can say is that is it needs to be very structured by those leading it to make it gospel effective. As it stands it is weak on sin and repentance, but as I said it depends on the one leading the group. Sadly my encounters to date have been weak on these points.

Without sounding naive how do you define low-key witnessing?

I have some other issues about the LBA. But let every man be persuaded in his own mind. It is not something that I could endorse or recommend to our Church or the Churches we would fellowship with.

Sadly when the gospel is not first, it then has been relegated. It should not be an optional extra in the ministry of the Church. It alone is our only mandate, now it can be done through many ways, but the sharing of the gospel should be paramount in putting together any ministry or programme.

Thanks Matt,

Roy.

 

All I can say is that the need for repentance is certainly not skated over by me in the A-group I lead.

By low-key witnessing, all I mean is that the gospel is not preached at these meeting by neccessarily having a 'preacher' wheeled in to preach at them, but is done ('if neccessary using words') by individual Baptists at these events normally on a one-to one basis

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

You can tell that these two guys are true British gentlemen . Look how polite they are in their disagreement.

Think the rest of us could learn something??

 

Thanks, Roger! I've been called a few things on these boards but never a gentleman before.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

I'm glad you took it properly Matt, I sincerely meant it!

 

Thanks Roger,
I trust that you will call me a gentle man next week.

Hi Matt,
I am glad to hear that you don’t skip over repentance, without it as far as I can see from the word, a person cannot be saved. But on the witnessing side, you said ('if necessary using words').
Without words it is impossible to fully witness. Our actions can only speak to a certain degree. That is, it draws people to ask what is different within us; at this point words are absolutely necessary. I don’t know of any one being saved without them, or anyone witnessing (fully) without them.

God bless,
Roy.

 

Roy, I was being slightly glib with my Francis of Assissi reference. The individuals do speak the message of the Gospel; the point I was obliquely making was that actions speak louder than words; that the message of salvation is less likely to be heard if it comes from uncaring lips

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Very true Matt,
But lets us not get to the point where works become a cop out for saying nothing.

Roy.