search

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Covid-19 is an opportunity for European mission agencies to reflect deeply once again on the meaning of mission in today’s world.

One of the key questions it raises is whether it has made sense to have invested so heavily in huge buildings, since social distancing restrictions have forced many churches to think about how to make small gatherings work, not just big ones.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Four years ago, the Bullock family left the familiarity and security of the UK to serve God cross-culturally in Zambia with Operation Mobilisation. Dan is Field Leader, responsible for all OM’s missionaries in Zambia, as well as its local workers. Ruth is a physiotherapist working to train people with disabilities.

Writer Ivy Chiu spoke to Dan and Ruth about why they took such a bold step.

The Slavic Gospel Association has marked its 70th anniversary by sending 70 new mission partners to spiritually- needy areas. Mark Foster, Director of Field Ministries, reports:

Covid-19 put an end to national and international travel in 2020, but not to gospel outreach and expansion. Slavic Gospel Association [UK], as part of its 70th Anniversary Projects, had planned to support the sending of 70 new missionaries into spiritually-needy communities – one for each year of its existence – to bring the good news of salvation in Christ. What would become of such a project in the paralysing lockdown due to the pandemic? Was there any hope of even getting near to that target? If it were reached, was any kind of spiritual return possible?

A five month-old girl named Sangai, who needed urgent medical treatment for a flesh-eating condition, has been saved by a Mission Aviation Fellowship pilot in Liberia.

Little Sangai was also suffering from hydrocephalus – a build-up of fluid on the brain. The condition, if left untreated, can damage brain tissue.

Moldova has suffered particularly badly in the Covid pandemic, coming as it did on the heels of a severe drought and disastrously poor harvests in 2020, which added to the already heavy burdens of the poor and vulnerable.

Poverty is endemic in large sections of the populace, and its consequences are evident not only in material terms but in the realm of relationships, and particularly family life. This scenario is common in a number of East European countries. Families are poor. The parents cannot find work to sustain their children and their homes. They take the decision to go to other countries where work can be found, and children are left in the care of ageing grandparents who themselves find life difficult and challenging. Often this results in children growing up without adequate parental guidance and discipline, and falling prey to many dangers and temptations, including addiction, sexual abuse, and even human trafficking. It is no exaggeration to say that chaos is evident in many family situations.

John Woods

Date posted: 1 Oct 2021

It is great to be in Latvia in late summer when the daylight still holds until late evening and the temperature can still be hot. It was a particular delight for me to be there with Anthony Billington, associated with the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, to teach a weekend course on Whole Life Preaching as part of the two-year School of Preachers programme at the Latvian Biblical Centre (LBC) in Riga.

It had been nine months since the group were able to meet in person. We have managed to maintain the teaching via Zoom involving three languages. It was lovely to have the buzz of personal interaction in those September sessions.

On 7 July, MAF Pilot Mike Brown loaded a new Kodiak Quest 100 aircraft with food supplies and Bibles and flew to Emdoman, central Papua.

The first operational flight for MAF’s newest aircraft had taken almost three years to reach MAF’s Indonesian programme due to coronavirus restrictions.

24 September 2021 marks the inauguration of the newest province of the Anglican Communion, known as the Igreja Anglicana de Mocambique e Angola (IAMA, or the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola).

To proceed, the project required a minimum of two thirds of the Anglican Primates to vote in favour and this threshold was reached in August.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Oct 2021

Evangelical Christians and the Vietnamese Government appear to have learnt from past mistakes – and their joint response to a recent coronavirus outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City has highlighted the benefits of prompt co-operation.

After some students at the Evangelical Church of Vietnam South’s Institute of Bible and Theology developed coughs and fevers last summer, church authorities immediately called the government health department. Tests revealed that 290 of the 306 students and staff on the campus had Covid-19. The authorities immediately quarantined the campus and sent in a medical team. Two Christian doctors and five volunteers of a Christian student fellowship also entered the campus to serve the sick. The 15 who needed hospital treatment included the Dean of Students, pastor Nguyen An Thai, and his wife.

For decades, DR Congo has suffered from chronic political instability, corruption and underdevelopment, worsened in recent years by the growth of Islamist insurgency. One of the dioceses worst impacted is Boga in Uturi province on the border with Uganda. In August 2019, the Anglican hospital in Boga was destroyed by Islamist insurgents and 200 people were abducted.

The diocese also has a Bible training school which focuses on the essential work of training catechists and evangelists who are on the front line of mission. It functions as a training community of 86 people, 13 married students with their families, and 17 single students. This too was in Boga, but recently the security situation deteriorated to the extent that it became too dangerous to continue.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Two new developments in the past few days appear to hasten the final demise of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).

Firstly, a number of donors in the USA have filed a complaint in a Georgia federal court, claiming that the organisation covered up its founder’s abusive conduct. They allege they were misled to believe that their donations were being used to promote ‘Christian evangelism, apologetic defence of Christianity, and humanitarian efforts.’ However, the donors claim they were misinformed as they were told there was no evidence of abuse; instead ‘Zacharias was a prolific sexual predator who used his ministry and RZIM funds to perpetrate sexual and spiritual abuse against women’.

Brazil is the fifth-largest nation in the world and the biggest country in South America. It has a population of more than 214 million, of whom around 31% are evangelical Christians. Brazil has extremes of wealth: the poverty of the favelas contrasts starkly with the beautiful mansions of the super-rich.

The Protestant church in Brazil is growing rapidly and chaotically, with small, unorganised groups breaking away from established denominations. People with limited knowledge of the Bible and no formal education often lead the small independent churches. The by-product of this phenomenon is the growth of churches where members do not understand the gospel and have a low view of Scripture. 

Global health charity Mercy Ships has taken possession of its brand-new vessel at an event at the Tianjin Xingang shipyard, China. The Global Mercy, which is 174 metres long and displaces 37,000 tonnes, is the world’s largest civilian hospital ship.

Mercy Ships has been working on this new project for more than eight years. Contracts were signed in 2013, and the keel laid in 2015. Sea trials were successfully completed in late April this year. The Global Mercy will now sail to Antwerp where it will be fitted out with IT and medical equipment. The ship’s volunteer crew will also start to arrive then, before it will be presented to sponsors, future volunteers and the media in early 2022.

MAF’s peace-promoting planes are helping the aviation organisation’s partners to visit some of the most war-torn regions in South Sudan.

According to the UN, the first five months of 2020 saw a 220% increase in incidents of intercommunal violence in South Sudan’s Jonglei State compared with the same period two years ago.

When Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) Pilot Nathan Fagerlie landed in the remote village of Mokndoma in Papua, Indonesia last year, he could tell something was wrong.

‘Can you help us?’ asked Tim Ingles, a missionary serving there. ‘We have a situation.’

A Finnish evangelical Christian leader who is facing court because of his orthodox beliefs on sexual morality has spoken to en, declaring that public opinion is on his side.

However, The Revd Dr Juhana Pohjola, Bishop Elect of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland (ELMDF), criticised what he called the ‘awkward silence’ of the established church in his country.

Operation Mobilisation, the outreach mission, was founded by George Verwer 64 years ago. This year marks the 50th anniversary of OM’s ship ministry. Seelan Govender, CEO of OM Ships, writes:

With more urgency than ever before as the numbers increase each year, we’re focusing on our vision to connect with the least-reached people groups of the world – those with little chance of hearing the gospel – in order to see them become vibrant communities of Jesus-followers.

An evangelical Middle East chaplain is playing a key role in resolving a long-running dispute which has left five sailors stuck on an abandoned tanker for years.

Andy Bowerman, Regional Director for the Mission to Seafarers, has been visiting the stranded crew of the Panama-flagged MT Iba since May 2019 to ensure they have adequate food, water and fuel – as well as responding to their requests for spiritual support and to questions about what motivates him to help them.

The human cost of the violence in northern Mozambique is laid bare in a number of eyewitness accounts of the fighting, and its aftermath, that Evangelicals Now has obtained from local Christians.

Several atrocities have recently taken place, with dozens of civilians being killed and at least 11,000 displaced after militants invaded Palma, Cabo Delgado on 24 March.

A NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station has recently said that sunrises in space reminds him of a Bible verse from the Psalms.

Victor Glover, one of the seven crew members of the space station Expedition 64, posted two images of the sun shining just above Earth’s horizon on Instagram and Twitter.

Departing President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), J.D. Greear, has used his final message to the Executive Committee to demand that the church engages constructively with Critical Race Theory (CRT).

The talk coincided with the much-publicised decision of leading Bible teacher Beth Moore – a longstanding critic of Donald Trump – to quit the SBC, saying ‘I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists.’