2023-07-26
Given by Dr Peter Masters
Let us change subject. Pastor was asked constantly what happened? Back in 1970 at the Tabernacle. What course did things take? What is the background? So a few words about that.
Jill and I were previously at Boreham Wood, we had been there 7 years and were involved in the ministry of the Evangelical Times which we started, had 2 or 3 times larger circulation than today.
There was an elderly gentleman who we knew quite well and would worship with us at Boreham Wood, his name was Henry C. Todd, everyone called him Harry, but he was an accounting partner at a large London firm. Before the war, he had been a deacon at the Tabernacle. He kept his links with the Tabernacle, because he was a financial wizard, he would freely audit the Tab accounts. He told us that things were very bad, the congregation had dwindled, it was around 45, there were more on the membership role. It was no longer solvent, the expenses far exceeded the collection. To heat it one Sunday would swallow the annual income of the church.
The church had sadly rejoined the Baptist Union in the 1950s. The Baptist Union is doctrinally mixed, only 5-10% of them are Baptist Evangelicals today. The deacons at the time felt they needed the security of the denomination. And when it came to their needing to close, the denomination decided to take over the Tabernacle and make it their HQ. Spurgeon's tabernacle taken over the liberals. They had architects in, who would decide the new scheme. Harry Todd was anxious that things would go on.
I was invited down to take a few Bible Studies on Separation to bring them out of the union. And after that I was asked to become Pastor.
The Tabernacle was very dim and forbidding. It had not been decorated in years. The people were elderly, but they were delightful, they were a real praying remnant. Most of them were ladies of 80. At the first communion, there were only 4 men, all on the platform. Many warned me against it, there hasn't been a church that has been turned around. But after 9 months of deliberation, Jill and I felt a conviction and joined.
The Baptist Union were furious. They arranged to meet the deacons and Dr Earnest Payne - the secretary of the Baptist Union and his deputy and a few others met the deacons and brow beat the deacons to not appoint him. The deacons asked Pastor to join, and there was quite a bit of surprise, and they had a long debate. Payne told a PHD recently that Masters was right, and he lamented the decline of the union since that date. The call went ahead, and I went there.
Prayer was a key thing. Dividing Bible Study and prayer meeting was step one. We are in the Lord's work, everything must be subject to prayer. We started a students and nurses meeting. Chris Laws also came down from Boreham Wood. It was surprising the numbers they had, it would be full of students who came and invited others. Pastor remembered that they had to be careful that were two Victorian chairs, one would be used for the speaker. But only one was intact. You sat on the other one it would fly to bits in dramatic manner. But it didn't work, because some other rash person sat in it. From that students and nurses meeting, a good many of our elders and deacons arose.
Here is where sacrifice comes in. These young men and women who came in, and got their first appointments, if they went into the outer suburbs could have had a nice lifestyle. But a number of people nailed their colours to the mast of evangelising in the city centre, they had to take flats, and tumbling down Victorian houses. There are some who have made those sacrifices and still are here today. We had those who were heart and soul and had made sacrifices to support it. We had such an elderly congregation, but these were the praying remnant of earlier days. There they were in the Tabernacle, and yet we did not have a funeral for 4 years, as if the Lord was sparing this band to see the answer to their prayers.
There was one lady who had a severe speech impairment at 85, but when they revamped the Sunday School, she volunteered to teach. When she died, Jill cleared her flat, she had lived in poverty, but there were stacks of letters for sending money to missionaries around the world. There were people with hearts sacrificially committed to the Lord.
There was a steady increase and things began to take shape for the future, things that were laid on our hearts.
The Sunday school was a tremendous work, and they soon realised that they needed many buses. We were able to get a coach. It was a country bus from Devon that took over 30 children. At Boreham Wood, the insurance companies had no rules, Pastor got a minibus with inward facing seats with 12 people, Pastor asked the insurance company how many children he could fit in the bus, and the underwriter said probably 18 children and 12 adults, Pastor remembers having 25 teenagers in the bus. At Tab, Ian Wilson went to get one minibus and came back with 5. Things went up and up and up, the children could be gathered in. We have a bit of retrenchment since the pandemic, and we hope to get even more children back to 500. Sunday schooling is still used mightily of the Lord, there is no spiritual moral instruction for children at all, Sunday schools are vital. There are so many teachers who have come to the Lord when young, and now teach others also. It has been a vital factor for thousands of young lives. Then came the writing of the Sunday School notes, there were no lesson notes that were specifically evangelistic at the time. Visual aids and notes have gone into many languages now. The Lessons for Life were very popular in the Soviet Union, and preachers would preach from it. People would say to Pastor that now we read these notes and know where you get your sermon notes from.
In 1975, we started Tube advertising on the underground. We were thrown out some years ago, but for 35 years we were on the underground. When you start on the underground, you would need to take 400 10 foot posters. But every time you took a contract, you would have the right to have a large poster on a station with 2 million journeys starting. Ian Wilson over the years got 8 spaces on the key places with the highest journeys. Over time, it would also be possible to get advertisements nearer to the entrance. Eventually there were protests, and the Tab was thrown off. A lot of students came in through poster advertising. We are reissuing a tract that is pictorial with question and answers that is based on the advertising.
Seminary started in the 1970s, when some young men asked for instruction. It grew, forming LRBS. That led to a wonderful thing. We used to have a full-time class and a lot of overseas students would join seminary in the 80s and the 90s. But from that, it gave us the opportunity to identify seminarians who had been pastors before and came in to get more light, we would see those who were effective and dynamic in their work, and support them. Sending missionaries from a country is not the ideal thing. There are a lot of countries that you cannot get into now, even when they can, that missionary has to learn the local language and ways of the people, it takes some time to adjust. But if you have nationals, that is perfect, they are the true experts, that is what Carey always wanted when planting the mission in India, he hoped they would be all national ministers who would be capable of spreading the gospel in their own language. We had the opportunity of getting to know pioneers. Rather sending missionaries, supporting locals is much better and more likely to be used of God. More recently, we have sent people we have come to know of by other means, but that is the main way people go out.
1980, Sword and Trowel back. All kinds of problems were ran into, expensive printing, printers closing. Then we decided to buy a printing press, but where do you put one at the Tabernacle. A giant 3 ton press. The only place it would go is under the portico. It could not go through the doors, so they needed to knock down the structural wall. Then someone came to learn how to print, like a few volunteers and Ian Wilson. For a long time, it was possible to create a lot of literature just in the heart of the tabernacle. There is no project that cannot be accomplished through the Lord's help.
Today, there has been a culture shift. People are not somehow trained to be adventurous today. To push ahead into things that are difficult. Yet you are the same people as your forbearers, having the same gifts, with better education and gifts. Yet how come modern young society does not aim high in accomplishing things? You have a lot of natural ability and training, and you have the Lord. We would not have given up so easily when we were half as strong 20 years ago. There has been a culture shift. You have been deprived of an optimistic spirit, ready to strive. It has been done to you. We have to fight the culture, and prove the Lord and keep moving forward. We can end on that note, and the Lord will always be with us and true to His promises.