Scottish Baptist College

Preparing

Are the students back yet? I am asked this fairly regularly at the moment. I think the inmplication is - your easy days are coming to an end.

To be sure the students being present make a College a College in the sense of a living community of learning where the presence of one another, the creativity created by conversation, discussion, and debate, the friendship and support, are all a key part of the experience.

Yet the Summer is not a quiet period. The work of the previous semester and indeed year is completed with respect to necessary University requirements. Staff have holidays. New students are interviewed and met. Handbooks are updated. Courses are revised, updated, new courses written. We are preparing for the second time in as many years to begin teaching a new BD programme. Administration with respect to timetables, calendars, registration, is taken care of. Consideration is given to how the students experience can be improved both in terms of their academic learning and in terms of their formative development and spiritual progress.

The students will be back, and new ones appearing next week. We are looking forward to their presence and presently continue the preparation to try and make the next semester a good occassion for them as they pursue their vocational aspirations and the sense of the call of God in their lives.

As we prepare, hold them and us in your prayers. 

Deep Impact - the Monday after

Got back last night from attending the Deep Impact, Youth Workers training event. Situated at the MacDonad Hotel complex in Aviemore there was great scenery, good food, and a very good Conference. Sponsored by a number of groups with a Youth focus it was attended by some 350 people. These folks represented a variety of ages, backgrounds, and experience but together were involved either as volunteer or paid youth workers/ministers/leaders in Churches and organisations throughout Scotland.

I felt that there was a maturity to this Conference both in terms of the quality of the organisation, the range of seminars, and in the people taking part.

My own contribution was speaking at three main sessions and I really appreciated the alternative worship format provided by the Deep Impact group from St Silas Church in the West end of Glasgow. I spoke from Colossians 1 at all three sessions under the somewhat cryptic headings of: 'Get a Real Job', 'Hail Caesar', and 'Strangeways'.

In speaking was able to introduce some 'serious play' as I encouraged some 'call and response' in an Afro-American preaching style - but at such a Conference should have known that this could go anywhere including the setting off of 'party poppers' in response to the call 'Do I have a Witness' to the assertion of the Lordship of Christ - you had to have been there.

Also led two seminars on the theme of 'Answering Questions/ Questioning Answers'. As a skills based seminar my aim here was to give folks some insight into how they could respond to some of the hard questions that young people ask about faith. In this I explored the way in which people not only ask questions but do so from a particular 'frame' of thinking and that we need to respond in a way that makes sense to this 'framework' or all they might hear is 'blah, blah, blah'. Also tried to show the ways in which the ideas associated with the ancient rules of rhetoric: logos, ethos, and pathos, could be applied to ensuring that what we say, is matched by how we say it, and in speaking communicates to heart and mind from a demonstrated character of integrity.

So pretty full weekend.

Deep Impact

College lecturer Rev. Stuart Blythe is speaking at the innovative youth training event Deep Impact this weekend in Aviemore. As well as leading a seminar he will be speaking at 3 of the Main Sessions from Colossians Chapter 1 on 'Get a Real Job', 'Jesus the Emperor', and 'Strange Ways', highlighting the way in which Paul's teaching about Christ was a challenge to the claims of the Roman Empire's power and control over peoples lives. Somewhere in the region of 350 people are expected to attend the weekend event supported and sponsored by various youth organisations and has a range of youth experts and theologians taking part in the various sessions.

New Full Time Member of Staff Begins

The Rev Ian Birch has now taken up his newfull time post at the Scottish Baptist College as a member of the academic team joining other full time staff the Rev Dr Jim Gordon and the Rev Stuart Blythe.

Ian began his working life as an engineer but after sensing a call to ministry began his theological studies with London University. He later spent time at Spurgeon’s College preparing for Baptist ministry. He has been a Baptist minister for seventeen years, serving churches in Southsea, St Helens and latterly in Kirkintilloch. He has masters degrees in systematic theology and biblical hermeneutics specialising in interpretation of the New Testament. His areas of special interest are in Christian origins and the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, particularly the question of anti-Semitism in the Gospels. He has also undertaken research in the area of biblical interpretation and preaching and hopes to bring a concern for bridging the worlds of biblical scholarship and the needs of the local church to understand and apply the message of Scripture. Ian’s role at the college will be as lecturer in biblical studies.
Ian is married to Elizabeth and has two children, James and Joanna. Away from college he likes to play golf and badminton.