Pete Woodcock

Last week I was at the Evangelists Conference and we were looking at preaching the resurrection. Guest speaker David Short was unable to make it, so Pete Woodcock and Simon Manchester filled in.

Here’s 7 points from Pete Woodcock on the “Why and What?” of preaching the resurrection:

1. The Resurrection of Jesus transformed the body of Jesus
2. The Resurrection of Jesus confirms, underlines and highlights all the claims of Jesus in the Gospel
3. The Resurrection of Jesus signified Jesus’ complete success in his work
4. The Resurrection of Jesus holds the power for our own resurrection
5. The Resurrection of Jesus is proof that God will judge the earth
6. The Resurrection of Jesus says that he is the “first fruits”
7. The Resurrection of Jesus means that Jesus is the Spirit King who sends the Spirit to create the church

On Monday I, along with some other staff members from my church went to Westminster Central Hall for the launch of FCA UK (Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans)…

Lots of people spoke… letters read from Bishops in Nigera and Rwanda, news from the church in Sudan, Baroness Cox, Jim Packer, Bob Duncan, John Hind, Wallace Benn, Vaughan Roberts, Michael Nazir-Ali… and lots more.

While this was an exciting, potentially history-making day and event, it was possibly the most dull Christian conference I’ve ever been to! The content was great, but the presentation was lacking, a poor advert for the church really.

Highlights included a rousing address from Peter Jensen, practical thoughts from Vaughan Roberts, and video/in person interviews of the encouragments and discouragements of mission, ministry, church planting and partnership across the UK, including a vox pop with Champ Marko. You should be able to watch some highlights on the Anglican TV site.

Here’s some questions I have in light of FCA:

• Are we standing with Anglo-Catholics (Forward in Faith) because we are in fellowship with them, or simply because they don’t like the liberals either?
• Some ministers talk big about witholding parish share and alike – my question is do they still expect a pension, and for the central church to pay for training of ordinands?
• My Bishop was at FCA, he spoke, and seems supportive, Wallace Benn is an area Bishop in the diocese, at least 25 parishes were represented on the day… while I support those in untenable situations, I am happy to continue to work within my dioceson structures… (that was a statement rather than a question?)

Anyway… the big question still remains… “So what now?”  -  which still seems unclear. A key event could be coming up in the General Synod…

The Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, could be asked to indicate whether it supports the new traditionalist movement after a lay member from Chichester, Lorna Ashworth, put down a Private Members’ Motion on the topic.
Should it receive more than 100 signatures, a future meeting of the Synod will be asked to vote on the proposition: “This Synod wishes to be in communion with the ACNA.”

I fear that the motion will be rejected, and this could speed up things here. But I hope the Synod will support the ACNA.

I’ve been up for the first two days of the EMA, Evangelical Ministry Assembly, held at St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, in London. Won’t be there tomorrow sadly. I shall post notes / thoughts tomorrow.

In the mean time, why not go and read someone more interesting than I…

Mike Kendall –   Pastor, St. Neots Evangelical Church

Adrian Renyolds –   Directory of Ministry, Proclaimation Trust

Dan Green –   Assistant Pastor, Banstead Community Church

Follow the Twitter updates – #ema09 (Michael Jackson seems to have caused Twitter to crash!)

On Wednesday of this week I had the priviledge to spend an hour or so with Alistair Begg….

Alistair Begg has been in pastoral ministry for 32 years. Following graduation from The London School of Theology he served eight years in Scotland at both Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and Hamilton Baptist Church. Since 1983, he has been the senior pastor at Parkside Church near Cleveland, Ohio.  He has written several books and is heard daily and weekly on the radio program, Truth For Life.  The teaching on Truth For Life stems from the week by week Bible teaching at Parkside Church. He and his wife, Susan, have been married 32 years and they have three grown children.

Me and my dad went to chat with him about Bible by the Beach… he’ll be doing the Bible readings in 2010. But we also got to chat about a number of issues…

We spoke about the Emerging Church and the effect that’s having in the States, and related to that, the lacking of good, solid Bible teaching that promotes Christians to grow in many churches either side of the Pond.

Two things really surprised me though… Alistair has never heard of ‘Federal Vision’, and has never heard Mark Driscoll preach… He also dislikes blogging – I kept quiet at that point!

In speaking one thing was very aparent… Alistair is a pastor at heart, despite being in another country, speaking at a conference, his clear desire is to be with his congregation, to be preaching to them, encouraging and pastoring them. Good times – he also has a very dry sense of humour, and supports Glasgow Rangers!

Alistair Begg is coming to speak at BBTB 2010. The theme of the conference is ‘The Glory of Christ in the Cross’ – so we don’t know exactly what yet, but his Bible readings will be based on some aspect of the Cross. Make sure you book in!