Carey: given a roasting!
‘I have been to many, many conferences but I have never heard anything like that!’ This was one man’s expression of appreciation of the talk given by Mez McConnell on the subject of ‘Reaching the Poorest’ at this year’s Carey Conference at the Hayes, Swanwick, on January 7-9.
Mez McConnell has been used by God to plant a Bible church in Niddrie, one of the roughest housing estates in Scotland, where unemployment is five generations old and grandma is often the local drug dealer. In the last year they have seen 20 people saved and baptised and making headway for Christ. Listening middle-class pastors were given a roasting and para-church Christian organisations which engage in hit-and-run evangelism in such areas were given an equally bad time as, in Mez’s estimation, they do more harm than good. Soup kitchens which have more to do with salving the church’s conscience than actually helping anyone should be closed. What is needed is the gospel, commitment to such areas by living there and the planting of vibrant local churches. Mez is sharp, theolog-ically aware and articulate as well as streetwise, and the gathering felt both humbled and encouraged by what they heard. Mez is heading up ‘20 schemes’ which seeks to further this work (see EN, November 2013).
