Agent of change

The fourth conference of 'Essentially Evangelical' met at High Leigh in mid-June, attended by a wide range of evangelicals. Here is a summary of the vision-setting address given by David Jackman, Director of the Cornhill Training Course, at the end of the consultation.

'Essentially Evangelical' was born in 1997, at a conference in Bawtry Hall, which drew together a number of leaders across the spectrum.

That conference agreed a doctrinal and mission statement committed 'to bring the Bible back to the churches and the churches back to the Bible'. 'What has been accomplished so far?' and 'Where we are going in the future?' have been questions occupying our minds.

We agreed at Bawtry to develop a network of like-minded individuals and fellowships, open to all who can endorse the basis and aims of EE. It was stressed that the network is not an alternative to, or competitor with existing organisations. At each of the annual conferences, individuals have met and talked to those whose names they may have heard, but had never personally met before.

Networking

We would be less than honest if we did not admit that barriers of uncertainty, hesitation and even sometimes distrust have been erected between Bible-believing Christians, in some cases over a period of 30 years or so. The resulting perceived differences demand to be taken seriously. This involves careful listening, so that it is hardly surprising if it takes time and energy to dismantle unnecessary hindrances and build new bridges of trust. But that is what has been going on, quietly, inconspicuously, yet persistently and effectively, during the last three years.

EE is a network, not a national organisation, with a centralised bureaucracy. That has been the way evangelicalism has organised itself in the past, often to good effect, especially when the culture in which it was working believed in such institutions. Yet it was often admitted that a man of vision in one generation produced a movement in the next, which by the third generation had ossified into a monument. We have a different ambition. Oliver Barclay put it so well in Evangelicalism in Britain 1935-95 (IVP, 1997) when he wrote, 'It is of doubtful value to seek evangelical unity as an end in itself, and recent efforts to do so have not succeeded greatly. Unity is important chiefly in so far as it creates a united witness to the great biblical revelation, so that the world can hear a clear message presented in a fitting way by both word and life . . .'.

Catalyst

The other term which sums up EE's purpose is catalyst. Turning to my faithful dictionary I discover that it is:

(i) 'a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself suffering any permanent chemical change';

(ii) 'a person or thing that causes a change'.

It seems an appropriate metaphor for EE's central role and function. Without any change to our convictions and identities we want to increase the rate of change in our nation. We want to see God's Word at the centre of Christian witness so that God's gospel is powerfully proclaimed throughout the land. We cannot claim to be essentially evangelical if we are not essentially evangelistic. So EE exists as a co-operative task force, committed to existing gospel partnership and fresh evangelistic initiatives, throughout the British Isles, but gladly recognising that, under God, the whole world is our 'parish'.

We whole-heartedly affirm the God-given unity that exists between us, through our common experience of God's grace in the gospel. We are committed to 'make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace' (Ephesians 4.3), but we are also committed to the process, outlined by Paul later in the same chapter, where he says we have yet to 'reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature (complete), attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ' (Ephesians 4.13). And how are we to arrive at that goal? By 'equipping God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up' (verse 12), through the ministries of the Word (verse 11). Evangelical unity has to be expressed in evangelistic activity. The teaching ministries of the church must give birth to the evangelistic outreach of the whole congregation.

For too long we have been trapped by an isolationism, which is frequently a reflection of our secular culture. We have suffered from the Elijah-complex, 'I am the only one left', expressed sometimes in self-righteous pride and sometimes in faithless despair. Yet, in reality, there were seven thousand in Israel, whose knees had not bowed down to Baal. The danger, when the gospel is under attack from powerful enemies, is to look within, to concentrate on getting our fellowship right and strengthening our unity, but that is often the route to disintegration. The only way to defend the gospel is to let it loose.

Big task

We live in a culture that is marked not only by ignorance of the gospel, but by an increasingly hostile rejection of almost every aspect of a biblical world-view and values. We would be naive, in the extreme, if we did not recognise the size of the task we face. When the Psalmist looked back on the glory days of the return from exile, he was moved to pray for his own generation 'Restore our fortunes, O Lord' (Psalm 126.4). But it also moved him to work, for he recognised that it is only those who 'sow in tears' who will 'reap with songs of joy' (verse 5). We want to do as much sowing as possible and to do it together.

Our networking together, over these last three years, has been building new trust and confidence in one another, as we have re-discovered our common allegiance to Christ and our common commitment to gospel work.

Key areas

There are some interesting new experiments in the student world, modelling a new co-operation between the existing work of the Christian Unions and local churches. But students are only one section of the teens-and-twenties 'scene' and the immense needs of schools and youth evangelism also demand our attention. I am often told that youth workers who can both teach the Bible effectively and relate well to young people are like gold dust. This must be an area where fruitful co-operation could produce capable workers.

In church planting, working together offers great benefits. We have to do more thinking in depth about whether our legitimate ecclesiological differences should continue to force us into either inactivity or competition. Yet is not the future of the gospel, in areas where there is hardly any viable church witness, much more important than our denominational shibboleths? We want to be praying for and working towards new projects to plant churches in under-evangelised areas, by using the local re-sources of people who will put the gospel first, by working across the divides in order to see sinners saved. This will involve a variety of models, but always personal investment in credible, caring love as the good news of Jesus is communicated into broken lives and communities.

New century, new labours

In short, we want to work together to equip one another for the demanding task of evangelism in this new century. Nearly 40 years ago, in his book The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Roland Allen wrote: 'Spontaneous expansion begins with the individual effort of the individual Christian to assist his fellow, when common experience, common difficulties, common toil have first brought the two together. It is this equality and community of experience which makes the one deliver his message in terms which the other can understand, and makes the hearer approach the subject with sympathy and confidence . . .' Isn't that striking?

Our aim is to bring needs and re-sources together, to raise up new workers to revive dying congregations, to see non-evangelical pulpits and parishes won for the gospel, to model co-operative projects by which gospel work is progressed in local areas. That is what we will press on with, through our networking and catalysis, by God's grace. It may not capture the headlines, but it is the work that counts most of all. For, in the wise words of Alec Motyer: 'When God ripens apples, he isn't in a hurry and he doesn't make a noise.'

© Evangelicals Now - July 2000
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