The London Missionary Society
This week I have been reading Ruth Tucker’s book From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, a biographical history of Christian missions. As I have read the book, I noticed the influence of London in the past in getting the gospel around the world, specifically in the 1800 and 1900s.
The London Missionary Society (LMS) was formed in 1795 following William Carey suggestion to Baptist pastor John Ryland that a missionary society be formed that would encourage participation of evangelicals to get the gospel around the world. Many famous missionaries served with the LMS including Robert Morrison (China), David Livingstone (Africa), and Eric Liddell (China). As I read the book, I thought, “Wouldn’t be great if the churches from this city could once again be used by God to train and send missionaries all around the world!”
Other than read Tucker’s book, we have a had a good week together. After a year of traveling and moving internationally three different in one year, it is great to be getting in to a normal routine. This week, we made progress in the following areas:
- Teri and the children finished one full week of school.
- I went through lists of several fellowships of churches and tried to identify where churches are already located in London. Obviously, we will then begin to research and study those areas that have no churches. This is a huge job in a city that is over 600 square miles.
- Grant’s bed/desk/wardrobe arrived from Argos. His bedroom is quite small, but the combo makes the most of the space. The only problem is it took me half a day to assemble from two boxes and several hundred parts!
- Our internet was installed this week which has made communication and work much simpler.
- We did some more work unpacking and moving things around. Storage space is limited in our house, so some things we are getting rid of and some things we have found creative places to put them.
- We visited three churches in central London. One was closed the night we tried to attend, the other was meeting in a small back room in a huge church building, and the other had about 25 folks meeting in a very old church building that could hold about 200 people.
- Grant and I visited the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich and enjoyed learning about history of that place.
Thank you for continuing to pray for us during this time of preparation for church-planting.