My Experience visiting the Metropolitan Tabernacle England

 I had the privilege for the first time to visit The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London this week. This is an evangelical church in London where Charles Spurgeon was pastor for thirty-eight years. A summary about him follows below. But just a few words about the building and about our experience in one of the Bible studies on Wednesday of last week. The building was finished (the church goes back to 1650) in 1861. It burned in 1898 of which only the portico and the basement remained. It was rebuilt but it was burned again in 1941 during the bombardment of WWII. It was rebuilt in 1957 but except for the façade but did not resemble the original in the inside.
As far as our experience in the Wednesday Bible study, the service resembled more like it was in the time of Spurgeon’s pastorate than current times. At the outset what attracted me was a section where translation for Deaf was offered. It was live with people alternating and the words where projected and/or written onto a small computer screen on a table. The sermon was typed by someone with a wireless keyboard as the pastor preached. Apparently, this has been happening for several years now.

Hymns are sung using a hymnbook which follows the one created by Spurgeon led by an organ while the pastor stands in the front. There is reading of several passages from the Bible after hymns, briefs announcements and then the sermon which is about 45 minutes long. The pastor that spoke was an associate pastor. He was theologically very strong and made good applications from the text. The Senior pastor Peter Masters has been at the Metropolitan Tabernacle for over 50 years. That was impressive. According to people we spoke, when he arrived there were only a handful of ladies. I am told that the church now has about 1000 people. After the service another hymn is sung and prayer. People are invited to stay for refreshments after the service. We were really impressed with how diverse the congregation was and with their friendliness. We struck conversation with several people including Spanish speakers that we met in the book shop.

Now a bit about Spurgeon. He is popularly known as CH Spurgeon (1834-1892), called the “Prince of Preachers”. He was widely popular in his times and has continued to be influential among Christians to this day. He pastored several churches including the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London at the age of 20 and served for 38 years until his death in 1892 at the age of 57. A long feature biography of Spurgeon can be viewed here.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle opened in 1861, seated around 6,000 people, and it was full weekly for both the morning and evening services. Spurgeon was a gifted speaker, preached about 13 times per week and with just the use of his voice was able to captivate people during his sermons. Many of these sermons were transcribed, about 25,000 were sold a week and translated into more than 40 languages. Just his sermons add up to 63 volumes. I have many of his volumes in ebook format. He wrote over 140 books translated into many languages. One of my favorites is Lectures to my Students which are directed to those who aspire to be pastors. His own 6,000 books personal library was acquired by Midwestern Theological Seminarywhich they host and a number of other of Spurgeon’s realia in what they callThe Spurgeon Center.

“The Treasury of David” a seven-volume commentary of the book of Psalms, is considered by some His Magnus Opus. More than 120,000 copies have been sold. They can be found in digital format here. I have read the abbreviated one-volume version and found it helpful for studying the Psalms.

The plethora of his works continue to fill both the digital world and the book world; thus Spurgeon’s influence will continue for generations to come. I am glad as able to visit the Metropolitan Tabernacle and experience what is left from his time.