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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.

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.

A new statue called ‘Antelope’ has been unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London.

The artwork depicts Malawian pastor John Chilembwe standing next to a white pastor, John Chorley (see photo below, bottom left). Chilembwe came to faith in Christ in 1893 and was baptised on 17 July that year after getting to know Joseph Booth of the Zambesi Industrial Mission (now Zambesi Mission).

Around 15% of the entire population of Ireland – if not more – may have engaged with the What’s The Story? mission held across the island.

Statistics released by the organisation behind the initiative state that out of a total population of 5.1million, of which only around 1% are currently evangelical believers:

Nine churches have been planted in just ten years in a pioneering Scottish project – thanks to believers who have grasped the concept of ‘missional living’.

20schemes is a church planting ministry set up and run by Niddrie Community Church, which is located in the scheme of Niddrie, south-east Edinburgh. And this year the initiative is celebrating a decade in action.

What does mission in the local church look like in 2022?

The answer is that it is as gloriously varied as each individual congregation and its members.

A pioneer of the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) has marked his 101st birthday by taking to the skies again.

Jack Hemmings, who is also a former RAF Squadron Leader, was given the flight as a surprise present.

Milla Ling-Davies

Date posted: 1 Jul 2022

If you were asked how a Christian Union runs an evangelistic event, you might guess it would look something like this: a short talk, time for a Q&A, and perhaps some food.

You’d be right. CUs have long operated within this structure and seen encouraging fruit come from it. This year, however, the CUs in Leeds pioneered a different approach.

Nearly 1,000 pastors, elders, women’s workers, youth leaders, and others in church leadership gathered at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool in November for the 2022 FIEC Leaders’ Conference.

It was the first national conference for three years, due to the Covid pandemic, but came just in time to mark FIEC’s 100th anniversary.

For some guests at London City Mission’s Webber Street day centre, near Waterloo, rehabilitation and restoration is a life-long journey. This is Josef ’s story.

Ten years ago, during the winter that Josef slept on the streets of London, the only way he could find reprieve from the biting cold was by sleeping on the vents that blow warm air out from the Underground.

Frank Entwistle will best be remembered for his leadership of Inter-Varsity Press (IVP) for 25 years, retiring in 2002.

Set up in 1936 as the Publishing House of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (later UCCF), IVP was the strongest and most widely-known independent evangelical publisher of its day. Frank Roland Entwistle grew up in Lancashire, imbibing a love of books and of reading from his father. Following his conversion aged 14, he set his heart on ordination, and later studied theology at St John’s College, Durham, choosing a special option on Luther and Calvin. He was prepared for ordination at Cranmer Hall. The fairly conservative faculty, and the strong inter-collegiate Christian Union (DICCU), gave Frank a thorough Biblical grounding. While at Durham he met his wife, Beryl, and they married during his curacy at St John’s Harborne in Birmingham. In 1965 Frank joined the home staff of what is now Crosslinks, editing the Society’s magazine and books.

Dr Osita Orafu, originally from Nigeria, has been ordained in the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) at Trinity Church, Scarborough.

AMiE is a network of Anglican evangelical churches outside of and independent of the Church of England.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 1 Oct 2022

A warning from charity Crisis UK that hundreds of thousands of UK households could become homeless this winter, has prompted London City Mission (LCM) to issue an urgent call for help.

Figures show that, up to now, good progress had been made with 2,689 fewer people sleeping rough in the year to April 2022 compared to the previous year. An LCM spokesperson said the warning of the impending rise in homelessness is a ‘heartbreaking projection’ threatening the work already done.

When builder and Brethren member Sir John Laing was motivated by his deep faith to give away money for the gospel he could little have dreamt that almost £500 million would be given to Christian causes.

Now the trustees of the J.W. Laing Trust are celebrating the centenary of the initial gift that got it going. After Sir John Laing, who died in 1978 aged 98, took over the management of his family’s small building business, he built it into a global construction and civil engineering group, employing over 10,000 people, and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The founder of the Newfrontiers network of charismatic evangelical churches, Terry Virgo, has addressed 100 FIEC church leaders.

He was speaking at the London Leaders’ Gathering of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).

Bishop Andy Lines, of the Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE) is to be assisted by two new assistant bishops.

Stuart Bell (photo left) who led St Michael’s Aberystwyth, the largest Anglican church in Wales, and Ian Ferguson (right), a minister from Westhill Aberdeen, will serve in the Anglican Convocation in Europe (ACE).

The current cost of living crisis could prove an opportune moment for Baptists to rediscover their Biblical roots, a Welsh leader says.

Writing in a recent newsletter, Baptist Union of Wales’ Mission Director Simeon Baker acknowledged the challenge of maintaining large buildings and the pressures that brings, not least on church finances and this is likely to get even harder over winter.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 May 2022

Passion for Life – the movement which has been seeking to see the gospel of Christ preached across the British Isles this recent Easter and which is supported by over 750 churches – is celebrating some of the creative ways it has been used by churches to tell their families and communities about Jesus.

Dundonald Church in Wimbledon, part of Co-mission, held a South Africa-themed ‘Around the Braai with the Bodyguard’. It took 42kg of South African sausage to feed the nearly 300 people who attended the event. They heard some amazing stories from Rory Steyn, about his time as chief bodyguard to Nelson Mandela, and learned how the person of Jesus had an even bigger impact on his life.

As many parts of the world came to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games, so the gospel in turn was brought to them.

A variety of missions groups including Birmingham City Mission, Great Lakes Outreach (GLO) and Youth With A Mission (YWAM) brought teams to the area to work alongside local churches.

One of the fruits of the ongoing Life22 mission initiative of A Passion for Life has been the initiation of some promising conversations around Scotland about the possibility of the establishment or in some cases re-establishment of Regional Gospel Partnerships (RGPs).

Nick McQuaker, the development officer for the partnerships, has been on a tour around Scotland meeting key church leaders in Edinburgh, Fife, Aberdeen, Moray, and Ayrshire.

‘Never in a million years would you have seen me knocking on someone’s door. That’s someone else’s ministry, I would have told you.’

These were the words of Maria, a member of Forestdale Church in Croydon, South London.

The Free Church of Scotland’s 69th School in Theology began with the life of Alexander Moody Stuart by the Rev John W. Keddie.

It was a resounding and thrilling commencement to the School, writes E.T. Kirkland. It is important to note that this is not a conference but a school, meaning the papers are given by those who regularly attend as opposed to recruiting conference speakers. This has the benefit of enabling ministers to study a particular subject which ordinarily they may not do. Because of this, the quality of the papers exceeds those delivered at conference level.

John Stevens

Date posted: 1 Oct 2022

The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, after her remarkable 70-year reign, inevitably causes great uncertainty for the future. How might Britain change under her successor?

She has been a focus for stability and national identity in a fast-changing world, and a voice for the centrality of Christian faith in the public square. None of us knows the full extent of her influence behind the scenes, but many Christians assume that she has been a bulwark against ever-advancing secularism and progressivism. They fear that her death will allow these forces greater sway, and that the very integrity of the United Kingdom may be more difficult to sustain without her.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 1 Oct 2022

With modern slavery in the UK escalating, evangelical churches are being challenged to dedicate Sunday 25 September to prayer and taking action to help trafficking victims.

‘Freedom Sunday’, coordinated by the International Justice Mission (IJM), has been chosen as a day dedicated in the UK and abroad for corporate prayer for individuals trafficked into modern slavery – and to take action to end it.