Cornhill Mission Team - in their own words!

I am Jimmy Joo, a South Korean born Australian. I am an ordained pastor (RCA—Reformed Church in America), began my theological training in Toronto, Canada 1997, had a bit more study in Gordon-Conwell in Boston US, and spent several years in New York and New Jersey, pastoring a couple of Korean Ethnic churches until May 2006. I am married to Esther with two daughters, Rachel(6) and Chloe (2 and half), who are currently residing in Sydney Australia. I am now staying with Simon Smallwood, the vicar of St. George’s in Dagenham.

Cornhill Mission Team - in their own words!

Charlie Fadipe
I'm 37 and married to Rachel with two children, Hannah (8) and Jacob(3). I'm originally from Lagos, Nigeria and although brought up in a Christian home, I became a Christian aged 11 at boarding school. I made a living in the City as a computer programmer and attended Bromley Baptist Church. Just prior to doing this course, Rachel and I served as short-term missionaries in Cyprus for the last two years (taking our kids!), working for SAT-7, a Middle-Eastern Christian Satellite company that broadcasts a whole range of Christian programs all over the Middle East and North Africa. I am now training for the Ministry.

Cornhill Mission Team - in their own words!

Barney Jones
I'm 29 years old and have been a servant of the Lord Jesus for 15 of those years. My wife Beth and myself are members of the church that meets at Trinity Road Chapel (TRC) near Wandsworth Common. At TRC I am involved in helping with a number of bible-teaching groups for teens, young adults and a home group. I grew up on the western fringes of London (Ickenham) though Beth is a South West Londoner born and bred.
We have 2 lovely children, Zak (2yrs) and Carys (1yr). I studied English Literature at university (Oxford) and moved to Tooting when I left (2000). I worked for most of my time since then at the London office of a little-known internet startup called Google. I left Google almost two years ago to study preaching at Cornhill and I now work as a self-employed internet consultant in my spare time.

The God Confusion Mission Events

We're just putting the finishing touches to The God Confusion mission. We're about to publicise the final events, venues and speakers. It's a very exciting programme. Here's a sneak preview of some of the highlights. Get these details in your diary, PDA or whatever.

Tony Watkins is the Managing Editor of Culturewatch.org, produced by Damaris. Tony is passionate about films. You can find out about him here. He will be speaking on the Monday night, 11th February at the Clapham Picture House when he'll provide commentary for either Atonement or The Golden Compass.
He joined Damaris at its inception in 1991. Tony is the author of Focus: The Art and Soul of Cinema (2007) and Dark Matter: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Philip Pullman (2004), co-author of Back in Time: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who (2005) and a contributor to a number of other books including Matrix Revelations: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to the Matrix Trilogy (2003) and the Talking About series of books, of which he is the editor. He is also responsible for the Culturewatch courses and Culturewatch groups, and is an experienced speaker in a wide range of contexts. For more about Tony Watkins, visit his website.

Ian Fry is the Director of the Youth and Children's Ministry Cource at Oak Hill Theological College. Ian will be speaking on Tuesday evening, February 12th, at Telferscot School at 8 pm. He will address the issues of faith in education, whether it matters what we teach our children and whether there's such a thing as a non-faith school.
You can find out about him here. Ian's worked in both teaching and ministry. For 13 years he was a school teacher. He left that to become the Kingston Schools' Worker.

Matthew Frost is the Chief Executive of TEARFUND. Matthew has agreed to speak at a charity Dinner on the Saturday evening, 16th February.
He started the job in 2005 having gained extensive experience working in the business world. Matthew is married to Katherine and they have four young children. They attend St Mark’s Church in Battersea, South West London. You can read a little more about him here.

The Philosophy Quiz Night will happen on the Wednesday night, 13th February at the Blithe Spirit. We've been able to secure the upstairs floor so that we won't be disturbed and won't disturb anyone else. Once again the tried and tested and, dare I say, brilliant combination of Colin Munro and Ed Drew will provide a quiz with a mild philosophical twist. The very successful World View Survey will be available for groups to take so that they can discover what their view of reality is called. The team of Cornhill experts will be on hand to analyse the classification with personal consultations! Richard Perkins will briefly address the significance of world views and encourage people to come along to the remainder of our events.

During the week the Cornhill team will be involved with the boys from Quirky Motion in street work, leafletting and interviewing the people of Balham. They'll help with the children's work on the two Sundays by leading the children's slots. Telferscot school have also kindly invited us in to take their Thursday assembly.

The Women's Bible Study are running an 'express' colours consultation on Friday morning, 15th February from 10 am till 12 noon. Liz Barnard is running the events at the Taylors. Jo Richardson, one of teh Cornhill student will respond to the question 'would Jesus wear Prada?'

As you've already discovered Peter Williams will be speaking on Sunday 17th at both congregational meetings. You can find out more about him here.

We're waiting on details of a few extra things but when the loose ends are tied up we'll let you know.

The above details are of course subject to change, but we'll endeavour to do all we can not to alter the programme.
Please diarise, pray and invite.

The God Confusion

I am delighted to confirm that Peter Williams will be speaking on Sunday 17th February at ‘The God Confusion’ mission.
Peter is a philosopher with a number of books to his name and a particular expertise in working with students. He professes a love of progressive rock [1970s rock in the style of Pink Floyd et al], science fiction and The Muppets!
Peter is experienced as a speaker in Universities, Colleges, schools and churches, and has participated in debate with a number of atheists, including American Philosopher Professor Michael Martin (cf. 'Head to Head: A Theism Debate') and British secular humanist Peter Hearty of the national secular society (cf. 'Evolution vs. Intelligent Design').
After studying philosophy at Cardiff (BA), Sheffield (MA) and The University of East Anglia (MPhil), Peter worked as a 'Student Assistant' at Holy Trinity Church Leicester for three years, before moving to Southampton to join Damaris, where he is managing editor of The Quest.
Peter is author of three books: The Case For God (Monarch, 1999), The Case For Angels (Paternoster, 2002) and I Wish I Could Believe In Meaning: A Response To Nihilism. He has co-authored Back in Time: A thinking fan's guide to Doctor Who and contributed chapters to Damaris' Talking About books and the Matrix Revelations: A thinking fan's guide to the Matrix Trilogy.
In addition to writing for Damaris web-sites (such as CultureWatch.org), Peter has been published by several magazines, journals and websites, including Philosophy Now, The Philosopher's Magazine, Healing & Wholeness, Themelios, Third Way, Christianity & Renewal, http://www.bethinking.org/ (the apologetics website of UCCF), CASE, C.S. Lewis Society of California, Quodlibet Online Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy, Leadership University, ISCID and the Intelligent Design website Access Research Network, where he is one of their 'featured authors'.
At the all age congregation Peter will give a ‘Rough Guide to Creation and Evolution’. At the evening meeting in the Bedford Peter will speak on ‘Is God a Delusion: A Response to Richard Dawkins’. We’re hoping that Peter will be available over Sunday lunch and throughout the afternoon to take additional questions.

You'll find some of Peter's writings, talks and so on here and the Damaris web site was the source for much of what's here.

Book Review - Questioning Evangelism

Ahead of the forthcoming 'the God Confusion' mission I asked Phil Craig to review the following book. It's 'Questioning Evangelism' by Randy Newman published by Kregel Publications, 2004. Here's what Phil wrote.

Telling people about Jesus is a central part of the Christian life, but often we don't know how to go about it. We either don't know what to tell people, or how to answer questions, or we think that while most people might get it, our friends or family or colleagues just won't.

We know they need Jesus, but how can we tell them about him while remembering that they are real people with their own thoughts and concerns? I often assume that my friends will struggle with the same questions and issues that I do, and then they come out with a question that I'd never thought about.

It's all down to God, of course. He is in charge of all things. And so ultimately he determines how people respond to the gospel. But when it comes to understanding our part in this process, Randy Newman's book Questioning Evangelism comes in incredibly useful. Newman worked with Campus Crusade in the US for over twenty years, telling people about Jesus and encouraging students in their Christian lives.

According to Newman, there are three factors in telling people about Jesus. The first is declaring the gospel. We need to tell people the actual message!

There are some great tools to help people understand the basic message about Jesus. Nothing beats good knowledge of the Bible, but tools like Two Ways To Live (have a look at http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/) and The Four Spiritual Laws (see http://www.godlovestheworld.com/) have been used for years by thousands to get the basic message clear in their own heads so that they can pass it on to others. At Christ Church Balham, we studied Two Ways To Live a year ago for just that reason.

The second part is defending the gospel, answering questions about it and defending its plausibility. An example of this might be when we ourselves get to know some of the history behind the New Testament and its reliability, or when the philosopher Bill Craig came to the UK last year and debated with some well-known academic atheists.

But someone sent me an email about evangelism recently. They said: "A few of my atheist friends have complained to me that sometimes they feel the 'religious' are always trying to shove faith down their throats."

Now, the atheist friends could have any number of reasons for complaining about their religious friends. But it highlights a difficult issue. How do we get from declaring and defending the gospel to relating it to the lives of our friends? Do we even need to think about it in that way?

This is where Newman's book comes in. Building on the first two factors, the third factor in evangelism is what he calls dialoguing the gospel. Newman writes: "Often neglected, difficult to master, but absolutely essential, this skill of giving and taking--asking questions and bouncing ideas back and forth--might be just what our postmodern audience needs."

That's where the title of the book comes from. He questions our tendency to focus on declaring and defending the gospel without actually talking to people about it, and listening to what they have to say and asking questions about how they see the world. But more importantly, he's talking about evangelism that uses questions to work out the truth about things.

Most of the chapters are framed around specific questions people might ask, such as why Christians seem to be so homophobic, and why marriage is a good thing. While he criticises some possible answers and suggests a few others (many of which surprised me), throughout the book he encourages us to think about how we talk about the world.

For example, Newman pulls out four lessons from Proverbs. We should avoid arguments; spot when someone isn't actually interested in finding out the answers ("a fool" as Solomon calls it); remember that people are people; and remember how influential words are. "Ideas have legs," as Francis Schaeffer put it. His book is full of examples as to how we might actually apply these principles.

I think Questioning Evangelism should be read by every Christian who has already got the hang of the gospel message, as it builds on that essential basis. It is thought-provoking in its answers to big questions. It is inspiring in showing how we can share the news about Jesus in ways that respect people. I have actually found it helpful in thinking about how I relate to people in conversation, entirely apart from how I talk about those issues you might refer to as 'gospel matters'.

It's a very different book on evangelism to the majority on the market at the moment. This is clearest in Newman's own words: "My...fear is that some people might view Questioning Evangelism as a technical handbook. If so, they might be tempted to use its approach to evangelism in a cookie-cutter, mechanical way...I hope that readers will develop a different way of thinking about people, their evangelistic conversations will sound less content/persuasion driven and more relationship/understanding driven. They'll be more like rabbinic dialogues than professorial monologues. They'll be an exchange of ideas that lead both participants to the truth of the gospel. For one participant, it will be the first arrival at that point; for the other participant, it will be a rediscovery and a new appreciation of the message of the Cross."

Dear Friends - January

Dear Friends
Amongst the chaos of the Christmas season I managed to find some time to read three essays by one of my favourite Christian authors, J.C. Ryle. I love Ryle because he makes those spiritual giants, the Puritans, accessible. Writing when he did, in the 19th Century, he was strongly influenced by them. But writing as he did, in recognisable English, he makes them understandable!

The three essays that captured my attention were those on the subject of Regeneration. I guess I wanted to be reminded that missions, like our forthcoming ‘The God Confusion’ are worth the hard work. I wanted to know that the end result for which we’re hoping is worth all these sleepless nights, meetings, admin, early morning prep and last minute praying!

It was time well spent. Here are four of the essential things that I learnt about regeneration

1. the necessity of regeneration is our human depravity
The Bible’s teaching is unequivocal. We are depraved. Not one ounce of our being is unaffected by our sinful inclinations. In fact, we’re so pervasively depraved that regeneration depends entirely on God’s intervention. We simply cannot bring new spiritual life to ourselves. Ryle explains why this new birth is absolutely necessary in these words, ‘it is because of our sinful hearts, our inbred corruption; we are born from the very first with a disposition towards that which is bad; we have no natural readiness to serve God – it is all against the grain; we have no natural insight into the excellence of Christ’s spiritual kingdom, no natural love towards His holy laws or desire to obey them, no natural fitness for heaven; an unrenewed man would be miserable in the company of Jesus and the saints’. Unregenerate man cannot save himself.

2. the nature of regeneration is radical change
Regeneration or being ‘born again’, as Jesus described it, is essentially an instantaneous, supernatural implanting of new spiritual life that radically changes the whole person. Ryle says this change is, ‘a change so thorough, so searching, so radical, so complete, that he who has gone through it may be called born again, for he is to all intents and purposes a new man’. Regeneration isn’t turning over a new leaf; it’s receiving a new life.

3. the agent of regeneration is the Holy Spirit
We can no more bring this change upon ourselves as a dead man can resuscitate himself! We need God the Holy Spirit to be at work wielding the sword of His word to pierce our unbelief and kill it. As Ryle puts it, ‘the Spirit alone can make the seed that we scatter bear fruit: the Spirit alone can lay the first foundation of that holy kingdom we want to see established in your hearts’. And so we need to pray and ‘preach’.

4. the result of regeneration is new life
If we’re Christian we know what it is to be regenerate. But we may have forgotten. Perhaps Ryle will remind us, ‘to be born again is as it were to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind and a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings and new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God and ourselves and the world and the life to come and the means whereby that is attained’.

Regeneration is a truly wonderful thing, isn’t it? On balance I think ‘The God Confusion’, God willing, will be worth the effort!