Bradford as 2025 City of Culture – opportunities for mission
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 11 Feb 2025
Bradford 2025 has kicked off the New Year as the UK’s City of Culture, providing a perfect opportunity for gospel-focused churches to reach a wider audience.
The West Yorkshire city was announced as 2025’s UK City of Culture in May 2022 but has since been maligned by many (for reasons ranging from its gloomy weather to economic decline and racial problems). Almost a third of Bradford’s population is under the age of 20; and according to the 2021 census, four in ten people identified as being from an ethnic minority across Bradford District as a whole (significantly higher in the city centre).
Record 4,000 toys distributed
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 25 Jan 2025
In Birmingham, 1,700 families received a record number of toys at Christmas from Birmingham City Mission, with the assistance of dozens of local companies.
Around 4,000 children received the gifts in December via the Birmingham City Mission’s (BCM) annual ToyLink project, with around 70 local companies who, between them, held toy collections, wrapped presents or delivered them to families.
Barnabas Aid: Police involved; regulatory scope widens
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 23 Jan 2025
A man and a woman are under police investigation for suspected fraud, alongside the regulatory investigation into Barnabas Aid (formerly Barnabas Fund), a charity supporting persecuted Christians – which has been widened to include four linked charities.
Wiltshire Police has confirmed it arrested two people on 7 November 2024 ‘in connection with an ongoing fraud investigation’.
‘God speaks my language’
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 4 Dec 2024
‘God speaks my language’ – the theme and testimony of many at Grace Baptist Mission’s Annual Mission Day.
At Friends House on London’s Euston Road, many GBM missionaries shared stories on the last Saturday in October of how people all over the world are hearing God’s word in their own heart language – through preaching, teaching, Bible translation, personal evangelism, literature and radio programmes.
Four new churches on the same day
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 14 Oct 2024
Four new church plants were launched on a single Sunday, three within the growing International Presbyterian Church (IPC) - bringing the total to 20 churches.
On 1 September, Grace Church Coventry, Christ Church, Headington and All Saints, Exeter were launched. The IPC denomination has, under its ‘2030 vision’, an ambition for 20 new churches by 2030. Jonty Rhodes, elder at Christ Church Derby and chair of the denomination’s church-planting committee said: ‘It’s been an encouraging few years.’ Also on 1 September, a new AMiE (Anglican Mission in England) congregation, Christ Church Hessle, held its commissioning service.
Christian schools alarmed by charging of VAT on fees
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 24 Aug 2024
The imposition of VAT on private school fees threatens the survival of small Christian schools, which are ‘worlds away from the Harrows and Etons of this world’, the Association of Christian Teachers (ACT) is warning.
Meanwhile, the head of a small private school says Christian parents are being punished, and has challenged the church to support families and Christian education.
Highfields Cardiff – welcoming internationals
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 May 2024
Newcomers from across 10 nations were recently hosted by Highfields Church, Cardiff with a membership dinner for people to get to know each other.
The church runs a quarterly membership evening at Highfields where, explained lead minister Dave Gobbett, they ‘share the vision and values of Highfields, and why we encourage those who see us as their spiritual home, to formally join as church members’.
Mission income declines
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Nov 2022
Income levels across more than 100 evangelical
mission agencies in the UK dropped in the
year to 2020 by £13 million – with the smallest
missions hardest hit, a snapshot report has
revealed. But missions which are more overtly
involved in proclaiming the Christian message
did not see a drop in income.
Eddie Arthur,
a
specialist
in mission
agency theology, reported that 105 mission
agencies suffered an overall fall in income of
4.6%. Between 2018 and 2020 it declined by
around 6% and it was not expected to have
recovered in 2021. He said it was too early to
judge the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic
on their incomes.
‘We ruined good people’ – Dawson
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Mar 2024
A former staff member at the Universities of Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) has apologised for the part she played in an ‘unhealthy and damaging’ UCCF culture, saying she has kept quiet for 20 years out of fear.
Nay Dawson worked for UCCF for 18 years, becoming a team leader in 2006. Writing in Premier Christianity, she reflected: ‘The urgency of our mission and the significance of our role led to an arrogance in my heart. I’d lost my humility… So when I started to notice that things weren’t quite right, I was in so deep. I felt I couldn’t – and so didn’t – ask questions.’
Mission groups come to UK for first time
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jun 2023
Two mission organisations are planting a
foothold in Britain for the first time.
HeartCry Missionary Society
is now
supporting missionaries in England; while
the New Anglican Mission Society (NAMS)
is preparing
to establish a UK base
for
church planters.
Radical gospel mission harvest
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Dec 2022
A radical ‘gospel rescue mission’ that began just last year in Derbyshire is seeing powerful conversions to Christ – and community leaders witnessing the extraordinary impact of the gospel.
Edge Faith Community, part of the national Edge Ministries, is pioneering a form of church and faith community in super-deprived communities. Carl Beech (see photo), who runs Edge Ministries, said white working-class people are probably the most unreached people in Europe and among the most vilified.
Punched leader prays for attackers
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
London City Mission’s chief executive Graham Miller and his wife Alison are recovering after an assault in Earlsfield. Their daughter witnessed the attack.
Miller said they were assaulted after he ‘challenged some kids for abusing a cafe manager next to the station’. He tweeted: ‘We were both punched repeatedly in the head from behind and Alison was knocked down. Kids were still hitting her whilst on the floor and passers-by had to tear them off.’
Antisemitism condemned
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
Evangelical churches in the UK have started to experience the impact of the significant increase in antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on 7 October.
A church in Bridgend recently received a lengthy message through its online contact form saying: ‘It has become apparent that you fall into the category of dangerous Christians on account of your attitude to the Jewish people who are the biggest usurpers in the history of mankind … And yet the evangelical Christian world idolises them as though it was a duty to do so …’
Long-running camps cut
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
The curtain has come down for good on Urban Saints national summer camps, which have been running across several sites across the UK and Ireland for many decades – though local and regional ones will continue.
Previously more widely known as Crusaders, Urban Saints summer camps for children and young people up to 18 have been run by volunteers since the early 1900s. This year’s camps ran through summer from the very first summer weekend. Interim CEO Richard Giles said : ‘We’re grateful for their servant heart and passion.’
Praying in Parliament
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
The Prime Minister was among a bumper crop of MPs attending this year’s Parliamentary Breakfast on 27 June, alongside representatives from the Christian community.
More than 700 parliamentarians - including a record 180-plus MPs - and Christian leaders met together at Westminster Hall for the annual recognition of Christianity’s contribution to UK life.
Operation Coronation reaches celebrities
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jun 2023
Coronation Day was unforgettable for the nation, but it will also be remembered by some as the day they met with the King of Kings.
On the weekend of 6 May, hundreds of Christians joined Royal fans around Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and elsewhere in central London handing out gospels and Christian literature. Thousands of tracts and the coronation booklet God Save The King – co-authored by Roger Carswell and Alan Marsden – found their way into the hands of ordinary people, as well as celebrities such as TV hosts Ant and Dec and other guests at the Coronation.
Coronation chickens? Not us!
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 May 2023
Churches and communities across Britain and beyond have been finalising their preparations ahead of the Coronation.
Jonathan Gillespie, assistant curate at All Souls Langham Place, says: ‘It’s a missional opportunity to point to monarchy under Jesus’ loving rule.’ And Ben Topham, associate rector at St George’s Church, Stamford and St James Gerrards Cross, pointed out that many will get invited to family events and street parties. ‘We are encouraging our church family to plug into those, to be a Christian presence in those places.’
From Korea with love – to Wales
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Feb 2023
Korean Christians are preparing to descend on Wales this summer – with Welsh churches urged to prepare for a week-long Korean Prayer Mission and pray for a fresh revival.
Organised by the Director of the Europe Prayer Mission, Namjin Kim, the mission is due to take place on 3–10 July. Kim, who recently returned to the UK after a three-week visit to South Korea, had been invited by 11 Korean churches to share with them the spiritual state of Wales and to pray together for the country.
Mission today: TikTok pastor clocks up online flock
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Feb 2023
An evangelical church minister has headed for the spiritual harvest fields of TikTok, one of the latest and most popular social media platforms, to evangelise a new, younger audience – and he’s starting to reap success.
David Sims, vicar of St Thomas’ Church in Aldridge, Walsall since 2021, has amassed more than 10,500 followers on his @ tiktok_vicar profile where he runs virtual church services, reads the Bible and raises controversial subjects.
Sizer: CEM apologises
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Apr 2023
Christianity Explored Ministries (CEM) says it regrets not being firmer following a complaint it received in 2014 about Stephen Sizer.
In a statement to en, the organisation said: ‘Stephen Sizer volunteered with CEM, as a trainer and advocate, on several occasions between 2008 and 2020.
‘Wise, gifted’ leader dies
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Feb 2023
The Revd Dr Paul Bailie, Presbyterian minister, lecturer and lover of Africa, died unexpectedly on 15 November 2023, just days after turning 54.
He was ordained by the Presbyterian Church of Ireland (PCI) in 1995; and from 2007 he had been chief executive of Mission Africa, one of the oldest interdenominational evangelical missions in the UK. He had recently joined the ICC Executive Committee representing the Presbyterian Church.
And now Baptists face same-sex marriage battle too
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Mar 2023
The Baptist Union (BU) could change its rules to allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals as early as October 2023 – but evangelical ministers within the union are making moves to defend the orthodox position.
In January, an in-person meeting of the newly-formed Evangelical Baptist Ministers for Marriage was held, against the background of increasing division over the issue of allowing the accreditation of practicing gay ministers. More than 220 orthodox evangelical baptists attended the meeting.
Churches bridging the north-south gap
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jan 2023
A partnership between two independent churches – one in a middle-class southern area and the other on a Yorkshire council estate – is bridging the north-south divide and advancing the gospel.
Banstead Community Church lies 13 miles outside central London in leafy Surrey which, along with Sussex, is the wealthiest part of England according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). ‘Average wealth’ is said to be £263,000 by the ONS.
Brazilian on a mission to Chard
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Aug 2021
A Brazilian missionary is working among
young people in Chard, Somerset, mentoring
and giving mental-health support with the
help of local ministries.
Raquel Lima
(see photo), who
is also
serving the local Portuguese community, has
been placed by Latin Link (in partnership
with
South West Youth Ministries)
to
mentor and support young people alongside
Forefront
Church,
an
independent
evangelical fellowship.