294 My Story Talk 7 Elm Park Baptist Church (1951-1958) Part 2

Talk 7 Elm Park Baptist Church (1951-1958) Part 2

Welcome to Talk 7 in our series where I’m reflecting on God’s goodness to me throughout my life. Today I’m going to tell you about my decision to follow Christ, my baptism and church membership, and my call to the ministry.

My decision to follow Christ

As I mentioned in an earlier talk, I cannot remember a time when I did not believe in Jesus, and, when at the age of eight I was asked by my father if I believed that Jesus had died for me, my immediate answer was yes. That was, after all, what I had been brought up to believe. But there is more to salvation than believing. Jesus began his ministry by preaching,

The time has come…Repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).

The fact that Jesus loved us enough to die for our sins demands a response. If we truly believe it, we will repent, because we will hate the fact that our sins made it necessary for Jesus to suffer and die in our place. And true repentance will involve not just being sorry. It will entail a decision to turn from our sin, and to dedicate our whole life to him.

I made that decision in April 1953 at the age of fourteen. Why it took so long I’m not quite sure. I remember that when I was about eleven my Sunday School Teacher asked us if we would like to ‘ask Jesus to come into our hearts’ and for some reason I didn’t respond. I think that part of the reason was embarrassment. I didn’t want my parents and some of my aunts making a fuss and saying how wonderful it was that David had ‘made a decision’. So what eventually prompted me to surrender to the claims of Christ and give my life to him?

Of course the correct theological answer to that question is the convicting power of the Holy Spirit working through the preaching of the Word of God. And that must have been what was happening, although I didn’t realise it at the time. For several weeks in Bible Class my father had been preaching on John 3:16. Week by week I was constantly challenged by the thought that, if God loved me so much that he gave his only Son to die on the cross and save me from my sins, surely the very least I could do would be to give my life to him.

So the major driving force behind my decision to do just that was undoubtedly the love of God. But that was not the only factor. There was also the fear of hell. And I think that may have been what finally clinched it. I was made very aware of the reality of hell through the preaching of Evangelist Tom Rees one Saturday night in the Central Hall, Westminster.

Elm Park was only an hour’s journey from central London and a group of us had travelled in to hear him ^[1]. Towards the close of his sermon, he stressed the dangers of rejecting Christ, and when he made the appeal I knew that I should stand up along with the many others who were responding to his message. But once again I resisted. My pride was holding me back. I didn’t want to make a public declaration that I was a sinner who needed to be saved.

 

 

My baptism

But the next day everything changed. There was to be a baptismal service in the evening and during the day my mother asked me if I had ever thought of being baptised, and I found myself saying yes. I understood very well that her question was not merely about being baptised. It carried with it part of the significance of baptism, the confession of Jesus Christ as my Saviour, my Lord, and my God.

And so that evening when the minister made the appeal at the end of his sermon, while the congregation was singing the closing hymn, I walked forward with several other young people to indicate publicly my decision to give my life to Jesus and my desire to obey him by being baptised.

The next baptismal service was arranged for July 19^th, so there were several weeks to wait. But that gave us the opportunity to attend weekly baptismal classes at the ‘manse’, the name given to the house where the minister lived. Each week he taught us the basics about the Christian life, paying special attention to the subject of baptism, and explaining why infant baptism, which is practised in some churches, is not biblical ^[2].

However, there was no teaching on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which was something I did not hear about until I met some Pentecostal Christians a few years later. Nevertheless, I did find the minister’s teaching very helpful, and I think that’s why, when I became a pastor myself, I decided to provide similar classes for all those wanting to be baptised. In fact, the talks that I gave were later to form the basis of the contents of my little book, How to Live for Jesus. And of course they did include teaching on the baptism in the Spirit.

When the day scheduled for the baptismal service finally arrived, the baptisms took place at the end of the Sunday evening service. The minister, who was dressed in black waterproof clothing, went down into the water first. Then, one at a time, the candidates went down to be baptised and each of us was asked by name,

Do you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your Lord, and your God?

To which we replied, I do.

Then the minister would say,

Then on the confession of your faith and repentance towards God, I baptise you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

He then immediately baptised us, leaning us backwards into the water, dipping us right under (because that’s the meaning of the word baptise) and as we came up out of the water the whole church would sing,

            Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus, Anywhere, everywhere, I would follow on.

            Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus, Anywhere he leads me I will follow on.

And that is something I can honestly say I have tried to do ever since. And now, 72 years later, I have no regrets. The pathway he has led, and is still leading me on, has been wonderful. It has not always been easy, but it’s been far better than going my own way. God’s way is always best.

Church membership

After baptism, the next step was to become a church member. Of course, from the perspective of the New Testament, we all become members of the church the moment we receive Christ as our Saviour. We become members of the universal church which is comprised of all Christians, those already in Heaven, the church triumphant, and those still on earth, the worldwide church, the church militant. Our membership of that church remains permanent as long as we remain Christians.

But which local church we belong to may vary from time to time according to where we are living. And, of course, in any one area there may be several different local churches, which has sadly resulted in some Christians having no real commitment to any one local church and acknowledging no real accountability to any church leadership.

This is why many local churches, while recognising that all Christians who worship with them are members of the body of Christ, the universal church, nevertheless insist that to be a member of their local church a person must identify with the doctrinal beliefs of that church, acknowledge their accountability to the leadership and their fellow church members, and show a genuine commitment to that church.

And that was what was expected of me when, shortly after my baptism, I asked to become a member of Elm Park Baptist Church. The application process was simple. I had to ask someone who was already a member to be my sponsor. After a friendly interview he brought a report to the next Church Members’ Meeting and my name, together with the names of other young people who had been baptised at the same time as me, was put to the vote. As a result we were all accepted into membership.

Church membership carried with it the privilege of being able to join in the discussions at church meetings and included the right to vote, even for those of the minimum age for membership, which was just fourteen. I always enjoyed those meetings, which were held every two months. Being able to participate in decision making meant that I felt a sense of responsibility and I was constantly aware of developments in the church programme.

Now I realise that different churches operate in many different ways and that some leaders are hesitant to involve the members in this kind of way for fear of the kind of unpleasantness that I have heard has gone on in some church meetings. All I can say to that is that, in my experience, the advantages of involving the people in decision making on important matters far outweigh any disadvantages.

What’s more, the dangers of abuse and corruption that so often have taken place when all the power is vested in a few, or even in just one person, must be avoided at all costs. I do believe that leadership should lead, and lead by example. But to be a leader is not the same as being a dictator. If you are really a leader, people will follow you. That’s why, as a church leader, I have never been afraid to ask the people to endorse any major decisions made by the leadership team. But that brings me to my call to ministry.

My call to ministry

As a teenager, of course, my understanding of church and church leadership was very much determined by my limited experience of  Elm Park Baptist Church. Like most people then, and many people still today, I assumed that a local church must be led by a man called the minister or vicar. It was his responsibility to lead and preach at all the services and that, to do this, he needed to have received a special call from God.

So when I refer to my call to the ministry I am using the expression in the way that I understood things back then. I have since come to see things very differently, and that will become evident in later talks. For now, it will be enough to say that I now understand that the word minister simply means servant and that, since all God's people are called to serve him, all God's people are in a sense ministers. But that is not to say that some people do not receive a special call to some particular area of service.

In my particular case, I now realise that other people may have seen in me the potential to become a preacher long before I realised it myself. I was only fourteen when I was asked to give a short talk in the Sunday evening service at my church. It was what was called a Youth Sunday when the young people from my father's Bible class were asked to take responsibility for the service.

Three of us were asked to speak for five minutes each and my father gave us help as to what we might say. That was my first experience of public speaking and, to my surprise, the following year I was invited to take on the preaching single handed. Then, another year later, I was asked to preach at the Sunday morning service. I am so grateful to the church leaders for spotting the potential that was in me and giving me the opportunity to develop it.

Even then, however, although I enjoyed preaching, I did not feel any sense of call. That came when I attended a Baptist Church summer school held at Mamhead, not many miles from where I now live in beautiful Devon. Mamhead House, built in the nineteenth century regardless of cost and set in 164 acres of glorious parkland overlooking Lyme Bay and Exmouth has been described as ‘Devon’s grandest country mansion’.

Summer School was a holiday for young Christians which included sessions of teaching until 11:00 AM and evening meetings for worship and further teaching after the evening meal. The rest of the day was taken up with leisure activities which included trips to the nearby seaside town of Dawlish, coach trips to Dartmoor, and rambles in the countryside surrounding Mamhead.

I attended Summer School there for three years in succession from 1954 to 1956. But it was in 1955 that the Lord clearly spoke to me about my future. I had completed my O Levels in 1954 and was now halfway through my A Level course and beginning to think about my future. But I wasn’t particularly looking for guidance at that point as I was expecting to go to university after my A Levels and felt I had plenty of time to make up my mind.

 

 

Then, one evening, after the preacher had finished speaking and we had sung the final song, the Revd. Cyril Rushbridge, who had been leading the meeting, said something like this:

This isn’t part of what we had planned for this evening, but I just feel that the Lord wants me to tell you how I felt my call to the ministry.

He went on to explain that he had had no dramatic experience like Saul on the road to Damascus but described in a simple way how he had ‘received his call’. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the details of what he said. All I can tell you is that when he had finished speaking I just knew that God wanted me to be a minister. And to clinch it, Kathleen O’Connor, a girl from our church came up to me as soon as the meeting had finished and said,

David, do you now know what God wants you to do with your life?

To which I replied,

Yes, Kate, I’m going to be a minister.

I later went and spoke with the Revd. Rex Mason, a graduate of Regent’s Park College, Oxford, who had been the preacher that evening and asked for his advice. He had read English (I think) at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, before going on the read Theology at Regent’s Park. He recommended that I do something similar, widening my outlook on life by taking a degree in something different before concentrating on Theology.

The next thing to do was to let my parents know what had happened and, as I was away at Mamhead for at least another week, I sent them a postcard saying something like,

I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve decided to be a minister!

And when I got home they told me something they had never told me before. They had prayed for this from before I was born.

I also told my minister, the Revd. Leslie H. Moxham, about my call to the ministry and asked if there was anything I could do immediately to start to prepare for what God was calling me to. And he suggested that I start attending the midweek Prayer and Bible Study meeting, something I had not done because of all my other commitments to church activities. So I did what he suggested and was not disappointed. He was a great Bible teacher and I learnt a lot in those meetings, even though, as I have already mentioned, the number of meetings got me into trouble with my History teacher at school.

So looking back, I am very grateful to God for my years at Elm Park Baptist and, although I was to move on when I was baptised in the Spirit in 1959, my remaining years there were to prove some of the most exciting and significant years of my life.

But that’s the subject of the next talk.

 

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[1] Incidentally, in the years that followed we also went several times to hear Billy Graham during his visits to Haringey, Earls Court, and Wembley Stadium.

[2] Please see Chapter Thirteen of You’d Better Believe It where I show the biblical reasons for saying this.