THE ANNUAL ASSEMBLY OF EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN WALES

The Annual Assembly of the Evangelical Churches in Wales gathered at Aberystwyth on the last Saturday in April - the customary date and the usual town in the heart of mid-Wales - "equally inconvenient for everyone." There was one new church which joined them bringing up to 57 the number in the Assembly. Wales is 200 miles north to south and about 100 miles east to west with a large bay - Cardigan Bay cutting into it. The population numbers two and three-quarter million. These congregations are all non-ecumenical churches and every University town and important centre has such a congregation. Most are Reformed Baptists, but some are Calvinistic Methodists, while others are Savoy Confession Congregationalists. All have been influenced by Dr Lloyd-Jones' theology and ecclesiology. There were 140 delegates in this Assembly.

Reports came from some small churches about their outreach. They were showing initiative and evangelistic concern. One is in Nelson where an annual meal is followed by an invitation to attend a six week course on What is Christianity? They deal with the following topics: Who is Jesus? What is the meaning of his death? The Resurrection of Christ. Grace and good works. Repentance. Faith. Seven took the course last year and two have become church members. Another congregation is in Cwmafan in the valley leading into Aberavon and it has now purchased its own building and improved it. They are having an opening meeting soon. They have been asked to help out in other causes in the area. It has been a long labour of faithfulness by the young pastor and the few members and we rejoiced with them.

Graham John is the only minister in the northern half of the Rhondda Valley in Maerdy - the Moscow of Wales. He has been plodding for ten years with those sovereign encouragements we are always being given to help us keep going. He was telling a seminar in the Assembly that he holds a weekly Bible study with half a dozen teenagers, and they have no idea at all about Jesus Christ. So one evening last month he set aside his notes and he said to them, "Look at these two lists." In the first list he had written such things as this:

* The best colour is blue.
* The most delicious desert is rice pudding.
* The panda is the prettiest animal.
* Wales is the best country in the world.


Then he wrote a second list and on that he had written such things as

* 11+11
* The colour of the grass is green.
* The Battle of Hastings was in 1066
* The oldest child of the Queen is called Charles.


Then he asked the teenagers what the difference was between those two lists. "The first is your opinion," they replied, "and the second are facts." Good, so the next question he asked them was about the Bible and Jesus Christ. In what category do we put them? Facts or opinions? They thought for a while and then they all agreed it was, "Facts." That was good wasn't it? To get them to see and acknowledge that they were not being confronted by Graham's opinions but by the truth. Those were the helpful asides which encouraged men in the Assembly.

The Assembly was held in a large tiered lecture room, with state of the art communication facilities. Graham Harrison, the Chairman, stood behind the 'mission control' rostrum and commented upon the hidden monitors and projectors. "But isn't there a place for overhead projectors, and projecting hymns and sermon outlines?" someone asked.

This week the Times printed a story about a committee of the Church of Scotland who were concerned about the way overhead projectors have been pushing out hymnals. This leads, they said, to a centralisation of power in the hands of a few, namely, those who choose the songs, whereas all worshippers should have access to materials which can nourish the spirit. They pointed out how the Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries had fought hard to furnish not just a choir but the whole congregation with books of praise. A hymn-book is more than a song book, they said. It is a collection of texts that are aids to spiritual growth and personal devotion: "To be able to thumb through a hymn book is to have access to a treasury of spiritual wisdom which might not otherwise be available to the majority of worshippers who do not have anthologies of religious thought on their bookshelves."

They concluded: "The making of overheads and printouts from the galaxy of hymn books and supplements on the manse shelf might well result in the congregation being fed on the diet preferred by the minister, but it might also deprive the worshippers of the supplementary vitamins available, an opportunity that would exist if all the people had access to all the resources." In addition, overhead projectors diminish the usefulness of the text. "No sooner has the verse been sung than the words disappear and the worshipper cannot look back and muse on what has been sung."

These Welsh churches are agreed in their commitment to a Confession of Faith. But they are also agreed in a common Christian spirituality. How different is that spirituality from what people in the world understand by that word today. We had a teenager who left our congregation. She went to another church for a few months and was even baptized, but she soon left them too. She has picked up the modern jargon, that she is into 'spirituality' but not Christianity. Such 'spirituality' has the same interest to us as the cults or the ethnic religions. We acknowledge that we are truly concerned with things material, with our bodies and presenting them to God, and with labouring for six days, and being good stewards of the rewards of God - "not slothful in business." We are not into the cultivation of an interior aesthetic sense or an emotional sensation, but we are into submission to the will of God found in the Bible. We are into believing the teaching of Jesus and doing his precepts. There are realities which exist right outside ourselves and they present us with obligations to act and think and feel in a certain manner. For us true spirituality is not a commodity or felt needs in an individual; it is doing the will of God. It is not about any visionary sensations we might have, but it begins when we pour away our own claims to having significance. True spirituality is about being poor in spirit, when we are stripped of our expectations and demands and bow before Jesus. But the 'spirituality' of this girl, and many like her, is all about personal enrichment, beautiful feelings and benign intentions, and its ultimate effect is to flatter. People like her say, "We have discovered ourselves through reflection." How far it all is from the blood and agony of a crucifixion. How false that sense of self-worth when compared to, "My richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride." The first man to enter heaven through the merits of the God-man was a criminal justly killed for his crimes. He looked away from himself to Christ and pleaded that he might not be forgotten. That is the only spirituality that can help Wales.

GEOFF THOMAS