A Growing Network of lay preachers proclaiming the good news!
From the Scottish Borders and the Highlands & Islands to the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, we're ordinary people drawn from a variety of Baptist churches (all part of the Baptist Union of Scotland) who, by preaching and communicating, love to share an extra-ordinary message: the fact that Jesus is alive and the Bible is hugely relevant for today! Have a look around our site where we hope you'll catch a flavour of who we are and what we do. You should also take a look at our promotional leaflet.
In the last year we've seen unparalleled growth, which has been really encouraging. Our membership now stands at over 70, with more applications 'in the pipeline', particularly from a number of women, and younger preachers too. We warmly welcome newly joined members: Jim Ewing (Bearsden); Kenneth Laing (Tillicoultry); Allan Macleod (Tillicoultry); Eric Renfrew (Cathcart); Nigel Johns (Ayr Southside); Mark Laing (Larbert); Hugh Tannock (Drumchapel); Phillip Usher (Sanqhuar); David White (Dumfries). Our vision is to double our membership by 2010 so that we might serve not only the Scottish Baptist consituency, but other evangelical churches, and serve them well! We want the SBLPA to be a rich resource from which churches can draw.
If you'd like to become an active member of the Association, please download our application form. You'd be really welcome to join us. It's always good to have new people as part of our lay preachers family! We look forward to hearing from you!
Vital to an effective preaching and teaching ministry, apart from the empowering of the Holy Spirit, is the ability to handle the Word of God, not only wisely, but well. The Biblical basis for this is found in 2 Timothy 2:15 where the exhortation is to “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth”. Theological competence, the challenge of intellectual vigor, academic integrity as well as spiritual empowerment and personal experience, all knit together. It is against that Backdrop, we have launched Preaching Workshops. It is held on the first Thursday evening of each alternate month & begun at the beginning of October 2008 and will run through to June 2009, held at Stirling Baptist Church. The next one will take place on the 4th December when the speaker will be Rev. Stuart Blythe who will speak on "Relevance & Relic". This is for all: be you a lay preacher already, or someone who is involved in preaching/teaching or even if you are the Pastor.
If you would like to pray for us our prayer page has a few pointers for prayer.
Glen Cartwright (General Secretary)
Summary of October SBLPA Committee meeting
News & Views:
November 2008 - Eric Renfrew of Cathcart Baptist Church shares about our first preaching workshop which took place last month. See inside for details of Scottish Baptist History Project event. (See Below for Previous News & Views.)
Forthcoming Events:
Scottish Baptist Theologicial Society are having their inaugural lecture on Thursday 27th November at Newton Mearns Baptist Church, 7:30. The lecture will be on 'Baptists and the Authority of Scripture' given by Dr Stephen Holmes. Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, St Mary’s College, St Andrew’s University.
The Next SBLPA Preaching Workshop will take place on Thursday 4th December in Stirling when Stuart Blythe will be the speaker. See this month's news & views above for a flavour of our workshops.
We are looking forward to our Annual 2009 conference in March when John Brand will be the speaker see our Conferences page for more details.