About 80 people of varied ages and from a range of church groupings – including Independents, Anglicans, Brethren, Presbyterians and Baptists – rose to sing, unaccompanied, Amazing Grace, and so ended the John Newton at 300 Conference, which was organised by York Evangelical Church and hosted by City Church, York.
The conference included Dr Graham Beynon, Head of Local Ministries, FIEC, giving an engaging and thoughtful biographical sketch of the main events in Newton’s life, interspersed helpfully with lessons that we could learn from them, including our need to appreciate the sometimes complex nature of conversion, and the recognition of how we may all have blind spots as we are influenced by our pervading culture.
Before the second session, there was a delightful short video, especially produced for the conference by Marylynn Rouse of the John Newton Project, entitled John Newton in Yorkshire.
