A well-attended Annual Meeting was held at Slip End Village Hall, near Luton, on 4th October.
David Crowter, the Chairman, welcomed those present and then Mr. A. Chapman read the Scriptures from Exodus, chapter 32 and Marcus Brockes, Treasurer, followed in prayer.
The meeting then heard from Mr. Ian Henderson, Vice-Chairman, who told the meeting that CW had been founded by Bible-believing Protestants who were committed to the same beliefs and ideals as ‘the great Protestant Reformers’. He spoke with sadness of how many formerly Protestant Churches and whole denominations had ‘turned their backs on the great truths of the Scriptural Gospel message’. In some towns, he said, there were simply no Protestant, Reformed Churches left to proclaim the Gospel message. In some places, CW had been able to help and put believers in touch with one another, leading to small groups of believers meeting in each other’s houses – because there was no suitable Church in their areas.
An Open Air Witness was held on a lovely warm sunny day in Portsmouth City Centre, when I teamed up with Jim, Malcolm and Rick who came from the local Grace Baptist Church. As soon as I put up the Christian Watch table, two young men began to speak to Rick about a tract on evolution. Rick spoke with them for quite a while about their need of Jesus, but they were not so pleased when Jim began preaching and telling people that they needed to repent.
Jim and Malcolm took it in turns to preach, and there were a lot of people sitting nearby listening. Malcolm was able to talk to a man selling balloons, dressed in bright colours, who was of French origin.
2 Corinthians 10:4,5 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
The Woolwich terrorist attack was of such a nature that words are insufficient to describe the monstrous barbaric murder. Lee Rigby, 25 and from Middleton, Greater Manchester who had been in the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was run down by a car and then mercilessly killed and dragged into the streets. Islamic chants of Allah is Great were heard and of course the infamous video shows one of them making political statements. They wanted to be seen, they wanted to be heard. It is not my desire to investigate the religion of Islam upon this tragic happening. It needs only to be said that according to the Word of God it is a false religion and the basis for making that statement is that the Lord Jesus Christ is according to Islam not the Eternal Son of God and God’s salvation is not found through faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
We were able to set up the table in a prime position in the main thoroughfare in Commercial Street – the main shopping precinct in Portsmouth.
The fair weather saw multitudes of shoppers converging on the area and we were able to proclaim the Gospel loud and clear, with a megaphone, to the constant stream of people.
The exercise was a far cry from the previous open-air witnessing in Horsham – we were taken aback at how many people were prepared to listen.
Manning the stand was Steve Black, with local preachers Malcolm Hey and Jim Scoales alternating on the preaching.
We were pleasantly surprised at the number of youth with whom we were able to engage with this Saturday. Wonderfully, four Bibles were handed over to different individuals – as well as a number of tracts.
A short video of the open-air preaching in Portsmouth.
The parliamentary sub-committee, which is tasked with considering the detail prior to its passage through parliament, has invited submissions from those who believe that they have some relevant evidence to put forward, either for or against this Bill, by March 12th 2013.
However, there has been a well-intentioned, but sadly misguided, attempt by Christian believers to oppose this bill on the grounds of worldly reason alone. To explain: many have forgotten why they oppose such wickedness and have fallen into the trap of saying that such a homosexual lifestyle of a redefined marriage, is unnatural, destructive, medically, psychologically and socially and altogether undesirable.
Report on Open-Air Witnessing: Saturday, 11 May 2013
Steve Black placed the table with Christian literature at the top of Horsham’s West Street outside a vacant retail premises. The town centre was a hive of activity this Saturday morning with what appeared to be a Morris Dancing Convention.
Along with myself, we were accompanied by David Nickless from Littlehampton.
The outreach was intended as a campaign primarily to share the Gospel and secondly to alert people to the existence of Christian Watch and recruit additional members to the cause of returning to the “old paths.” (Jeremiah Chapter 6 verse 16).
Horsham has traditionally been hard ground for witnessing by Christian Watch over the last year or two. Relatively affluent, it’s residents seem to fall into one of two camps; hostile to the Gospel, or they believe that they are Christians – and attend one of the many “Emergent” Churches which represent mainstream Protestantism in the market town.
Steve Black and I have found that many poor souls are naively unaware of the Ecumenical Movement’s subtle, yet deliberate, moves towards a One World Religion.