Keswick Convention

This is very much a full circle moment for, for me, uh, and I want to share a story with you, um, because I think it's, it's particularly relevant.

Can we have the next slide, please? A number of years ago, uh, a friend and I were here at the Keswick Convention.

We were camping here for the whole week, and a lovely thing about the convention is that you strike up conversations with people you've never met before, but people who share your faith, who are brothers and sisters in Christ.

One afternoon, my friend sat, uh, friend and I, we sat on a bench in Market Square not far from here in the town center eating our meal deal lunches, and a couple walked towards us with their meal.

And yes, he used those people in the revival extraordinarily.

Next year's theme at the Keswick Convention is basically revival, and wouldn't it be wonderful to see this quiet revival become really, really noisy? Um, uh, but you know, people like Roy, people like Selina could be people like, uh, you and me, uh, sharing the gospel.

So just as we finish, what opportunities do you have to share the gospel day to day? How could you make more of them? And what steps could you take to use the time, talents, et cetera, you have more effectively for the gospel? So again, just share, turn to your neighbor and spend a couple of minutes, um, thinking about that.

So again, just, um, finish off those chats and do continue them over coffee, um, thinking how we can make more use of all the things that God has given us to, uh, make sure that our feet are fitted with good news shoes to share the good news, um, day by day with the people we come across.

Happy Thursday.

And of course, it is happy Thursday because it's a Keswick Convention Thursday, the happiest kind of Thursday that there is.

And, uh, we're here, and we're gonna think about some epic narratives.

I should probably introduce myself.

Of course, that is the verse that you walked in under when you came to the convention.

That is the verse that has stood above the Keswick Convention for 151 years.

We're all one in Christ Jesus.

Not because we all look the same or dress the same or think the same.

But more importantly, I hope that we leave more confident in how to navigate it.

Now, I live in a little town called Portstewart, and Portstewart is a Keswick Convention town on the north coast of Northern Ireland.

My father served on the, on the Portstewart Committee.

I think he was actually mainly remembered for hosting, uh, strawberries and ice cream party every year, and that's where I met people like the Phillips brothers, and Alex Mateer, and Don Carson, Alistair Begg's, and many others, as I, I served them the ice cream.

So Major Ian Thomas was this exchanged life Christian teacher.

It's not neocarismatic, but it came out of this movement called the Keswick Convention, where these people in England had this idea that Christ didn't just come to die for the forgiveness of sins.

He came to live the Christian life through you.

So the Bible college would talk a lot about Christ in you, the hope of glory, how if you can just figure out a way, Christ will live through you to live the Christian life.