St Paul's Church, Birmingham

St Paul’s Church at the edge of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter is another handsome, Georgian place of worship within the bounds of our second largest city. It was constructed for, and likely paid for, by the town’s manufacturers and merchants, including the famous pioneers of the industrial revolution, James Watt and Matthew Boulton who had their own pews.

It might be unusual today to see great minds, captains of industry and entrepreneurs regularly attending church. Although those pews might have been occupied for convention’s sake, and the pulpit’s addresses might have been staid and sanctimonious, the real message of the Bible ought to appeal to such thinkers. God placed us on the planet with the avowed intention of our developing it and employing its vast resources. Dwelling in caves while meekly hunting and gathering was never our Maker’s ambition for us, and probably wasn't early man’s experience, either. May the idle, the thoughtless and the unimaginative content themselves with atheism and godlessness; may we who know God fulfil our creation mandate.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28