In Solas in recent months we have been working on our statement of values, making sure that they reflect what we sincerely believe and which help hold us to account to life our the high calling we have in Christ. Paul wrote these words to the Ephesians: ” I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” (Eph 1:4). One of the values that we have identified as core to our mission is that we remain “church-focussed”. That is to say that we exist to serve, grow and bless the church of Christ, and never, ever think that the church exists to facilitate para-church ministry. I heard someone recently say, that “we can be para-church, but never parasites!” Indeed.
We are deeply aware that the church of Christ is his bride, of which we are all members – and that any para-church activity must exist for the sake of Christ, His gospel and His church! As such we never hold any meetings which are “Solas events”, to which we expect the churches to supply an audience! Rather we only ever work where we are invited, by congregations, denominations, CU groups, missions, church-networks or presbyteries, or BIble-colleges and seminaries.
Recently I was invited to preach on this subject by our friends at Riverside Church in Ayr as part of their teaching series on The Church. I used Hebrews 10 as our guide through the many reasons that Christians need to meet together for worship, prayer, fellowship and teaching. Most of the sermon was captured on the two videos that follow.
The Sunday I was in Ayr was also a few weeks prior to the Confident Christianity conference that Riverside were hosting and Solas were supplying speakers for. In the following clip, I talked about what a Confident Christianity conference is about, what to expect and introduced the speakers. If you are a church interested in this kind of work, have a watch and if you think an event like this (or something similar) might be of use to you or your fellowship, please get in touch with us. We love visitng new churches (large and small), and new towns and cities (large and small!) all over the UK.
To read more about how we serve local churches, click here.
