This summer we sent our first student to the UK for a two-month long internship with the Grace Baptist Partnership. The following is his reflection on the experience For more information on this internship, click here
Over the summer, God blessed me with a rare opportunity to fly across the Atlantic and participate in a two-month church revitalization internship in Great Britain, made possible through the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Mathena Center for Church Revitalization and its cooperative efforts with an organization based in the United Kingdom called the Grace Baptist Partnership. The goal behind this internship was to provide a seminary student who may be interested in doing church revitalization with some hands-on exposure to a wide breadth of church revitalizations and replants—each one at a different stage of development and situated in a different ministry context—throughout Great Britain. My two months as an intern proved to be an invaluable experience in which I not only learned many vital lessons about pastoring in a revitalization church context but also had the chance to witness, first-hand, the encouraging work that God is gradually accomplishing in Great Britain. For this short reflection, I want to discuss three things: (1) what I did, (2) what I observed, and (3) what I took away from my time overseas. However, before getting into what I did, I believe it would be helpful first to share a little more about the ministry of the Grace Baptist Partnership.
What is the Grace Baptist Partnership?
The Grace Baptist Partnership is an initiative that began roughly fifteen years ago in order to help facilitate greater cooperation amongst Grace Baptist churches and regional associations in carrying out church planting, replanting, and revitalization efforts across the United Kingdom. In many ways, a Grace Baptist church in the United Kingdom would be quite similar to a Reformed Baptist church here in the United States. The term “Grace” highlights the church’s soteriological convictions in affirming the doctrines of grace, while the term “Baptist” reflects the church’s ecclesiological commitment to strict Baptistic distinctives such as believer’s baptism, regenerate church membership, and a close practice of the Lord’s Supper. As a “Partnership,” this organization aims to bring like-minded local independent Grace Baptist churches together into interdependent, joint gospel labor, in which they prayerfully work alongside one another to reach their respective regions and beyond. Currently, there are just under thirty different local churches—most of them plants, replants, or revitalizations—in the United Kingdom that are a part of this thriving network; and that number is steadily rising.[1]
What Did I Do?
As an intern serving through the Grace Baptist Partnership, I had the privilege of working with six different local churches during my two-month stint.[2] While I was stationed in a market town called Dunstable—due approximately thirty-five miles northwest of London—as the primary sending quarters during my stay, I would travel upwards of three to four times each week, either to neighboring towns or villages or down into different parts of London, to spend the day ministering alongside these various churches, which ranged from a brand-new replant in the densely-populated heart of the Wimbledon district, to a number of rural, small-town revitalizations outside of London, that have been several years in progress.
The ministries I participated in ranged as well—from assisting with local community outreach and door-to-door evangelism to shadowing different elders as they made pastoral visitations, to teaching mid-week Bible studies, or even providing pulpit supply on Sunday mornings. Throughout these two months, a local church pastor by the name of Barry King (who is also the General Secretary of the Grace Baptist Partnership), provided direction and mentoring to complement the various activities of my internship. We shared numerous hours conversing about life and ministry—be it while traveling on the train together or during our weekly debrief meetings in Dunstable. In Barry, I found a tremendous resource of rich pastoral wisdom and insight, and a welcome sounding board for helping me process my experiences.
What Did I Observe?
My two months in Great Britain also afforded me a front-row seat to many of the exciting ways in which God is using his church to reach this nation with the message of the gospel. I encountered congregations of saints who are committed to the glory of God, to the truth of his Word, to gathering together as local church bodies, to praying for the lost, and to regularly evangelizing the surrounding neighborhoods. I had the chance to see a recent replant in Wimbledon get on its feet and grow before my very eyes, as other Grace Baptist churches in the partnership eagerly pooled together resources and sent willing members from their respective congregations to assist temporarily with this new ministry. And I got to witness a more spiritually mature and established church in Dunstable—itself the product of years of persistent revitalization work—come alongside smaller and younger church revitalizations in neighboring towns and villages, to offer encouragement, pulpit supply, and pastoral guidance.
The observations I could continue recounting are practically endless. I could talk about several members from a multi-ethnic Grace Baptist church in the town of Watford—some from southeast Asia, others from eastern Europe, and still others from different parts of Africa—going to pass out gospel tracts along the high street, and then gathering together afterward for food and fellowship in the home of a church family from the Middle East. I could share about a humble pastor persevering in church revitalization at a village church that had a membership of two when he and his family first began there five years ago, but which has now grown to a total of five members. Or I could even recall a Friday evening visit to London’s famous Leicester Square, and the encouraging thrill of watching men from the Open-Air Mission get up on a stool and earnestly proclaim Christ and him crucified to passing pedestrians. In both small and great ways, I observed the Spirit moving, the Word of Christ going forth, and the will of the Father being done in Great Britain as it is in heaven.
So, what did I learn from this internship? My answer here could go in a number of different directions, but I would like to conclude by highlighting just one lesson: Do not underestimate a tiny church in the hands of an omnipotent God.
What Did I Take Away?
So, what did I learn from this internship? My answer here could go in a number of different directions, but I would like to conclude by highlighting just one lesson: Do not underestimate a tiny church in the hands of an omnipotent God. Numerically speaking, churches in the United Kingdom are significantly smaller than those in the United States. As Barry first explained it to me a few weeks before I flew out to start the internship: Imagine an average-sized church here in the States and round its membership number up to the nearest ten. If you want an idea of what this average-sized church’s equivalent might look like in the United Kingdom, take off the zero at the end of that number. To put it another way, of the six Grace Baptist churches I worked with, the largest congregation had a membership of around forty to fifty, and most of the other churches in the group had a membership of between ten and twenty.
We live in a world that is drawn to what is big and impressive, a numbers-driven society that despises what is small, weak, and foolish. And a part of me wonders if certain subtle elements of this cultural value system have begun to slowly shape our ecclesiology, such that even when it comes to the local church, what is able to draw a large following has now become that which is of greatest significance. But the more I read my Bible, the more I come to realize just how much God loves to use precisely those small, weak, and foolish things to carry out his purposes, demonstrate his sovereign power, and put to shame the wisdom and might of this present evil age (1 Cor 1:26-31).
We live in a world that is drawn to what is big and impressive, a numbers-driven society that despises what is small, weak, and foolish. And a part of me wonders if certain subtle elements of this cultural value system have begun to slowly shape our ecclesiology, such that even when it comes to the local church, what is able to draw a large following has now become that which is of greatest significance.
Christianity in Great Britain—a nation well-known for being “post-Christian”— is not without its fair share of challenges. To be sure, there is still much to be done, and the tremendous need for more laborers to courageously step out into the harvest remains as pressing as ever. But let us not jump to the hasty conclusion that all is lost, nor discount the exciting gospel work that a countless bevy of small, unheralded churches are doing on the other side of the Atlantic. God is most certainly moving, although at times it may not seem like it. And some of his most useful and fruitful instruments are precisely the sort of tiny, obscure churches that we in America so easily tend to overlook and dismiss.
Jonathan Ginn is currently a ThM student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and is a two-time Mathena Center intern alum, both in our on-campus practicum and now as the first intern we have sent outside the country.
[1] For more information on the GBP and some of the churches that are a part of this network, visit their website: https://www.gracebaptistpartnership.org.uk/.
[2] While I will not be going into detail regarding what I did at each one, the six churches I worked with are as follows: Dunstable Baptist Church (in Dunstable, Bedfordshire), Linslade Baptist Church (in Leighton-Linslade, Bedfordshire), Edlesborough Baptist Church (in Edlesborough, Buckinghamshire), Grace Baptist Church North Watford (in Watford, Hertforshire), Wimbledon Baptist Church (in Wimbledon, Southwest London), and The Angel Church (in Angel, Central London).