“We were thrilled to host Solas for a Confident Christianity evening at Ellon Baptist. We had a good turn out not only from our own members but from a variety of other surrounding churches. Andy Bannister spoke on the evening looking at how to share our faith and also how to understand suffering in relation to our faith. It was a really positive and very helpful evening with those attending finding what was shared both easy to understand and useful. I feel we have gained a lot from this event and now explore the question of how we build on this and put things into practice. In an age where our culture is secularised and there are very loud ideologies around us the ministry of Solas is so important for equipping Christians to both understand their faith and to share it.”
– William Butchart, Pastor – Ellon Baptist Church
Ellon was another stop for Andy Bannister on Solas’s recent “Confident Christianity” tour of the North of Scotland. At Solas we often stress that we want to go to smaller towns, as well as do the big events in larger cities. We would miss out on so much if we didn’t go to places like Ellon – where we meet great people who are really keen to learn all they can about sharing their faith today.
As William Butchart, the pastor at Ellon Baptist mentioned, Andy spoke about “How to talk about Jesus without getting fired or cancelled” – all about how to use questions to develop spiritual conversations with seekers, sceptics and colleagues in a gentle and winsome manner. The second topic he was asked to address was the timeless question of the problem of suffering. People in every age have wrestled with this question, sometimes as an academic exercise – often as a real wrestling with personal pain and dissapointment. Andy looked at the way that the Christian faith offers real hope in the context of a broken world – a hope that we can share with others.
It was a delight for Andy and Solas to partner with Ellon Baptist in this traning event and we pray that they will know great encouragement and fruit as they seek to reach out to their community with the saving love, and hope that Jesus Christ offers today.
As we criss-cross the UK working with all kinds of churches and in all sorts of places – we’d love to come and help stimulate and encourage evangelism in your church with an event like this. Please do get in touch as we’d love to hear from you about the opportunities and challenges of gospel work where you are, as well as explore whether Solas could be hepful for you and your church fellowship. Contact us here.
