Last Thursday, Westsound Radio did an interview with Stephen in light of our offer through Stranraer FC to help those affected by Coronavirus. You can listen to the interview above. If we can help in any way, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
More video resources for children in lockdown
(Following on from last month’s list of resources)
This week only you can stream The Biggest Story: The Animated Short Film, based on the book by Kevin DeYoung. It has been described as ‘an exciting journey through the Bible in 26 minutes, connecting the dots from the garden of Eden to Christ's death on the cross to the new heaven and new earth’.
Another resource that’s been made available is the new animated Pilgrim’s Progress, released last year.
More encouragement to prayer!
On Saturday, the RP Church of Scotland had a day of fasting and prayer in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today it is the turn of the Irish and North American RP Churches (along with their mission works in France, Spain, Chile and various other countries). Below is a helpful encouragement to prayer:
Some further prayer points to help guide our prayers at the current time have also been compiled.
You can read more about calls to prayer and fasting by the different RP Churches around the world on the RP Global Alliance website.
Romans in 40 minutes
This Lord’s Day morning we plan to begin a series in Romans chapter 8 (11:30am on facebook live).
In order to get up to speed on Romans (assuming you don’t have time to listen to all 15 sermons on chapters 1-7 preached back in 2018!), one very helpful recent resource is an address given by Sinclair Ferguson entitled Romans in 40 minutes. Ferguson has made Romans a lifetime study, and has around 150 commentaries on the book - and distills it all in this lecture given in August 2019.
Don’t miss him explaining his ‘profound commitment’ to evening worship around the 7 and a half minute mark - something we share, and which explains why we are livestreaming two services a week even in the midst of this pandemic.
Update: John Piper has a helpful summary of chapters 1-7 here.
Kyle Borg preached a sermon which covered the whole of Romans 8 and also has a blog post on preaching Romans as a young minister.
COVID-19 crisis reveals what's most important to us
Last Sunday has been called one of the most unusual Sundays in the history of the Christianity – and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. It was a day when the majority of Christians across the world were either not permitted to gather to worship or considered it inadvisable to do so.
Church leaders around the world spent the week leading up to it scrambling to decide what to do instead. Some churches held drive in services in their car parks, with people staying in their cars and rolling down their windows to listen to the sermon and join in the singing. Others, like Stranraer Baptist Church, had the minister pre-record a service and put it online around the time people would normally be meeting together. Many, like ourselves, livestreamed a service – in other words the minister preaching to a camera, with congregants able to watch the service live via facebook, youtube or a plethora of other video-sharing platforms.
Whatever the medium however, the message that was proclaimed sought to make sense of this crisis and provide comfort to those facing worries about their health, their job and even their very lives. A number of fellow ministers turned to the familiar words of Psalm 121 – ‘I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth’. Others turned to the 46th psalm, which was a favourite of Martin Luther: ‘God is our refuge and our strength, in trouble our sure aid’. Some sought to bring comfort to their people from Philippians 4v6: ‘do not be anxious about anything’. I turned to Isaiah 8v12: ‘do not fear what they fear’.
Although it was strange and sad not to be able to meet together with other believers, many testified to a comfort they received that went beyond what any mere human words could bring.
One question that myself and other ministers have been asked is whether this is a sign of God’s judgement on us. An article in Monday’s Times called the Archbishop of Canterbury’s broadcast service the previous day ‘anaemic’ and noted that ‘once upon a time a plague might have prompted our religious leaders to demand we put on sackcloth…or perhaps they would have thunderously blamed the coronavirus on our decadent, sinful lives’.
In his day, Jesus told his followers that those who had been killed in a couple of local disasters were not actually any worse sinners than any others (Luke 13:1-5) – and yet he did use it as an opportunity to call people to repent. So we can’t make dogmatic pronouncements about why this virus has struck, but Amos 3v6, which another friend preached from, is still true: ‘Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?’
Of course, many ministers have ditched the Biblical rhetoric altogether, other than for vague pleas for us to ‘love one another’. However, as the Times review of Welby’s efforts at ‘well-meaning spiritual consolation’ concluded, ‘This was all very nice but I wasn’t quite sure I trusted him with my soul’.
Whether we go down the road of blaming the virus on peoples’ decadent, sinful lives or not, the last few weeks have certainly brought to light an ugly side of human nature that we would like to pretend isn’t there.
Certainly, there have been stories of compassion. Some have rallied valiantly to care for the self-isolating. And yet there have also been headlines about people bulk buying disinfectant wipes and hand sanitiser in order to sell it on at a profit. Doctors have reported hygiene levels on wards slipping because people are stealing hand gel from the end of patients’ beds. And it’s not just a few selfish individuals. In the last three weeks Britons have spent £1 billion stockpiling food. When NHS workers do manage to make it to the shops, they’re often confronted with empty shelves.
One thing the pandemic has done is reveal what’s really important to us – and often it’s not pretty. If we don’t examine our own lives in the light of such an unprecedented crisis, we never will.
How long these ‘virtual’ Sundays will go on for is hard to know. One thing’s for certain – when we are able to meet together again, we will rejoice in the privilege like never before.
Next Sunday morning I plan to begin a series on what’s been called ‘The greatest chapter in the Bible’. Romans chapter 8 speaks of a love that even death itself can’t separate us from. And from the comfort of your own home, you’re very welcome to join us.
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 26th March 2020