Life on Wings - A Tribute to Dr Ern Baxter

Ecclesiastes 3:7

Well this week seems to be my time to keep silent. Why so? Mainly because it's been horrendously busy at work and I've been on nights all week. It's chest infection season due to the horrid weather so we are full with lots of gorgeous babies on ventilators. Hence I have to look after them rather than write my blog ... must keep reminding myself - this is actually what I am at work and paid for. Tricky.

And the other project occupying my time is that I have finally finished edited and collating my series of sermons on "The Priestly Clothing" by Ern Baxter. It's hugely exciting for me because it's been a four year project! So I am in shock mode really staring at a huge pile of my typing. For those who don't know what I'm on about ... Ern Baxter preached a series of sermons on "The Priestly Clothing" at the Anglia Bible Week 1983 (organised by my home church in Dunstable - New Covenant Church) and I made it a part-time hobby of mine to transcribe the audio and video tape footage into book format. I really enjoy doing it for some strange reason. There is another book available online that I did - of a series of interviews that Ern did just before he died - its called Life on Wings and its available on my friend Mark's website - here: http://www.wordandspirit.co.uk/blog/index.php?/archives/71-Ern-Baxter-Life-on-Wings.html

Anyway I am doing the same thing with this, somewhat larger project - so watch this space.

It's been a good time of silence though, because it's meant that I have got to look at some of the other blogs that other people always go on about. See - I really am naive in this whole blogging thing ... Here's a few to look at if you have the time:

http://www.charismaticpuritan.blogspot.com/ - I am really really keen on this blog. I LOVE the name. After all - as J I Packer or someone said; "Puritanism is a state of mind". A Charismatic Puritan ... kinda rolls off the tongue doesnt it. The blog is great too!

http://mymiscellanies.blogspot.com/ - a brief glance and you will see he's mad about the gospel. That's okay and a good thing. I suspect if I pry a little deeper I will find some connection or link or liking with ... They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

http://julnbde.blogspot.com/ - I like this lady a lot. She is very radical and passionate. Plus we've got similar connections and interests with Newfrontiers and T-W-M-N-B-N. She ought to write a bit more though - because it's good stuff.

http://thebluefish.blogspot.com/ - I've linked him before, but well worth keep checking out. A UCCF-kinda guy but he likes Terry Virgo, so he's won me over. Weirdly he's been to the church I used to go to and has had a long conversation with my mother. How scary is that.

http://gerandlizzie.typepad.com/ger/ - Bryn Jones's son is now studying at Regents College, Vancouver. Wow ... how jealous am I!?!? An amazing blog - especially as Mark pointed out - (http://www.wordandspirit.co.uk/blog/index.php?/archives/142-Post-Restorationist-Links.html)- both Mark and I come from a similar background to him in that as we love saying - we all come from "R1" Restorationist-style churches. My pastor Stanley Jebb knew Bryn Jones quite well and worked with him for a few years.

http://www.deemat.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ - Exciting to find, but depressing to read. This is David Matthew's blog and website - there are some books to download and read. Why depressing? I guess anyone who sat on the Dales Bible Week platform with Terry Virgo and Ern Baxter and Bryn Jones to me is a kind of hero, and I want to sit at their feet and listen to the stories of angels singing, and Ern Baxter preaching, and angels singing, and Ern Baxter preaching, and angels singing and .... oh.

But Matthews is a "post-evangelical" and "post-restorationist". To shorthand that - he has been waiting for revival and it hasn't come so he is disappointed. There is a whole subject there that should be addressed, because that attitude is quite common among "that" generation. I guess it must be hard to have seen that particular time of refreshing around the 1970's with prophecies of more to come, and then ... the nineties hit. And then ... To me the key sermon that Ern preached that answers this disappointment was at the Dales 1976 - it was called "The Kadesh Crisis" and he challenged those thousands gathered at the Dales. They were at the brink of the Jordan River, he told them. They could either go into the land (NOT heaven!) or they could turn round and go back into the wilderness. It's a poignant sermon because history, and Matthews dissapointment seems to tell me that generation made their choice - and here we are in the wilderness still.

Anyway ... time to be silent again. I'm going home to bed.