So this week I’ve been at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly (EMA) at St. Helens in London. Was a good time to meet some friends, do some networking, and hear wise old men expound the scriptures and give their thoughts on evangelical ministry today.

Tim Keller - What is an Evangelical?

1. High view of scripture - full, final, and supreme authority of the Bible
2. Trust in the ‘old’ gospel - salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in the substitutionary work of Christ alone
3. Repentant (Luther - “all of life is repentance”)

Tim was very good. He graciously challenged UK evangelicals, particularly on being too middle class and not being engaging beyond that - hard to hear at a ProcTrust conference! He talked about the challenges we face both within and outside of the church… while our doctrine is right, some of our methods may rightly be criticised.

He concluded by looking at what an evangelical ministry would look like:

1. Reflects the balance of love and wrath in the cross - grace vs. truth, law vs. licence
2. Reflects the balance of the incarnation in contextualising the gospel
3. Ministry based on grace not gifts

Dick Lucas - Philippians

I found Dick hard work. He wasn’t doing straight, sequential expositions from the book, but rather took what seemed to me a series of random thoughts from the book about the church and Paul. I decided I could forgive him for this, after all he is 82. But anyway he was talking a lot about persecution and being prepared to stand and suffer for Christ - Philippians 1:29

Vaughan Roberts - Daniel

This was really good I thought. Two 45-minute sessions and Vaughan gave a clear overview of Daniel 1-6 and then 7-12. The latter was particularly good, an overview allows you to see the big picture, the key themes and how it points to Christ and God’s people. So Daniel 7-12, which once was a no go area of weird and wonderful dreams, now, having taken a step back looks almost comprehendable!

Richard Cunningham - Persuasive Preaching

Something I’d thought and discussed with others in the past is whether we need to be persuasive in the way we present the gospel… Do we simply faithfully preach the gospel and trust the Spirit will work? Or do we need to adapt to our audience? Present rational arguments? Is there a role for apologetics?? Richard showed us, mainly from Paul’s ministry in Acts (17 especially) for the need to adapt, to contextualise and to present rational, persuasive arguments.

There were a few other sessions, David Jackman spoke about training (advertised 9:38 and Cornhill), there were some seminars - I went to one by Jason Clarke on the Emerging Church, and a Q&A session with TK, VR and RC.