has known, Andrew Morton Brown: the one who was instrumental in building Highbury’s second home on Winchcombe Street. And then we told of George Douglas Evans who was Minister when we moved to our present site here on Priory Terrace. We re-counted the story of Walter Ansell whose name also is linked with one of the rooms at church.
There were thinkers among the brief lives we recounted, like PT Forsyth, and visionaries like Margaret Stansgate, with four generations of her family in the House of Commons and now a member of the fifth generation ready to stand for parliament at the next election, who was the first President of the Congregational Federation.
Time doesn’t allow me to tell of many others who have shaped the lives of our churches and shaped the church life that has become so special to me. I would love to tell my father’s story, the story of those Sunday School teachers who made such a mark on me. Then there are those older people I have always enjoyed talking to in church whose story is so often unknown, yet so powerfully moving.
Time does not allow me to tell the tales of all those who have shaped Highbury Church and all that it is today. I would have to tell the story of every one who has been part of the church from the very first. Time would not even allow me to tell the story of half of those who belong today.
It is an inspiration to tell the story of those who have gone before us in the faith ... Even if their story has to be told in all too brief lives!
The faith they have shared with us is an inspiration.
But that inspiration is as nothing compared with the inspiration of the One who is at the heart of our faith.
Do you see what this means - all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running - and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in.
Study how he did it.
Because he never lost sight of where he was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honour, right alongside God.
When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he ploughed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
Hebrews 11:1-3 (The Message)