Hymns: 1988 Memories

My big memory of 1988 was getting married and moving from Cork to Limerick. Of course, I’d been up and down over the years, and in all honesty, I much prefer Cork 🙂. But it’s only down the road really, and I live on the Cork side of Limerick.

For our wedding, we chose the following hymns:

In Cork, our pastor, Ted Kelly, was president of the Baptist Union of Ireland that year (now the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland (ABCI). So, what is a president? It’s not a position of authority. It’s simply someone who takes on the role of representing the association at various events and who visits the association churches on behalf of the association. The position rotates every year, and it’s not necessarily a pastor who takes it on. But it is a great honour just the same.

Baptist churches are independent local churches. Decisions are taken at a congregational level, by the church members. But the churches sometimes work together on various projects, such as missionary work, training and youth camps. Having an association makes things a bit more stable, especially all the legal stuff, such as pensions, trust deeds for church buildings and so on. Some newer fellowships have little interest in all that, but as churches grow, it’s hard to avoid dealing with all the boring stuff.

In the Spring of 1988 (April 17th) , RTE Radio One broadcast our Sunday morning service from Cork Baptist Church. My role was to give my testimony (the story of how I came to Christ). Someone said about 125,000 people tuned into the show – that’s nearly as many as watched Michael Jackson in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in July 1988🙂. I heard of two English people who heard me in the UK and were giggling at my accent. It wasn’t the first time that happened 🙂. But maybe, I’ve lost my Cork accent now to some degree.

I also remember attending the Baptist Union annual assembly meetings, which were held in Grosvenor Road Baptist Church, Dublin that year. I was surprised to see that the worship group had drums. Things were changing! By that time, I had a preference for the older worship style, but there’s nothing in the Scripture that forbids drums. Their new pastor, Declan Flanagan, an Englishman (despite the name) had recently published God’s Move, Your Move, a book encouraging Christians to spread the good news. These were the days before self-publishing, so we were quite impressed to hear and meet someone who’d written a book, especially one that encouraged evangelism.

Hymns published that year include the following.

I confess, that I didn’t get to know these for another 30 years. I wasn’t really into new hymns in 1988. Other memories include another visit from Herbert Carson, who was a big name in our circles at the time. He spoke at the Southern Association of Irish Baptist Churches (SAIBC) in April. That’s when I was appointed secretary of the association. I remember chatting to him about the gift of tongues. He didn’t dismiss it, but he pointed out that in the New Testament, these were human languages. Paul was speaking hypothetically when he mentioned tongues of angels in 1 Cor 14. I read his book Spiritual Gifts for Today some years later. Like Martyn Lloyd Jones, he wasn’t a charismatic, but neither was he a cessationist. Cessationists are those who believe that the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians ended with the New Testament. Herbert Carson was known for debating with Roman Catholics, and he wrote a few books on Catholicism, including The Faith of the Vatican. Missionary spotlight – Ireland is an interesting article that he wrote back in 1999 about Ireland. And you can hear him speak on the Christian Library of Australia site. Reformation Today Issue 197 contains his obituary.

Another book on Catholicism in 1988 was Vicars of Christ, which was written by Peter De Rossa, a secular author. I remember hearing him introduce it on the Gay Byrne show. I suppose there was always a bit of a battle between church and state in Ireland, but around then, it just started to become more public.

Three evangelism memories of 1988 were:

• Distributing leaflets to the crowds attending the St Patrick’s Day parade in Cork, something that Irish evangelicals do quite regularly, but it’s the first time I remember doing it. Both Catholics and Protestants claim Patrick as one of their own. In reality, he predates both. He had a simple, but informed faith, as is shown in his confession. The Celtic church followed and eventually came under Rome’s control. Then in 1155, It was a papal bull by an English Pope that gave King Henry II of England permission to invade and govern Ireland.
• The Baptist Youth Evangelism (BYE) team taking the opportunity to distribute leaflets on the theme of Bad at Michael Jackson’s Cork concert on July 30th. I remember defending the album title to a Christian who was troubled by it. In the context, Bad meant confident, fearless, unstoppable, not to be messed with. So as evangelists, we need to be bad 🙂.
• Talking to a Jewish tourist during the same week about Christ. He mentioned how Christians had persecuted the Jews. I replied that they weren’t true Christians, so they’re nothing to do with us. He laughed and said you can’t say that. Maybe he was thinking of the No True Scotsman fallacy. He was a very friendly guy and it’s one of the conversations that still sticks in my mind, 40 years later.

Having planted Carrigaline Baptist Church, Cork Baptist Church, with Baptist Missions Ireland, now started working toward planting a church in Midleton. It was established in the early ’90s. I had nothing to do with this work, but I did speak there a few times during the 1990s. I remember doing a bit of teaching in a local secondary school there too in the 1980s. They recently planted a new church in nearby Carrigtwohill. And there’s another one down the road in Youghal, which was formally established in 2010. Another church formed in 1988 was Dundalk Baptist Church. I remember visiting it in November 1991, and the Pastor, Stephen Murphy, spoke at the opening of our new church in Limerick in 1993. I last met him at Clonmel Baptist Church in 2010. He went to be with the Lord last year.

In the lead up to my wedding, the number one song in the charts was The Only Way is Up by Yazz and the Plastic Population. It sounds like an anthem of hedonism, but to be fair, when you look at the lyrics, it’s about two people facing whatever will be thrown at them.

Now we may not know, huh
Where our next meal is coming from
But with you by my side
I'll face what is to come

Having said that, I was still very glad to see it knocked off the number one spot by Phil Collins, with Groovy Kind of Love, on the day after our wedding. And, Yazz herself became a Christian some years later. I saw her on TV and was surprised to hear that she was attending a Baptist church in Spain.

1988 was also the year that I became secretary of the Southern Association of Irish Baptist Churches (SAIBC). This was a small association that included the Baptist churches south of the border. It wasn’t really a big role. It just meant that I was the committee member who took minutes etc. but it was a nice opportunity to get to know people from the other Baptist churches around the republic. Some years earlier, though a member of a Baptist church, I took little interest in the wider Baptist scene, perhaps because among many evangelicals, such things feel like denominations, and we want to be the New Testament church, not a denomination😀. But what’s wrong with like-minded churches getting to know one another and supporting one another? And what’s wrong with using a historical label that indicates what type of churches we are? Although I don’t currently attend a Baptist church, I would be very quick to point people to Baptist churches in Ireland. They are thoroughly evangelical, and you won’t find anything wacky in them – especially now that I’m not in any of them😀.

I spent 1988 to 1998 in Limerick Baptist Church. In the early years, we were still in the old building next to St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in O’Connell Avenue. I had dropped in at times throughout the 80s but now that I’d settled in, it was lovely to get to know the small group. As I mentioned in a previous post, the very first meeting we attended, just after our honeymoon was a special event where Gary Weeks, a good friend, and an ex-pop star, gave his testimony. See Hymns: 1986 Memories, where I explain who Gary is.

The Christmas number one for 1988 was Mistletoe and Wine, by no means my favourite Christmas song, but Cliff was always happy to get the gospel in.

A time for living, a time for believing
A time for trusting, not deceiving
Love and laughter and joy ever after
Ours for the taking, just follow the master

Finally, here’s some music, events, and films/TV shows that would have formed the background to 1988. I don’t necessarily endorse all the songs or films😀, but thinking of them takes me back to 1988.

10 Songs

• Hot In The City – Billy Idol
• I Should Be So Lucky – Kylie Minogue
• The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll – Prefab Sprout
• Somewhere In My Heart – Aztec Camera
• Voyage Voyage – Desireless
• Every Day Is Like Sunday – Morrissey
• The Only Way Is Up – Yazz and the Plastic Population
• Martha’s Harbour – All About Eve
• Teardrops – Womack and Womack
• Orinoco Flow – Enya

10 Events

• Pan Am Flight 103 Bombing
• Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan Begins
• Iran–Iraq War Ceasefire
• Al-Qaeda Formed
• Benazir Bhutto Becomes Prime Minister of Pakistan
• Halabja Chemical Attack
• Yasser Arafat Recognizes Israel
• Piper Alpha Oil Rig Explosion
• Dublin Millennium Celebrations
• Ireland Beats England at Euro 1988

10 Films or TV Shows

• Rain Man
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Big
• Die Hard
• The Naked Gun
• A Fish Called Wanda
• Buster
• Roseanne
• Red Dwarf
• Kenny Live

10 Famous People Who Passed Away

• Trevor Howard – British actor known for Brief Encounter and The Third Man
• John Carradine – Prolific American character actor with over 300 film credits
• Roy Orbison – Rock legend behind Oh, Pretty Woman and Only the Lonely
• Andy Gibb – Youngest Bee Gees brother and pop sensation of the late ’70s
• Chet Baker – Jazz trumpeter and vocalist, pioneer of cool jazz
• Richard Feynman – Nobel-winning physicist and author of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
• Kim Philby – Infamous British double agent for the Soviet Union
• Seán MacBride – Irish statesman, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and founder of Amnesty International
• Ferdinand Marcos – Former President of the Philippines, died in exile
• Seán MacBride – Nobel Peace Prize laureate, founder of Amnesty International, and influential Irish politician and human rights advocate