The Hope in Hope Street

This book is just out and can be obtained from Amazon. It tells the story of 200 years of gospel witness in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent through two buildings on the same site. In 1812 the Hope Congregational church building was erected on New Hall Street. When later a street came to join it by the church this was called Hope Street after the building. The book provides an interesting and spiritually valuable record of the growth and progress of the church up to 1931 when the building became Bethel Temple following the ministry of Edward Jeffreys in the Potteries. In 1958 the name of the church became Bethel Evangelical Free Church, which it still retains. As it happens I was the pastor of the church from 1966 to 1994. The present building was opened in 1977. As far as I am concerned it is the early history which is so enlightening.

Adam

Can I recommend the lectures given at the recent conference at the John Owen Centre on Adam. I haven't listened to them all but what I have heard have been very stimulating. They can be accessed at [johnowen@ltslondon.org].

Vertical or horizontal

I have just been reading the opening chapters of 1 Chronicles again. In thinking of the way in which all the tribes are listed going through the generations I was suddenly aware that we look at things differently today. No longer do we think vertically in terms of different generations springing from the same family line in the way the Bible does. Nowadays we categorize people in large groups, children, young people, middle aged and the elderly. There are of course some reasons for this but it is a fundamentally different way of thinking and affects how we understand relationships. It also affects how we think of our churches. We struggle to cater for all age groups in our church life and worship because we think in unbiblical terms. We wonder how we can integrate the horizontal bands, but overlook our identity as all descended from Adam and all one in Christ. There is no easy way to recalibrate our thinking, and modern life militates against it in many ways, but we ought at least to try.