Denny Baptist Church is part of the Baptist Union of Scotland (BUS) and our initial contact with them came after Andy Bannister spoke at the BUS ‘Canopy’ conference last year. We also have a good friend in common, Derek MacIntyre from the ‘Jesus the Evidence‘ ministry here in Scotland too.
Denny is one of several towns and villages which lie west of Falkirk in Scotland’s central belt. With significant council and former council housing developments forming the villages – this area around the River Carron once formed part of the epicentre of Scotland’s heavy industry before it went into sharp decline in the 1980s. Church life across this area has also seen decline in recent decades with several historic churches closing, and a major merger programme amongst the parish churches.
In the heart of Denny, pastor Jonathan Boyers and Denny Baptist Church is pushing ahead with growing the church and looking to plant new congregations into other villages which no longer have a Christian worshipping community there. They are busy with youth and children’s work, social action projects, sharing the gospel and seeing people won to faith in Christ. They have the happy dilemma of starting to outgrow their current premises too!
Denny Baptist Church hosted Steve Osmond from Solas for a midweek night of evangelism training and equipping as a mini ‘Confident Christianity conference’. Fifteen or so folks gathered at the church for Steve’s sessions on the question of suffering, and conversational evangelism – which led into Q&A and then some personal conversations at the end. Several of the questions which came up related to sharing the gospel with people who identify as LGBTQ+ in a way which is faithful to scripture but gracious and compassionate too.
