When my youth leader invited me on a trip to Taizé, I had never heard of the place. But, it was France. It would be my first time abroad, and I was excited, thinking I would see the Eiffel Tower.
The one dampener was that we were going by coach and ferry (for £35, an amazing price even then!), but the unfortunate Zeebrugge ferry disaster had taken place months earlier, causing ferry travel to experience heightened public scrutiny. But I and other young people went with the youth leader, other church leaders from the area, and some of their young people.
When sharing the gospel, we seek to contextualise without compromising, so that people can better understand concepts of sin, salvation and Messiah without being waylaid in unfamiliar ‘Christianese’. But we also remember that it is God who works through these interactions, and only He can save.
People bring their own attitudes into gospel interactions, ranging from hostile to friendly, and while their response is beyond our control, our commitment to godliness remains unwavering as we strive to make Jesus known. In fact, when people get mad with us it means something in their heart is moving.
Apart from its more major achievements, the Congress produced a staggering number of photographs chronicling the event, and browsing through them it is hard not to be encouraged by the sheer breadth of those attending and the evident joy. It is worth taking a moment to flick through some of those pictures online.
'I don’t know how to say, "I’m lonely," without sounding like I’m saying, "I’m a loser,"' a middle-aged man said to me not long ago. 'And I don’t know how to say it without sounding like I’m an ungrateful Christian.'
After all, this man said, he’s at church every week—not just there, but active. His life is a blur of activities. But he feels alone. In that, at least, he’s not alone.
Repeatedly, almost all of the data show us the same thing: that the so-called 'loneliness epidemic' experts warned about is real. We all know it’s bad, and we sometimes have a vague sense of why it’s happening. The answers that some come up with are often too big to actually affect any individual person’s life. Smartphones aren’t going away. We aren’t all moving back to our hometowns. We see a kind of resigned powerlessness to change society’s lonely condition. So why can’t the church fix this?
Robert Putnam: Bowling Alone
The answer lies partly in a book published a near quarter-century ago: political scientist Robert Putnam’s famous Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Earlier this summer, The New York Timesinterviewed Putnam, asking him whether, since he saw the loneliness crisis coming, he saw any hope of it ending.
Putnam reiterated that the answer is what he calls 'social capital,' those networks of relationships needed to keep people together. Social capital comes in two forms, Putnam insists, and both are necessary. Bonding social capital is made up of the ties that link people to other people like themselves. Bridging social capital consists of the ties that link people to those unlike themselves.
The first time I was on set with a television talk-show host who, like me, grew up Southern Baptist, he turned to me before we went on the air and said, 'Pop quiz: What should always be the first song in a hymnal?' I immediately responded with the right answer ('Holy, Holy, Holy'), and we high-fived. No one else on that set knew what we were talking about. The secularist in the producer’s chair might have thought, 'What’s "Holy, Holy, Holy"?' The churchgoing evangelical behind the camera might well have thought, 'What’s a hymnal?'
That little detail of shared tribal memory, though, represented more than trivia. It was a way of recognizing one another—the same sort of church background, from the same sort of time period, the same sort of shared experience. We knew in that moment that, even if no one else in New York City knew the names of Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, we did, and, even if no one in that television network building could say what words would follow 'I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag,' we would. All of us experience equivalent moments of bonding social capital.
Putnam makes it clear that one form of social capital is not 'good' and the other 'bad.' When you’re sick and need to be taken care of, usually that comes from relationships made with bonding capital. That’s good, but—when taken too far—really dangerous. Putnam notes that the Ku Klux Klan is 'pure social capital' of the bonding sort. Bridging capital, Putnam argues, is much harder, but both are needed for a person or a society to escape isolation.
For evangelicals in the Church of England there is one key question in the current crisis about blessings for same sex couples: How do I stay faithful to God in mission and ministry in the local parish church as the majority of the House of Bishops continues to reject the Bible’s teaching, contradict the foundational doctrine of the denomination and abuse power?
We are united on the importance of that question, but we not united on the answer. That is not a criticism, because there are a variety of answers depending on context, calling and conscience.
The recent news about the tragic deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, has deeply affected me.
Arakawa died from hantavirus, probably one week before Hackman, whose Alzheimer's meant he probably didn't even realise his wife had passed away. The thought of this elderly couple spending their final days alone, unknown, undiscovered deeply troubled me - echoing my own experiences of grief. Last year, my father passed away, and I wasn't able to be there with him at the end. Since then, I've wondered many times what those final moments were like for him. Did he feel alone? Was he afraid? Did he know how much he was loved? It's a pain that never really leaves you — the questions, the regrets, and the longing to have done things differently.
A leading evangelical in Rome, Leonardo De Chirico, offers his personal reflections on the direction of the Roman Catholic Church globally under Francis over the last 12 years.
Over the years, I have become more and more convinced that, from a human perspective at least, the most important factor in determining the growth and fruitfulness of the local church is leadership.
I have studied and analysed a large number of churches that have split, closed or gone into maintenance mode, and almost without exception the problem can be traced back to a leadership issue – either a lack of leadership, the wrong people in leadership, the wrong exercising of leadership or the wrong attitude towards leaders on the part of the congregation as a whole.
For evangelicals in the Church of England, and especially those in full-time ministry, “contending for the faith” has become a wearying subtext to church life and ministry. When we read Jude 3-4, we can see that it applies to the various crises we are facing in our denomination.
“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 3-4 NIV).
There has lately been a big push back in youth and children's ministry against leaving the job of discipling young people just to the "professional", the church youth and children's worker.
Instead there has been more of a return to the Biblical idea that God has given the responsibility of bringing children up to love the Lord primarily to their parents. This shift has encouraged churches to work with families and help them to do this discipling work, rather than just employing a youth and children's worker to do it instead.
Every movement has a moment when momentum becomes unstoppable. It doesn’t happen overnight — it’s a gradual process that eventually shifts everything. At Prison Fellowship International, that moment is unfolding right now within prisons around the world.
These pivotal shifts are what we call tipping points. A tipping point is a moment when the power of a few reaches a critical mass, when a small percentage of individuals within a system are so deeply transformed that they catalyse broader change. In prison systems, that means when just 20% of prisoners experience a true transformation, the other 80% are affected, ultimately leading to culture and behaviour shifts.
On 24 February 2025, thousands of Ukrainians and their families and friends crowded into London’s Trafalgar Square for an evening of prayers and protest, speeches and music, marking three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Particular excitement was caused by the appearance of the 'Iron General', the popular former commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhnyi, who took up a new post as ambassador to the United Kingdom last year. But the mood was inescapably sober, and reflected a new sentiment absent from previous gatherings: betrayal.
What are the ‘primary issues’, the essentials of the faith around which we unite as Christians; and what issues are ‘secondary’, or ‘adiaphora’? What do we do when sharp disagreements over these matters which, in theory, are seen as ‘indifferent’ compared to salvation, spill over into personal animosity and division?
Five years ago, colleagues and I began the project of forming a new church movement, Anglican in heritage, church order and global affiliation, but intentionally confessional and not aligned to Canterbury. At an initial meeting people from different backgrounds met to talk about the way forward. All were committed to the same understanding of the Bible’s authority and the same gospel; all had shown courage – in standing against revisionism in the official denomination; and in pioneering enterprise by church planting outside it. But it soon became clear that major divisions existed. Some agreed in theory that issues such as ordination of women, charismatic gifts, worship styles and administrative authority structures are ‘secondary’ or even ‘adiaphora’, but in practice they couldn’t see themselves part of the same church grouping as those who held different views.
This month’s General Synod will receive an update from the Living in Love and Faith Programme Board, but there will be no formal motion or debate this time.
This could wrongly be interpreted as ‘no progress’ for the LLF cause, and CEEC will be calling on orthodox members of General Synod to exercise a number of cautions.
Just over 12 years ago, on 9 November 2012, I walked down the wooden stairs from the Archbishop's flat, towards Lambeth Palace’s largest function room, the wood-panelled Guard Room, which was heaving with journalists. We were about to announce who would be the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury.
With me walked Justin and Caroline Welby. Justin made his oft-repeated joke, that he felt like the eyes of the figures in the paintings on the Palace walls were somehow watching him. He was full of energy, enthusiastic, almost tigger-ish at the task ahead of him. And he was evangelical.
In the four years of writing for Evangelicals Now, the published responses to my articles have been few and far between. The responses sent by post to me (c/o Beacon Church Camberley) have been even rarer.
Black History Month originally sprang out of African American joint celebrations of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’s February birthdays. 'Negro History Week' began in February 1926 to recognise African American contributions to society and raise awareness to the prejudices they had and continued to face.
This week for designated learning emphasis was well established by 1976, when the United States celebrated its bicentennial, and the week expanded to a month. To mark the inaugural Black History Month, President Gerald R. Ford said, 'We can seize the opportunity to honour the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavour throughout our history. I urge my fellow citizens to join me in tribute to Black History Month and the message of courage and perseverance it brings to all of us.'
Justin Welby’s resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury is truly unprecedented. No archbishop has ever, in the history of the Church of England, resigned - not even in 1621 when the primate of all England shot and killed a gamekeeper with a crossbow while hunting.
Some are still defending him, either praising the good aspects of his ministry, or even (like Charles Moore in the Spectator) saying that he should not have resigned.
In what was expected to be a narrowly won election, former US President Donald Trump declared victory Wednesday morning after securing crucial ground in the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
Speaking from Florida, the 47th US president addressed supporters promising to deliver the golden age of America over his next term in office. 'Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason and that reason was to save our country and restore America to greatness, and now we are going to fulfil that mission together,' the President said.
Keir Starmer’s political honeymoon didn’t survive the summer. His new government started with a gloomy message of ‘buckle up, this is going to hurt’, while floating tax rises to tackle the public finances.
Then it was revealed that he and some of his colleagues received gifts worth large sums of money in the form of clothing and hospitality. They did not break the rules, but neither did they help to restore the trust in politicians that has been seeping away in recent years.
Bishops are supposed to be pastors and guardians of the Christian faith, teaching truth and refuting error, winsomely and compellingly if possible; by applying discipline if necessary.
They should be examples of godly character, leading people in worship and mission, selecting, training and ordaining clergy, promoting unity, and managing essential administration for a group of churches over a wide area.
Google’s Ngram Viewer is a fun way to waste time online. You can search Google’s book database and discover how common a word’s usage has been over time.
If, for example, you searched for the word ‘depression’, you will see two peaks, one in 1934 and another in 2011. ‘Shell shock’ peaks in 1919. Type in the word ‘trauma’, and you will see its usage rise on a continual uphill graph from almost nothing in 1900; similar happens to the word ‘triggering’. The term PTSD rose from nothing in the 1970s to a sharp peak today.
You may have heard mention of a ‘de facto parallel province within the Church of England’ over these last few weeks.
The announcement of the Alliance to the commitment of its construction has been met with widespread appreciation within the evangelical constituency, but with various questions being raised. Let's look at two of those questions now.
Amid all the difficult conversations taking place across the Church of England on sexuality and Living in Love and Faith (LLF), requests for greater transparency abound. We all want to make sure that our views are heard 'in the room where it happens’ – whether that is General Synod, meetings at Lambeth Palace, or residentials in Leicester.
Snippets of information trickle out: who has been invited to what, who was there, what was said or promised. Trust appears to be at an all-time low within our national church – but attempts are being made to rebuild it.
Where are our missional youth leaders?
When my youth leader invited me on a trip to Taizé, I had never heard of the place. But, it was France. It would be my first time abroad, and I was excited, thinking I would see the Eiffel Tower.
The one dampener was that we were going by coach and ferry (for £35, an amazing price even then!), but the unfortunate Zeebrugge ferry disaster had taken place months earlier, causing ferry travel to experience heightened public scrutiny. But I and other young people went with the youth leader, other church leaders from the area, and some of their young people.