Grace Prayer Bulletin # 15

Grace Prayer Bulletin #15

The Achor Project
Do you have any idea how many well situated, theologically orthodox Grace Baptist churches fail and chapels shut in the UK each year?
Don't stop reading or feel particularly guilty if you don't. Nobody else seems to either... and that's just the start of the problem. We just don't know how bad things may already have become.
The scale of the problem simply increases if you look at those churches with dwindling and often elderly congregations that seem likely to close within the next decade. One Association has gathered figures that suggest steep decline towards the point of non-viability is already underway in the bulk of their congregations.... humanly speaking, of course.
What's going on?
Probably very few of us have a problem with Liberal chapels closing. Perhaps a chapel needs to shut when the church it houses releases its grip on the Word of God. But what about the sorry sight of a Grace Baptist chapel with the For Sale signs up? How do you feel about that? Doesn't it break your heart to see an empty chapel in some part of some town where a viable Gospel witness is needed?
Yes, the cause of God has always suffered church collapses due to demographic changes, scandals and the like. These closures don't really add up to a trend. We are now dealing with a definite trend. So what's happening now, what's changed and what might the Lord be doing in closing the doors of all these places of worship?
It's a very big question, but here's my stab at it. We seem to have passed through the era of massive closures within the Liberal churches into a time characterized by the closure of theologically orthodox churches, whose people have not let go of the Word, but let go of the people around them. The point being missed is this: the Gospel has NOT been given to us for us to KEEP it! Neither has it been given to us so that we can complicate it, nor make it appear culturally alien, putting the life-giving bread beyond the ordinary people's reach. Many of the churches that are closing, but no, not all, seem to be doing one of those two things. We can't expect the Lord to be pleased.
What's to be done?
Well, obviously, there is a great need for repentance. If we have made glorifying God in the effective communication of the Gospel anything other than our highest goal in life, we've done wrong. But churches that have already shut are not there any more and will not draw crowds to a day of repentance! They need to be started afresh.
A new initiative
There are a few cases around the country where in recent years something effective has been done to restart collapsed churches. We thank God for that, but the approach has been piece meal, and a piece meal approach doesn't go nearly far enough to meet the scale of the challenge our churches now face. For the most part, the task doesn't benefit from settled Pastor types tackling it either. There is a variety of gifts and callings, and it needs to be recognized that just putting a Pastor there is not the Evangelical equivalent of waving a wand. This won't make it automatically come right!
The Achor Project has been established by a small group of pioneering pastors who are actually engaged in a replanting ministry on a day to day basis. This has been done NOT to duplicate the work being done by Associations through Home Missions committees, nor that done by the various Trust Corporations, but to tackle the things no-one else is doing in an attempt to promote and facilitate the re-starting of collapsed churches in viable locations.
Areas of need
The areas of need identified where no-one else seems to be at work are those of
1. Networking folk supportive of or already engaged in this pattern of ministry;
2. Conducting pure and applied research into the problem;
3. Training a new generation not simply of Pastors but of pioneers and;




Grace Prayer Bulletin #15a Special

This is something I felt compelled to send out in the middle of the week, we received an update on our dear brother David Straub, as well as a letter from a brother in a former Soviet Republic. Our hearts needs to be knit together for those who are ailing and for those who stand in harms way. I have received this confidentially, but it applies to a few others on the list in other parts of the world as well.
Yours in His Bond-slave joy as yoked with you,

Rob Gerard

I do not wish to give any identity to the following for security reasons, but if can please pray with us about the situation of our persecuted brethren in other countries and bring to notice to your believing politicians in US and elsewhere we would be most grateful. This is not a hoax story or beat up for publicity purposes, but is sent from a trustworthy brother in the affected country:

Dear friends,

The following report was not able to be sent earlier because of the nature of this country. It is now a matter of extreme urgency and seriousness, and I am asking that you disseminate it widely for prayer and if possible, action.
If you know denominational heads, religious press, secular press, politicians and influential people it would be good to engage their help in writing to the Uzbek Government. That government prides itself on being “democratic” and under that banner is courting the investment of the west. The word and the practice are quite different. Communism has not left this place, and the government treads roughly on its people, especially and particularly upon its minority Christian population.
An urgent message to the believers in the West,
The situation for the Church in Uzbekistan has become critical. It is very possible that by August 15th there will not be a single Protestant church left in the country, with all congregations declared illegal and all property confiscated.
The government prides itself on the use of the word “democratic” but is simply the old communist leadership with a new surge of opportunism under its recent independence from what was the Soviet Union. You will hear of it being democratic, under which banner it is courting investment from the West, however that is a pretence.
New laws have been enacted regarding the reregistration of churches. Muslims do not come under these laws, (with the exception of some small extreme fundamentalists) nor does the Orthodox Church, only the Protestant churches. They have been told that they must have 100 bona fide members to be considered for reregistration, which in many village situations is impossible at this point. In addition, there is now a mandatory three year prison term for proselytising, so any building up of the churches through evangelism will deplete the churches through imprisonment.
One denomination for example, the Baptists, have four out of twenty five churches who can apply for reregistration. If they register those four they will be seen to be accepting the government regulations and that will be brought back upon them later. If they refuse to register any unless all are registered, they will lose all property and all rights. And in any case, the Union will be dissolved because they have insufficient churches to warrant registration. All Union property is therefore forfeit.
Even the Bible Society faces closure on or after August 15th with confiscation of their valuable property.
You must try and imagine the fears that some of the new believers have and some of the churches. They live between Islam and an authoritarian regime, and are being squeezed into an underground existence. As for the law forbidding evangelism, they have effectively said to the Government, “We will not obey.”
Please mobilize prayer for the beleaguered saints and also that God will work His purposes through these evil times. Please also mobilize help if and where possible. It may be that church and community leaders in the West, before whose eyes this government would want to appear democratic and free, might be able to bring influence to bear on the situation.
Psalm 33:10-12.
26th July, 1998

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