The Faith Mission is an evangelistic ministry which has been going since 1886, with a special interest in reaching rural and remote parts of the UK. Many people have come across their large chain of bookshops in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and in Edinburgh they also have a great cafe. Solas has a few good connections with the FM – and not least of which is that their bookshops stock our work! We have some evangelism-training work coming up with them in a few months time and we know Angus Moyes at their Bible College too, from his previous work with Scripture Union Scotland in Edinburgh.
So it was a real joy to head down to the Faith Mission College one Friday recently to meet Russell Newton, the Principal and to share with the students there something of the work of Solas. When he introduced me, Russell drew the students attention to the fact that I had edited Have You Ever Wondered? with Andy Bannister, and that two contributors to that volume (Michael Ots and David Nixon) are graduates of their Bible College! When Russell invited the students to pray for Solas and our work – it was deeply moving to hear them respond with insight, passion and faith. It was such an encouragement to me to hear the prayers of God’s people for our work, mission and organisation. If your church has a midweek prayer meeting, or prayer bulletin, or you pray in housegroups; we’d love to send you some up-to-date prayer requests (or even visit you if we can). We rely deeply on God through prayer for every aspecyt of our work, from funding it to delivering it; from recruitment and administrsation to writing and preaching. Contact us if you’d like to pray for our work more effectively, or sign up for our prayer letter here.
The college graciously invited me then to speak at their weekly worship service. I looked at Psalm 51, King David’s song of repentence after the prophet Nathan called him out on his sexual immorality and violence. The key in that text was that David understood that he didn’t need more religious duties to perform or to learn self-discipline technicques; he needed a “new heart”. In the days running up to this event, there had been disturbing revelations in the press about the fall of a highly regarded Christian preacher – we thought together about how we could preserve our ministries and integrity.
Solas has a good relationships with several colleges and theological institutions around the country (and a few further afield too). Andy’s Bannister’s expertise on Islam and apologetics and Steve Osmond’s apologetics material are in high demand. Again, if you are involved in theologcal education or ministry training, we’d welcome the opportunity to speak to you about working together
