|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: MW St. Oswald's, Grasmere
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
I think it is highly likely that the gentleman who conducted the service is Dr. John Biggs, who is a former President of the Baptist Union and Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council. John has, for many years, promoted the ecological agenda within the Baptist Union.
In other words, John is not "just another local preacher" - not that the Report suggested he was!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
|
Posted
Well spotted!
A link to the report is here.
--------------------
Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
In other words, John is not "just another local preacher" - not that the Report suggested he was!
Any preacher is "just another local preacher." To be described in any other way is an invitation to worship the preacher and his word not God and His Word.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
|
Posted
But he wasn't local.
--------------------
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
But he wasn't local.
He's local to where he lives.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
|
Posted
We should indeed listen carefully to the sermon with due humility, but surely without totally suspending our critical faculties. If the sermon is ill informed, pastorally insensitive, platitudinous, sentimental and irrelevant to our situation we can acknowledge that.
A preacher with a national position should be less likely to fall into those categories. (There's no reason the local preacher would either. But it is known in the C of E. Maybe all Baptist and Methodist preachers are exemplary.)
--------------------
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
We should indeed listen carefully to the sermon with due humility, but surely without totally suspending our critical faculties. If the sermon is ill informed, pastorally insensitive, platitudinous, sentimental and irrelevant to our situation we can acknowledge that.
A preacher with a national position should be less likely to fall into those categories. (There's no reason the local preacher would either. But it is known in the C of E. Maybe all Baptist and Methodist preachers are exemplary.)
No preacher is exemplary IME. I heard some very well known preachers who were simply going through the motions - there was no spark there.
Preachers with national positions are no less likely IME to say things that alienate some or all of their listeners.
Church is a place to affirm gifts not to develop or to stroke celebrity.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
The rector of my church has a thing he does once a year, explaining the entire Eucharist service in detail. He says that the reason we say the Creed after the sermon is precisely for this reason. After a weak, misguided, addle-pated or downright malevolent sermon, you say the Creed as a corrective. Everyone can contrast, compare, and decide the preacher is full of it.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Church is a place to affirm gifts not to develop or to stroke celebrity.
I agree absolutely, but John Biggs was not looking for celebrity. He was simply conducting worship at the church which was MW'ed.
All I did was say that he had been BU President and so might well have a lot of experience and be worth listening to. He clearly didn't make any claims about himself at all.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
PS Looking for celebrity isn't new. Here is a pretentious Methodist lay-preacher in "Lark Rise to Candleford", c.1880:
"Some merely self-seeking poseurs ... took to preaching as the only means of getting a little limelight shed on their undistinguished lives.
One such was a young shop assistant from the market town, who came, stylishly dressed, with a bunch of violets in his buttonhole, smoothing his well-oiled hair with his hand and shaking clouds of scent from his large white handkerchief. He emphatically did not preach the Word.
His perfume and buttonhole and pseudo-cultured accent so worked upon the brethren that, after he had gone, they for once forgot their rule of no criticism and exclaimed: ‘Did you ever see such a la-deda in all your draggings-up?’"
(Note to Host: is this citation OK re. Copyright? I think it's brief enough)
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
But he wasn't local.
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
He's local to where he lives.
But not to where he was.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
I don't understand your comment - he's a Steward on the South Lakes Methodist Circuit, serving several churches in the area.
[ 09. December 2014, 07:52: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
I just mean that he was President of the Baptist Union, which isn't a local position.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
|
Posted
Whoever he was, and wherever he came from, at least he made the effort to speak to the MWer after the service - unlike the rest of the congregation, shame on them.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Ian J.
--------------------
Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
All I did was say that he had been BU President and so might well have a lot of experience and be worth listening to.
In some circles that might be seen as a reason NOT to listen to him given that most Presidents (and Gen Secs) have been drawn from a rather narrow gene pool.
Kate Coleman was the exception in recent years being black (shock!), a woman (who would've thought it!) and pretty blunt in her comments (well, I never did!).
is he still an accredited Minister? Can't find him in the Directory.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
|
Posted
Dr John Biggs was President of the BU in the early eighties, I think and Moderator of the Free Church Federal Council in 1992. He's a regular preacher on the South Lakes Methodist Circuit. I think he has a particular interest in ecology and green issues.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
AFAIK he's never been a Minister - he's a scientist, I think.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
