Beckenham Baptist Church

Dear Friends,  You are probably familiar with the words, ‘O Lord my God! when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy hand hath made’. These are the opening words of the hymn ‘How great Thou art!’ which has regularly appeared in the list of the nation’s favourite hymns. It started life as a Swedish poem ‘ O Store Gud ’ (O Great God), written by poet and lay minister Carl Boberg in 1885, and is said to have been inspired by a sudden violent thunderstorm which he was caught in on his way home from church one day. According to the hymnologist J Irving Erickson, Boberg and his friends on their journey encountered a thundercloud on the horizon and soon lightning flashed across the sky, strong winds swept over the meadows and billowing fields of grain, thunderclaps rang out loud, cool fresh showers of rain watered the earth, and then the storm was over, and a rainbow appeared in the sky. After the storm had cleared and Boberg had returned home, he opened his window and looked ou...

Dear Friends,  The quote, ‘From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow’ is credited to the ancient Greek playwright, Aeschylus, and it is true that from something tiny can come great things. This week sees the beginning of the 22 nd Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and I was interested to learn that the games came from an initial idea of an Anglican clergyman, Revd John Astley Cooper, who wrote an article in The Times newspaper in 1891 proposing the idea of a ‘Pan-Britannic-Pan Anglican Contest and Festival every four years as a means of increasing the goodwill and good understanding of the British Empire’. But it wasn’t until 1930 that the first ‘British Empire Games’ as it was then called were held in Hamilton, Canada, when 11 nations took part in eight sports including swimming, athletics, wrestling and lawn bowls! Today all 72 Commonwealth Games Associations are expected to send athletes to compete in 15 sports and it is estimated that over 1 million tickets are expected to be ...

Dear Friends, Last week I received an email from the Living Well Food Bank titled ‘Cost of Living Crisis Appeal’ letting me know that they had been successful in obtaining match funding from the National Emergencies Trust so that every £1 pledged is matched – doubling every donation (up to £250). The email says, ‘I am sure you are aware of the impact that the rise in cost of living has had on many in our community and nationwide, and the huge strain that this has put on foodbanks. In recent weeks we have seen an increase in the number of guests coming to our foodbank (handing out over 900 bags a month and a 30% increase from February 2022 – May 2022), with many feeling the impact of the increase in the cost of living and fuel, some having to make the choice between fuel and food. We have also had many Ukrainian families coming to us for help. A consequence of the current economic climate is that there has been a decrease in the number of food donations received and those supplied...

Dear Friends,  So as some point in the not-too-distant future there will be a new Prime Minister after the resignation of Boris Johnson this week. The Conservative Party will go through their leadership process and election, and it seems like it will be a pretty crowded field, selecting a new leader who will be invited by the Queen to form a government in her name. I read this week in an old Our Daily Bread reflection that in traditional African societies leadership succession is a serious decision. After a king’s demise, great care is taken in the selecting of the next ruler, and besides being from a royal family, the successor must be strong, fearless, and sensible. Candidates are questioned to determine if they will serve the people or rule with a heavy hand. The king’s successor needs to be someone who leads but also serves. In the gospel of Matthew we read the account of James and John’s mother coming to Jesus and asking that they may sit at his right and left in the kingdo...

Dear Friends,  During May and June my daily bible study notes (Life with Lucas) have been focused on the Old Testament book of Ruth which began by saying, ‘we could be tempted to think that it is just a love story with a ‘they all lived happily ever after ending’… but Ruth’s story is far more than a simple romance. Here we find tenacious faith in the face of sudden tragedy… and this is a story that shows us God blesses the most unusual people.’ It reminds us that ‘everything can change, especially when God is involved’, and looks at Ruth’s decision to stay with her mother-in-law, Naomi, after her husband, Naomi’s son, had died. The consequences of that decision were to be far-reaching as we read at the end of the book of Ruth that a son was born to Ruth whose name was Obed who became the father of Jesse, the father of David, and we find this list in the genealogy of Jesus himself in the opening of Matthew’s gospel, where Ruth herself if named. Researching our family tree is somet...

Dear Friends, At a recent funeral service I led we sand the hymn ‘ Praise, my soul, the King of heaven ’ by Henry Francis Lyte, an Anglican clergyman of the 19 th Century who served for 24 years in Lower Brixham, Devonshire. I do like to know something of the story behind the hymns that I sing, and I discovered that H F Lyte was born near Kelso in Scotland and studied at Trinity College Dublin where he won the prize for an English poem three times, his hymns revealing his poetic gifts. Although he was already ordained, he underwent a profound religious experience at the deathbed of a brother clergyman in 1817. Both found a deeper faith and Lyte’s own work and preaching received a new vitality because of the experience. He was a man known to be frail in body, suffering from chronic asthma and tuberculosis, but strong in faith and spirit. He retired from his parish in September 1847 at the age of 54 to go and live in Italy where the climate would be more suited to his ailments. He sadly...

Dear Friends,  As I sit and write this week’s thought the temperature outside is due to reach a sweltering 32⁰C and the weather app on my phone tells me that the real feel will be 34⁰C (that’s 93.2⁰F) – phew it is HOT!!! This week sees the official first day of Summer when one of the Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun which is at its highest position in the sky giving the longest period of daylight, all of which takes place on Tuesday 21 st June. From a website called ‘time and date’, described as ‘the world’s number one website on time’, I discovered that there will be precisely 16h38m22s of daylight on that day and that after that the nights will begin to draw in and we will lose fractions of daylight as the days progress, 3s on 22 nd , 9s on 23 rd , 15s on 24 th , and so on, so make the most of 21 st . Sometimes we hear people use the phrase, ‘the days of our lives’, referring to the sum of our earthly existence and our accomplishments, which the Psalmist tells u...