Polycarp

Today much of the Church remembers one of the best attested early Christian martyrs.  Polycarp reminds us of the principle our Lord laid down to his Church at Smyrna in the Bible (Revelation 2): Be faithful to the point of death and I will give you a crown of life.

Off-Road

Some years ago I visited Rhode Island and saw this historic Church - the first Baptist Church building in America.

Yesterday we had an awayday for our leadership at this Baptist Chapel:

It's not very big, and its not as old as the one in Providence, Rhode Island.  More pointedly it is situated behind a Post Office and a Public House.  Is this typical of the Brits, we ask?  Americans (even early ones) give themselves a prominent landmark, we put ourselves out of the way in, effectively, someones back garden.

History tells a rather different story.  Chapels were built off road because in their founding day their founders were lucky if they were allowed to build at all.  Indeed, there were times when, in England, a body of believers outside the establishment could only meet - as would today be true in some other lands - in private houses.

It isn't getting any easier to witness publicly for Christ in 21st Century Britain.  But it's immeasurably easier than it's been for many of our forebears and many of our brothers and sisters through the world.