I have just finished reading 1966 and all that, An Evangelical Journey by Basil Howlett, it is very much his journey into ministry and the great influence that Martyn Lloyd Jones made to Basil's life and indeed to British Evangelicalism at large. My first response is that I owe an apology to the late Martyn Lloyd Jones, especially in regard to 1966 and his passionate plea for evangelicals to come out of their denominations. I've never been part of the established church since not long after conversion through reading Scripture I was convinced of non-conformity and only spent a brief time in a Baptist Union Church, as it was liberal throughout. Yet I've been influenced by what others have said and that as coloured my perception. Basil Howlett has no doubt that MLJ's address was used of God, not only in his own life but in the lives of other gospel men in mixed denominations. Howlett takes us on a journey of how God used Basil Howlett and how his ministry prospered outside of the denomination. This led me to stop reading and start praying thanking God for the work He did then and asking Him to do a work afresh in me.
I was moved by how God worked so that the building they were forced out of was replaced with a gifted building for the church to meet in. I was amazed and in awe of how God used Basil in ministering to lost people not only in the UK but further afield. Indeed one of the most moving chapters is his chapter on mission, having been freed from soley considering missionaries from his own denomination which were sometimes good but often bad, making no mention of God, Christ or the gospel, Instead he was free to see a whole host of evangelical mission societies, getting to see valuable gospel missionaries from around the globe, not only that but to partake in that mission himself.
God Bless
Stephen
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