President's diary - February 2025

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Introduction

February proved to be a quieter month. Sometime last year, BMS World Mission invited me to visit India in my capacity as Baptist Union President. Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to travel quite widely but it’s mainly been in Europe, Africa and the Americas.

I’ve never been to Asia, and I was excited by the prospect of a first visit. We agreed that I would travel in February and so I made sure there would be space in my diary. In December I sat down to complete the relevant forms and I reported that there was a possibility of an invasive procedure on my heart. The result was that the trip was postponed. BMS have generously offered to reschedule, and we are looking at a visit in the autumn. Meanwhile, I found myself with a bit of space in my schedule and a slightly slower few weeks.

Health

The postponed trip to India meant that my health has been on my mind a little. We travelled to Weston General Hospital for my echocardiogram. This was not an invasive procedure, but it did produce some images of my heart that I could watch. I was told at the time that it all looked good, and I’ve heard nothing further since, so I’m working on the basis that all is well. I’ve got a couple of appointments coming up, one to discuss my medication, given that it seems to be affecting my liver function, and the other to follow-up after the original procedure.

One Friday when Becca and I went walking, she had a nasty fall in a churchyard in a local village. Although we completed the walk, within a couple of days she was feeling a little faint and so we went to accidents and emergency at the hospital in Weston-Super-Mare. They took a scan and told her that while she had lots of bad bruising, the damage was all superficial. She shouldn’t cycle for a couple of weeks in case there was some mild concussion, but apart from that she could carry on as usual.

Cycling

Becca is determined that we are going to keep active and so, in addition to our regular outings with the dog, we are going to do more cycling. Given our age, we decided to buy electric bikes for our longer and hillier expeditions. Becca’s has arrived and she loves it. Mine arrived at the end of the month.

Sport

The good news about my heart has given me some confidence about stepping onto the badminton court even if, sadly, it’s made no impact on the quality of my playing. My golf is no better. I planned to play with a couple of former students but when we stood looking at the course in the driving rain and contemplated carrying our bags round without the use of trolleys which had been banned because of the amount of water on the course, we agreed that we were all fair-weather golfers at heart and so went for a meal and a chat instead.

However, there is some good news on the sporting front, the mighty AFC Wimbledon look to be maintaining their push for promotion to the next division. The BBC Sport alerts that, in previous seasons, have mostly brought sighs of despair, are this year provoking delight.

Birthday

This month brings Becca’s birthday. We had three outings to celebrate. Firstly, we travelled to a village near Swindon for a wonderful lunch with our daughters and their partners and our granddaughter, plus our nephew and his girlfriend, and one of our nieces. Willow the dog came too, making us a boisterous party of eleven. Enough for a football team.

Next, Becca and I enjoyed a meal out at the local Italian restaurant. We walked in to discover an extended family from church celebrating one of their birthdays.

Lastly, we drove down the road to the cinema in Bridgwater to watch Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy. Becca’s a big fan of the films. I still remember buying the first book when it came out in paperback in the mid-1990s. I’ve always enjoyed comic fictional diaries – Diary of a Nobody, Diary of a Somebody, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass plus, in every case, all the sequels – and when I saw that Helen Fielding’s book had some kind words from Nick Hornby – a favourite novelist – on the cover, I knew I had to read it. I had been a bit discouraged by a review of the new film that I read in the paper, but in the event, we both enjoyed it; the film managed to be amusing and to say some helpful things about grief.

Supervision

The month brought conversations with a number of doctoral students. I found myself struggling to keep up with all of them. One is working on the heavenly temple in Hebrews, another on Christian Zionism, one of Paul’s spirituality in Acts, and another on the Baptist Union's Declaration of Principle. Two or three of them should be submitting their theses in the next few weeks, so we’ll soon find out if their hard work has paid off.

Preaching

I only had a couple of preaching engagements scheduled for this month. One morning, I spoke at the Baptist church in Chipping Sodbury. I had been asked to speak on my presidential themes and so I tried to hold them together with a rewritten version of my message based on 2 Timothy in which I reflect on the Apostle Paul’s priorities in the face of impending death. He writes to encourage a younger leader and reminds him of the importance of the Scriptures. He even asks to be brought ‘the books and the parchments’.

After the service I spoke to some of my friends in the congregation and was introduced to three of the people who participated in a recent Alpha course and are continuing to meet. One of them was a man of about 30 who is an active reader, and we were able to discuss some of the books he’s been looking at. Apparently, he has no church background but simply turned up one Sunday morning. I seem to often hear this kind of thing as I go round the churches. It makes me wonder if, perhaps under the radar, God is preparing to do something new among us. I hope so.

Later I had a meal with the pastor and his family. He and his wife have four children, three of whom were at home. All three are keen footballers and the poor things were very patient while I bored them with stories of some of the football tournaments I was involved in when I lived in the Peruvian mountains.

My other Sunday expedition took me to Oakham in Rutland and the church of a former student. I had a lovely meal with the pastor and his wife and a couple of people from the church on the Saturday evening, and I’d rewritten a sermon on the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 – 12 for the morning.

We had a church lunch and then I was invited to answer some questions about the future of the Church. Sometimes the statistics can make things seem bleak, but there are signs of life in all kinds of places, including Oakham where the church has grown and there are a number of younger people getting involved.

In the end, of course, the future of the Church is in God’s hands. Messiah Jesus has said, ‘I will build my Church’, and I’m happy to trust him to do it.