Gloucester's Creation Weekend
Evolution v Creation: Where do you come from? This was the theme for the Creation weekend held by Dr Albert Waite.
The meeting line ups were as follows:
Friday - “The beginning, what the Bible and Science have to say”; Sabbath – “Where is God?” and Sunday - “The Age of the earth can Science and the Bible answer?”
There was a lot of preparation work which went on before the event; this involved the printing of tee shirts, leaflet dropping in the community and invitations to other groups, in and around Gloucester, radio adverts and some huge colorful posters placed outside the church and at other strategic locations The Gloucester Carnival in the park during the preceding two weeks provided an deal opportunity for leaflet distribution, which was fully exploited by the Personal Ministries Dept and its team of helpers, who were responsible for the preparation and organization of the seminar
Throughout his presentations, Dr Waite encouraged us to look for ourselves at the evidence and to realise that there is no real conflict between the Bible and Science and he emphasized that Science in itself was not bad. He demonstrated that in most things Science was accurate and indeed Science has achieved much good for humanity but the major conflict arises from the question of the origin of the earth and of life. His target audience was the young people because they need to be solidly grounded and understand the biblical truths to equip them to adequately deal with what they were being taught in school; he quoted Hosea 4v6 to emphasize this “My people perish from a lack of knowledge".
Dr Waite compared the Bible with Science and through his presentations painted the picture of a Majestic God who purposefully and intelligently created the universe, man and all the creatures; a God who nevertheless is so loving that He came close enough physically to not only form man out of the dust of the earth but to also breathe into him the breath of life. He contrasted this with the lack of certainty or agreement among scientists about where and how life began; for example in dealing with the age old question of which came first – the chicken or the egg? Scientists agree that the chicken came first but cannot agree on who made the egg? He showed that the Bible had no such uncertainties. He pointed our attention to the paradox of a God who resides in a place we do not know and cannot reach but who stays with us and comes into our hearts if we let Him in.
The meetings were well attended not only by church members but also by visitors from other denominations and from the general public. Despite the young people being the target audience, all age groups attended and participated and were equally, immeasurably blessed. At the end of each presentation, Dr Waite dealt with a great number of questions from an enquiring and responsive audience and he made it a point to favour the young people by taking their questions over those of the older folk.
At the close of the final meeting on Sunday, a presentation was made to D r Waite by Pastor Tarlev, on behalf of the P.M team, in gratitude for his presentations, after which, all those present were then invited to take advantage of the refreshments provided
