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Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Sep 2001

What is the largest Protestant denomination in the world? By some counts, the answer to that question is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The SBC is just astonishingly big. Imagine the biggest big thing you can think of then times it by something even bigger. That's about it. Since its organisation in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, the SBC has grown to 15.8 million members who worship in more than 40,000 churches in the United States.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Richard Bowdler left the staff of All Souls, Langham Place, and the ministry of 'Chaplain to the Stores' passed to Michael Harper.

He was a Londoner (the family home had been in Welbeck Street) and he had long been an occasional visitor to All Souls. He was converted to Christ in his first year at Cambridge, and during the vacations had alternated between All Souls and Westminster Chapel.

Winning the world

A new 21st century edition of the missions book Operation World is about to be published. Jonathan Francis of Paternoster Press took time to introduce it to us.

Operation World is a book specifically written to change the world. The authors, many of whom have been working on the Operation World project for years, do not shrink from this fact.

Julia Cameron of IFESworld talks with Phocas Ngendahayo, General Secretary of the IFES student ministry in Rwanda.

JC: Phocas, tell us first about yourself.

PN: I have completed two terms at the Cornhill Training Course. One of my main activities in Rwanda is to teach the Bible in student Christian Unions. I'm a physiotherapist, so since I had no formal training in how to teach the Bible, I needed to be equipped in this way.

'Come, ye souls by sin afflicted'. We sang that at least three times at Limehouse, as my annotated Anglican Hymn Book reveals; the last occasion being in 1984, a year of some personal affliction for me. It is a hymn found in other discerning books from Congregational Praise to Christian Hymns, among those still in use.

Whom were we addressing? Probably ourselves and one another; unlike Joseph Hart's marginally earlier 'Come ye sinners, poor and needy' (also in AHB) which made good preaching but not good singing. The one we did sing encapsulates some gospel Scriptures rare in hymns: 'Blessed are the eyes that see him' and so on. But the hymns came to life again as a precious part of local history.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2001

There is a certain on-going friendly rivalry between Canada and America. One instance of this is the continuing disagreement between the two countries over who won the last war they fought against each other in the 19th century. Americans are taught that they did. Canadians know they did.

Another instance of this friendly rivalry is a radio show in Canada called Asking Americans. In this show, a radio reporter travels down to America and asks Americans various spoof questions. These questions are designed to expose Americans as being woefully ignorant of what is going on in the world outside their national boundaries.

An increasing number of Christians see a demon behind every bush.

Some go so far as to view all the problems of life as demonically animated. So their own problems - temper, sexual lust, discouragement, overeating, loneliness, disappointment, poverty - become personalised as demons of the respective sin or struggle that needed to be cast out.

There used to be a terrible worrier in the office. Every day he'd arrive with a frown like the Rift Valley.

Till one day he was all smiles. 'What's happened?', colleagues asked. 'Oh, I've paid a consultant to do all my worrying - only £100 per day'. 'But', they gasped, 'however will you afford that?' Smiling, he replied: 'That's his worry!'

This spring has seen an evangelistic initiative by Christian Unions on many campuses to reach out with the message of Christ using Mark's Gospel. Bob Horn of the Universities & Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) reports. . .

He was a philosophy student and he had never read any part of the Bible. Then a Christian friend gave him a copy of Mark's Gospel during the Christian Union's mission last term.

French Christians are bracing themselves for problems resulting from a controversial new law aimed at controlling the activities of dangerous religious sects. But it is also likely to affect ordinary churches.

Some churches were already considering removing the word 'evangelical' from their names, the president of the French Protestant Federation (FPF), the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, said from Paris.

Tim Chester

Date posted: 1 Jul 2001

September 2000 saw the launch in Sheffield of the Northern Cornhill Training Course.

Northern Cornhill is based on the Proclamation Trust's successful Cornhill Training Course.

Ten years ago, Marcel Stoob was playing professionally on Switzerland's football team. 'Football was my passion', he says, 'and I was good'.

But then an Achilles heel injury put an end to his dreams for competing for the World Cup. When his young wife also suddenly died of cancer, it seemed like the end of the world. He recalled: 'I thought, why does God take everything away from me that I care about?'

A university hall packed with 2,000 African university students gathered after Christmas to face the challenge of cross-cultural mission. They came from everywhere between Egypt and South Africa.

February's EN reported on the Urbana Missionary Convention organised every three or four years for US students.The triennnial TEMA Conferences for Young People have drawn the attention to the needs of the unevangelised world.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Apr 2001

Writing from the US, Josh Moody aspires to be an evangelical Alistair Cooke as he begins a series ...

One Saturday morning in May 1891, in the unchurched and sprawling industrial area of East Moors, Splott, Cardiff, two men could be seen putting up a large tent.

The older man of 45, John Pugh, was unused to swinging a sledgehammer and he had lumbago for a month. The younger man, Seth Joshua, who was in his early 30s, was adept at the job. Just as they finished, one of the rough characters of the area passed by. He was curious as to what was going on.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 May 2001

Doctrinal controversies are far from uncommon in America. Of course, the ecumenical movement is influential here, with the Evangelical and Catholic attempts to form some kind of statement that can get mutual approval, the broad-based evangelistic campaigns of Luis Palau and the like, and with other, more liberal, ecumenical movements. But, there is still much in the way of doctrinal disagreements and arguments in churches, between churches, in denominations.

One of the most important ongoing battles in this regard is in the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the world, has extraordinarily rich reserves of money and talent, and is very influential throughout the world by way of its vigorous and commendable support of missionaries. Being so large makes it vulnerable to mega-politics.

Billy Kennedy is an evangelist with many years of outreach and pastoral experience in reaching young people. He talked to EN about his life and its lessons.

EN: Billy, tell us about the early days of your life.