adelaide place baptist church

Over the past few years at AP we have shared a giant Christmas card and used the money saved to buy chickens, goats, bicycles and other useful stuff for people in developing countries.

This year we’re doing something different. We’re going to buy a brick-making machine for Reuben N’gwala, a Tanzanian pastor who worshipped with us while studying in Glasgow for three years.

Reuben N'gwala

The brick-making machine will help Reuben to build accommodation at a Bible College in rural Tanzania, upgrading the living conditions for the students. The machine presses bricks from a mixture of earth and cement, reducing the amount of cement needed (ratios of around 1 part cement to 14-18 parts earth), enabling the bricks to be made on-site, reducing the energy needed to manufacture the bricks (they are cured, not fired), and enabling the buildings to use less mortar as the bricks are shaped to be interlocking. Overall the machine should reduce building costs by over 20%. The machine can continue to be used by Reuben’s team for other building projects in the area, generating much-needed income.

Making interlocking bricks

We’ll post here how we get on!

It was encouraging to read Iain Duncan Smith’s article in The Herald Tuesday 5th February as he commented on the social deprivation of the great city of Glasgow. Sometimes when politicians wax eloquent about areas of concern which you know they haven’t either got a clue about or no lasting interest, just an opportunity to grab a headline, you feel the tide of cynicism begin to wash over you. However this is not the case with Iain Duncan Smith. I know from those who have met him and indeed helped introduce him to the troubled undercurrents of Glasgow’s social imbalance he was deeply moved and has continued to visit the city, even at times when the spotlight has moved away from him on his return to the backbenches of Westminster.

Much of what he wrote is a disturbing reminder of how bad things can be in the city but he also highlighted the invaluable work that many voluntary societies have been doing, and continue to pioneer without a great deal of assistance from anyone else. It is their determination to do something to alleviate some of the problems that many of our fellow citizens face that has caught Smith’s eye and moved his heart.

On Wednesday night 30 January 2008 several hundred people from the Glasgow Baptist community met at Newton Mearns Baptist Church to pray, and pray specifically by name for those in government and councils who can help to make a difference to the troubled lives of many in the areas of deprivation in the city. It is so easy to become cynical and treat our politicians as our enemies rather than our servants. It could make a huge difference if we prayed more for them even as the Bible instructs us 1 Timothy2:1-2. Such praying is never wasted!

At long last the moment came when our pastor Jack Quinn was commissioned to give half of his time to minister to Adelaide Place and the other half to develop a ministry amongst the business community in conjunction with Business in Glasgow (BiG).

To assist the church to do this we called Ronnie Hall to be our assistant pastor and on Saturday 20^th October both Jack and Ronnie were commissioned to serve the Lord in these capacities over the next three years.

It was a moving and challenging occasion led sensitively by Rev Andy Scarcliffe, Mission Advisor to the Baptist Union of Scotland. Rev Stuart Blythe of the Scottish Baptist College challenged the gathered church when he encouraged us to exemplify the Lord Jesus in “Word and Signs” in our collective ministry.

The highlight of the evening was when members of the church and wider Christian community in the city laid their hands on Jack and Ronnie and, with prayer, commissioned them to these new ministries into which God has called them.