FROM THE PRESIDENT, David Coffey
IN CELEBRATION OF THE LOCAL CHURCH
My final article for Baptist World is in celebration of the local church, not least because I am aware that the seeds for my
ministry as BWA president were sown 60 years ago in a local Baptist church.
Two months ago my former youth leader died and this prompted me to reflect on the formative years of my Christian life. I
give thanks to God for Eric Christie and his wife, Margaret, who laid foundation stones of discipleship in my life in the 1950s.
Their love and devotion to Jesus Christ; their generous hospitality; their applied knowledge of the scriptures; and their
selfless giving of time and energy was immensely fruitful in the lives of countless young people.
My local church was Union Street, Kingston on Thames, and there as a 17 year old I made a public profession of faith
in Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism. It was through this local church that I learned the basic principles of Christian
leadership and eventually heard the call of God to be a preacher. My beloved pastor, Herbert Ward, taught me the rudiments
of New Testament Greek, a labor of love sweetened only by the home cooking of his gifted wife, Mae!
My youth leader must have seen in me a potential preacher as one Sunday he asked me to read the scriptures and lead
the congregation in prayer. The next step was preparing a short address for the children of the congregation and eventually
I was invited to fly “solo pilot” and preach my first sermon.
Being discipled by Eric could be likened to playing tennis with Andre Agassi or taking a soccer lesson from David Beckham!
Eric was challenging with his deep Bible studies grounding me in the principles of Christian discipleship. In the local church
I was taught Baptist basics such as the priesthood of all faithful believers and I learned to tackle the big issues of justice and
religious liberty, and peace and reconciliation. I was introduced to the core value of spiritual accountability to other believers
and a healthy church discipline that was devoid of judgmentalism.
In the local church I realized that God intends the church to be, in Jurgen Moltmann’s memorable phrase, “the fellowship of
the unlike.” We are called to be one in Christ but this is not to be confused with being the same in Christ. My church leaders
modeled for me a generous hospitality of the heart toward believers of other Christian traditions. I was taught that theology
and doctrine were of deep importance, but that you always held your doctrinal convictions with a humble spirit, believing
“that the Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from his Word.”
In the local church I caught the meaning of “life in the Spirit.” I realized that dead-eyed devotion to orthodox truth without the
invigorating power of the Holy Spirit produces a church of cold Christians. But a church that stays close to Jesus and hoists
its sails to the wind of the missionary Spirit is driven inevitably into a life of continuous mission-partnership with God.
I confess that my local church was a messy fellowship and we experienced failures and disappointments; the sermons were
sometimes long and boring and the choir was occasionally out of tune; people did lie and leaders fell out with each other.
Our church was not a story of unbroken evangelistic success. But the best thing I recall about my church family is that they
knew their way out of a church mess; confession, repentance and forgiveness was the way back to following Jesus.
The worship of my local church enabled me to see the world with different eyes and taught me to be a dissenter. Here I
encountered encouraging fellowship, rich humor and the deep joy of a shared commitment of following Jesus. Somewhere
in those early years I discovered I had a world family of believers and I was called to live locally with a heart for the global
church. Little did I realize then that my ministry would “go global” and I would enjoy the privilege of serving as an international
pastor.
When I was commissioned as BWA president in July 2005 I shared the values that would shape my service and this included
the affirmation, “I believe in the Church.” As I hand the presidential baton to my gifted friend, John Upton, I praise God for
the local church that equipped me to serve the global family of Baptists.