Me and my vision for The Living Word
I live in the Marches, a green and beautiful expanse of hills between England and Wales where churches and chapels share duty to the Christian faithful in every valley, and churchgoing is still part of the community life. However, few Bibles are to be seen in these buildings, and home-based groups for fellowship and Bible study are far and few between. The ministers who shepherd the spiritual flock, rather spread out like the sheep in the fields here, cover many congregations on an ever-widening parish or circuit plan.
So my agenda is simple and unassuming. It is to pioneer and innovate within the existing Christian ministry, as a Community Pastor working with the main Christian traditions. It is specifically to encourage Sunday worshippers to enjoy reading the Bible during the week, to get used to hearing God for themselves through His word, and to be spiritually prepared for the message they will hear on Sunday from the lectionary readings they all share. It is no substitute for meeting and worshipping together, which is commanded, nor for Holy Spirit-inspired preaching. It supports both by encouraging the personal growth of church and chapel members of any denomination.
As it happens my ministry background is not in churches that use the lectionary. I have experienced a breadth of tradition, from traditional to Pentecostal and Charismatic, from the Baptist love of Scripture to the Methodist engagement with the world, and from the cadences and confessions of Anglicanism to discipleship in small groups within nondenominational churches. I became a Christian and came to know God personally in my local C of E parish church which was experiencing a move of Holy Spirit renewal, but my call to full-time preaching ministry was to the Free Church tradition and following four years at Spurgeon’s College I was ordained and accredited as a Baptist minister. I have pastored a number of churches and been involved in a variety of other initiatives. As well as The Living Word I also post regularly on Follow The Way.
Revd Ian Greig BD (Hons), DPS