In Depth:  Roger Carswell

We are not living in harvest days in the UK.

There are times of spiritual ploughing, sowing, watering, weeding as well as harvesting. We look to the Lord of the harvest, and to the Lord for harvest, but meanwhile we are called to faithfully prepare the ground, plant gospel seed.

Postcode lottery?

Jesus told us to pray for workers into the harvest fields. Yet, we can hardly blame him if they are not there. Labourers are needed for evangelistic work, and they need to be spread across the ‘field’; if some areas are harder to work than others, then more work is needed there.

In 1983 I left teaching in a large comprehensive school to work full time as a travelling evangelist.

Before then, evangelism had been my life, so that when God called me into this work, it was a natural progression from what I had been doing. In the last quarter of a century there have been huge changes not only in society and church, but also in methods of evangelism. Some of this has been rapid.

You don’t need to be an art expert to appreciate Rembrandt as an artistic genius, whose work has given pleasure to millions.

Rembrandt Van Rijn was born 400 years ago on July 15 1606 in Leyden in the Netherlands. His parents were not wealthy. His father was a miller and his mother a baker’s daughter.

I am not a doctor, a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I have been a patient. What I share is simply one person’s journey with depression.

I do not pretend to be a medical expert or to understand the working of the mind. However, like every other individual, including medical workers themselves, I battle against human frailty of one sort or another. For some people that may mean the limitation of physical weakness, for others it can be emotional or mental hurdles that may seem insurmountable.

Evangelist Roger Carswell sees many churches in his work. Here he tells of a recent mission and some of its lessons.

One of the changes in evangelistic approach over recent years is the development of event-based, and targeted evangelistic meetings.

It is a very strange world we live in when a mobile phone ring tone makes it to be top of the pops — but that’s what’s happened with ‘the Crazy Frog’. However, there are lots of other things about phones that cause deep irritation.

You know the situation. You have just come in from work, or you are about to sit down for your evening meal and the phone goes. When you answer it, you find someone wanting to sell you a new kitchen or double glazing or advertising a life assurance or telling you that you have won a non-existent competition you never knew you had entered. It is very easy to just get irritated and simply put the phone down.

Every time I stand in front of a group of people to speak about Christ, I get stirred in my heart. What a privilege to share the gospel with men and women! There is no joy quite like it.

Usually I find myself in conversation with people who want to know more, or have questions they are yearning to ask. But sometimes the reaction of the hearers is far from warm.

I'm often asked if I see any encouragement in my travelling and preaching throughout the country. There are many heartening things happening, despite the difficulties we often face. Christmas events already seem part of the dim and distant past, but my itinerary throughout December illustrates some of the things from the evangelical scene that do my heart good.

* It is thrilling to see groups of 18-21 year-olds organising major evangelistic events which hundreds of their friends attend. This is what university carol services are. Bath Abbey, Coventry Cathedral, a derelict Anglican church in Plymouth, Great Halls in Reading, Cardiff and Aston were packed with students hearing the gospel.

I recently spoke at the opening of a church in Birmingham where the pastor was a converted Hindu.

He, his brothers, a sister and his parents had been converted after the sudden death of his 22 year-old brother. He, also a Hindu, had been converted through a tract which had been given him when he was about to go to a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall. Outside, somebody was distributing gospel tracts, and this young man had taken one, read it, gone to a Baptist church and been converted.

A friend recently attended a major evangelistic event for students. There were over 800 people present.

When I asked him how it went, he replied that it proved to be a great opportunity, but then added of the speaker: 'A great communicator, but no gospel He simply did not preach the cross'.

A few weeks ago, I was on the overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam. I have often used it and have even come to befriend some of the crew.

There is always an apology that the ferry will depart late but the assurance that all lost time will be made up. I have to admit that they keep their promise.