Chair: So the next item on the agenda is Christine’s return on home assignment for nine months.
Ron: I expect she is going to have to go round all her supporting churches raising support for her next term and we won’t see much of her.
Chair: Well actually we will have her exclusively with us for five months.
Carole: That is a long holiday!
Bill: I expect she will want to be active in the church for some of the time.
Oliver: Do you remember John Apulyo[1].
Rupert: Yes wasn’t he a student of engineering who attended our church a few years ago? I think I remember that after he had returned to his own country he had problems relating to his church pastor and went off to study at a Bible college in another Western country.
Oliver: Yes that is right. I had a message from him the other day to say that he had now returned to his own country and wants to start church planting.
Rupert: Who is he going to work with? Has he been reconciled with his Pastor?
Paul: So what do you think of our preferred candidates?
Alan: Well they seemed to have the right qualifications and experience for the job.
Paul: And they were both very insistent how good they would be in the role.
Alan: You sound as if you thought they tried too hard to sell themselves.
Chair: We have been talking about this matter long enough. It is time we came to a decision. Should we allow the Treasurer to do electronic banking based on just one signature?
A vote was taken with the result that 4 voted for the motion, 3 voted against and 5 abstained.
John:
Do you support any mission agencies?
Mark:
Not directly, but through our church’s giving of 10% of its budget to mission. I take account of that when I fix my standing order to the church.Read more
“What did you make of what Eddie Arthur was saying on his Kouya[1] blog about Mission Boards lacking theologians?’
‘I don’t normally read his blog, but someone showed that one to me. I couldn’t really see his point. All my board members are evangelical Christians, but I didn’t select them for their theological acumen. There are other skills that we need on our board.’
‘ I thought it was useful. We have one theological college lecturer on our Board and he often asks questions that the rest of us don’t think about. He reminds us that we are not just like any other UK charity, but rather carrying out the mandate from our Lord.’
‘ But what has that got to do with good governance? It is not something that the Charity Commissioners are concerned about. We spend all our time making sure that we are compliant and continually solvent. We also need to keep an eye on what our CEO is doing. We haven’t time for theology!’
A follow up to the blog posted on 25th August 2016 entitled ‘Two Pastors met for coffee’
Mike: It was good that Andrea, the Pastor of the Church of the High Priest Jesus Christ, was able to come to our Evangelical Pastors’ Prayer Group last week.
Dave: Yes, I found the way she prayed very moving.
Mike: And Dave and Pete seemed happy to fellowship with her too. I didn’t know that Dave was so fluent in French. They really seemed to establish an entente cordiale. Also I hadn’t realised how much Christians have suffered in the CAR.
Dave: Put in that context it was easy to understand why the knowledge that Jesus as High Priest is ever interceding for us has come to mean so much to the church. Andrea’s explanation of that sent me back to Hebrews again and I realised that I haven’t really appreciated Christ’s heavenly work for us.Read more
Mike: Have you heard that a new church has started in the community centre?
Tim: Yes, someone did mention it. It has a rather strange name – The Church of the High Priest Jesus Christ[1]. Where in Africa are they from?
Mike: I think it is from somewhere in the CAR.
Tim: CAR?
Mike: Central African Republic. It seems their services are in French.
Tim: Do any of them speak English?
Mike: I think most of them do and certainly the Pastor, but they are happier in French or Sango
Tim: So have you met the Pastor?
Mike: Yes. I asked her why they were opening another church in town. She said that no one else was putting on a service in French and their people found it more helpful to worship in their own language.
Two Deacons were chatting before the deacons’ meeting.
Peter: Good to see you back for a deacons’ meeting, John.
John: Yes I have been rather busy recently and haven’t been able to fit these meetings in. I hear we have got another intern starting next month.
Peter: Luigi isn’t an intern; he’s the new assistant minister.
John: Oh I thought he was a Latin American who is coming here to learn what it is like to work in a UK church.
The three young missionaries met again in their favourite noodle bar.
The Young American: It was great to hear about the growth of the church in China this morning. If the church keeps growing at the current rate, we in the US of A are going to have to look out for our status as the largest Christian nation. Who would have thought it?
The Singaporean: Well you know the saying. God must love the Chinese, he made so many of us. And now he is bringing us into his kingdom. You had better start learning Mandarin for heaven. And at least with so many Chinese cooks there we will get everlasting noodles for eternity.
The Englishman: Doesn’t the growth of the church in China now get us back to the question we had yesterday? After all, the recent growth is not the first time Christianity has had a presence and influence in China. I was reading a book recently that argued cogently for St Thomas having got to China as well as India[1]. Certainly the Syrian Christians got there during the Tang Dynasty and their message seems to have been accepted. The Great Church of the East once spread across China and into other East Asian countries, but nothing survives from that work today. Do we have any guarantee that the church in China today will continue to grow?