A member of Elmwood Church in Salford had been to ‘Week Two’ of the Keswick Convention last Summer when Andy Bannister had led morning seminars on evangelism. She was so enthusiastic about the Keswick sessions that she spoke to the church leadership back in her home church and they contacted us to ask if we’d bring some of that content to them in Salford.
So, with the help of Elmwood pastor Chris Mellor, we organised a weekend of ministry with the church there. Andy didn’t do all the work either, and although he spoke twice on the Sunday- for the Saturday Confident Christianity conference, I travelled down from Scotland, and Dave Hutchings crossed the Pennines from York to contribute to the day.
It was a full day, with a good crowd of folks from a variety of churches and other ministries in the area. Chris Mellor and the church’s musicians kicked proceedings off with sung worship and a devotional talk, calling us into mission with God. The Solas team then did a mixture of sessions on Conversational Evangelism, the Biblical basis for our approach to evangelism, the question of suffering, the uniqueness of Jesus – and connecting conversations to Jesus. That final talk that Andy did was especially important as many Christians say that they can get into good conversations outside the church about all manner of ethical or political questions; but bridging from there to Jesus and his gospel of grace is difficult.
Q&A is always an essential part of Confident Christianity when the speakers face questions from the floor. The best of these sessions are when people bring real-life examples of issues they face in evangelism and get the wisdom of people like Andy and Dave brought to bear upon them. The Q&A at Elmwood was especially good, as so many of the questions related to real situations, real conversations and showed that the people there were already really engaged with their community and were keen to share their faith in Christ. Key issues brought up in those sessions were issues to do with sexuality and gender, the reliability of the Bible, and issues around suffering. One of the things we do at these conferences is offer all the slides from our presentations to anyone who signs up for our ‘Insight’ prayer letter. That saves people from note-taking in sessions! We also use it recommend resources on key issues to people who asked questions, in this case books such as Peter J Williams, “Can We Trust The Gospels?”
Our hope and prayer is that great churches like Elmwood will be inspired and equipped for the mission there in Salford – sharing the hope and forgiveness of Christ in a world that so desperately needs him. Pastor Chris Mellor was very encouraging – and in his closing remarks invited us back again next year, and said that he hopes the building will be much fuller next time!
The Confident Christianty conference wasn’t recorded, but Andy’s sermon at Elmwood the following morning was, and is available here:
We love travelling all around the UK and doing this kind of work with churches. If you’d like to find out more about getting us to your church, please get in touch for an informal chat about how it works. You can reach us here.
