News from the Regional Team
Revd Joth Hunt
SEBA Regional Minister & Team Leader
Standing In the Rubble
Click here to watch Joth's video reflection, listen to the podcast or read his article below.
As our plane taxied towards our arrival gate at Heathrow, I switched my phone back on from airplane mode. I was hoping to check how our son was doing who was due to pick us up from the airport. To my surprise, I noticed a message from Paul Kerley. My initial thought was, “How thoughtful that he has remembered that we were landing back in the UK and to send us a message welcoming us home,” but as I opened what was quite a long message I realised that a different motivation had caused him to write the message - the devastating news that Spurgeon’s College had announced its closure.
From everyone at SEBA, we send all our sympathy and prayers to everyone impacted by this decision. For the staff, students and governors and all those who were trained for ministry at Spurgeon's this news has been quite devastating, and we are deeply saddened by these events.
What made the news more shocking was that I had spent the last two and half weeks of my sabbatical with the New South Wales and ACT Baptist Association in Sydney, Australia. One of the areas that had challenged me particularly was the synergy between their Baptist College, Morling College, and the vision of the association. In NSW the college and association share the same vision, share the same building and to some extent share the same staff. They work alongside each other, hand in glove, recognising they are seeking the same end. I had become more and more convinced that we at SEBA needed a much closer relationship with Spurgeon’s to deliver training for leadership and ministry at a number of different levels - this seemed to be crystallising as the next strategic step as we seek to serve our churches into the future.
During my sabbatical, alongside meeting a number of entrepreneurial leaders and reading several books about entrepreneurial organisations and structures, I decided to study a part of scripture that reflected entrepreneurism. I settled on Nehemiah. The memoirs of Nehemiah are fascinating in that there were so many reasons why the walls should never had been built. Nehemiah had no freedom. He was a servant of the King. He had no provision. He had no strategy. His initial response to the devastating news of the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem and lack of protection for the population was emotional sadness which led him to prayer and fasting. Even when he arrives in Jerusalem the task seems too big and the opposition begins to grow.
What do we do when we find ourselves standing in the rubble? We can take the ‘woe is me’ approach or, like Nehemiah, we can take a step of faith and believe that the walls can be rebuilt and a new day can be realised under God. One of Nehemiah’s favourite phrases is “the great and awesome God”. He is actually quoting Deuteronomy 7v21 that says, “Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.” Nehemiah uses this phrase again to encourage the builders when under opposition in 4v14 and in 9v32 when he repeats the word for great - ‘the great, great awesome God’ (translated the great, mighty and awesome God).
I feel challenged by Nehemiah. When in the midst of rubble, disaster and spiritual opposition to be able to look upwards and still recognise that God is ‘great and awesome’.
The closure of Spurgeon’s College is deeply saddening and weeping and fasting is appropriate. But it should not be a moment to stare at the rubble beneath our feet. Instead we should look to our ascended, resurrected Christ; our vision, provision and strength; our ‘great and awesome God’, and for us to cry out in prayer, “What now Lord? How might we rebuild the walls that bring glory to your name in the days, weeks, months and years that lie ahead.”