Welsh Bible roots call
Rob James
Date posted: 1 Nov 2022
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.
Missionaries – should we pay them more?
Gustav Pritchard
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
In Johannesburg, where I used to live, electricity supply was not always that predictable. Sadly, it was far worse in the poorer rural areas, where many (even today) have no access to the national power grid.
When I ministered in South Africa, I knew of a missionary who moved to work amongst such people. When he arrived, he immediately decided to live like the locals. He moved into a very poorly constructed house and lived without any electricity and water. At first, I thought this all sounded very noble. It certainly fitted with some of my stereotypes about ‘mission work’. But all the locals he worked amongst thought it was an extremely odd decision.
After 17 years away, the UK looks like this...
Josh Hooker
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
It’s been 17 years since I last lived in the UK.
My wife and I have been serving as mission partners in Southern Africa, first in Lesotho and then in Namibia. Cathy and I left the UK in January 2005 with an eight-month-old son. We arrived back at the end of 2021 with three teenage children. I was in my 30s when we left – I’m now in my 50s. I left local church ministry here for theological education in Africa. When we set off, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister, our mobile phone (we only had one) looked like a small black brick and dial-up internet connection was all the rage. It was a pre-Brexit, pre-Covid-19 world. The UK has changed a lot whilst we’ve been away and so have we.
42kg of sausage and ex-mafia man boost mission
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.
Londoners’ ‘mission heat’ on the rise
London Gospel Partnership
Date posted: 1 Sep 2021
Along with the rest of the UK and Ireland, churches across London are preparing for a month of mission in Easter 2022 as part of the initiative A Passion for Life (APFL).
The prayer of those in the London Gospel Partnership is that there might be clusters of churches equipped and actively on mission in each of the 32 boroughs across the city – that many across London might be reached for Christ.
Christ for all the nations
en staff
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
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.
From three to 25,000 – but militants tried to kidnap my teenage daughter
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
Indian church-planting missionary Elavatta Abraham has an extraordinary experience of how God has worked in his life.
He told his story exclusively to Evangelicals Now during a brief trip to the UK to attend the Cambridge Leaders Network conference.
Buffalo saves ambushed mission worker and family
Gary Clayton of Mission Aviation Fellowship writes:
In 1 Corinthians 15:32, the apostle Paul refers to fighting wild beasts in Ephesus. Although it’s unclear whether this is a reference to enraged opponents of the gospel or an allusion to a particularly cruel form of Roman punishment, for many MAF passengers the organisation’s light aircraft are the only way they can avoid the peril posed by man and beast.
Stepping out in faith: I said, ‘OK Jesus, I’m here…’
Carl Knightley
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
‘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.
New Scottish partnerships?
John MacKinnon
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
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.
Ten Questions: A Biblical ‘boulderer’
Jason Roach
1. How did you become a Christian?
Across the British Isles: Christians gear up for mission in 2022
Across England, Scotland, Wales and in Northern Ireland, thousands of Christians from hundreds of churches are gathering and preparing for a focused month of mission called ‘Life’ in March 2022. Operations leader Le Fras Strydom writes:
Under the banner of A Passion for Life, over 650 churches are now involved – and more are joining each week. From Brighton to Belfast and Edinburgh to Eastbourne, hundreds of churches up and down the UK and Ireland are already using A Passion For Life’s personal evangelism training resources to get equipped, enthused and excited in preparation for the month of mission and a lifetime of evangelism beyond.
Taiwan: now more than 2,500 Christian fellowships
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Oct 2022
David Eastwood is Field Director for OMF in Taiwan, where he has been working for 30 years, and now oversees 70 missionaries.
OMF’s focus in Taiwan is on working-class and marginalised communities, such as prostitutes, the homeless and orphans, who are often overlooked by those agencies who concentrate on reaching the middle classes. Evangelicals Now spoke to him exclusively about the current situation there.
UK in transition: Keep calm and carry on!
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.
Antidote to gadding about
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.
Modern
slavery alert
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.
Seven ways to spot a ‘BWW’ and why it matters
Nay Dawson
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
I’ll never be one of the ‘Blokes Worth Watching’ (BWW) nor will many of my friends that don’t fit.
I love leadership and evangelism. I want to invest precious years into mission and the future of the church, so I’m wondering how do I become one of the BWWs [as described in this article in last month's EN] ? How do I get mentored? How do I get invested in so that I can make a significant difference? The problem is, I can’t. I’m a woman. I’ll never be a ‘Bloke Worth Watching’ and neither will half of those made in the image of God.
Addis Ababa to London: Meron’s pioneering mission
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Feb 2022
Meron (Mary) Haile has become the first woman missionary from Ethiopia to be a part of Serving in Mission (SIM) UK’s Engage programme. The 29-year-old is now serving with Inspire at St James, Clerkenwell, as part of SIM’s strategy of bringing experienced workers from overseas to work with churches in their multicultural contexts.
Engage helps (mainly urban) UK evangelical churches to share the gospel cross-culturally with the different ethnic and religious communities now embedded where they are. Many churches now recognise the strategic gospel opportunity – on their own doorsteps – to reach those who have not heard the good news of Christ.
The church that grew – from two!
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
From two to more than 120 people in nine years – a London church plant which began with a couple meeting individuals in the first year before launching as a living-room Bible study, is now planning to send its very first convert to start a new church in West London.
Malcolm Riley and his wife moved to London in 2013 with a desire to reach the next generation from the city centre. They came with literally nothing, having just left St Ebbe’s Oxford; with no staff team, no core group, no salary, no vicarage and no church building. ‘But we had two Bibles,’ said Malcolm.
First flight is answer to decade of prayer
Gary Clayton
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
A few weeks ago MAF pilot Roy Rissanen flew a team of American missionaries from a remote part of Guinea – the journey representing the first operational flight of MAF’s latest African programme.
With only 5% of Guinea’s roads being paved and the country’s railway network no longer running, the severe lack of transport makes life difficult for aid and development agencies, churches and missions in isolated areas.
news in brief
Jesus loves journalist
Journalist Matthew
Parris
(see photo)
was
‘curiously
moved’
after
a
young
Deliveroo
cyclist
stopped
alongside him and
asked if he believed
in the Lord Jesus.
In his regular The
Times column, Parris, a former Conservative
MP, wrote:
‘I replied that I’m sure Jesus
existed, and love and respect the character
whose description has come down to us
through the ages, but that I do not believe
he was the Son of God, and do not believe in
God at all. ‘“But He said He was,” said the
young man. I replied that Jesus probably was
under a misapprehension. The cyclist paused
to think. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Jesus loves you even
if you won’t acknowledge him. I will pray for
you.’ And with that, he cycled off. I walked on, curiously moved.’
ten questions: dismantling our tribalism
Jonathan Lamb
1. How did you become a Christian?
Is complementarian theology really abusive?
I recently found myself tagged in a lengthy Twitter discussion.
Megan Cornwell interviewed me for an article called ‘Is complementarian theology abusive’ for Premier Christianity. She posted a link, and the responses began. It was like watching a tennis match, a type of Twitter ping pong. Tweets passed backwards and forwards. The rallies were long. An accusation followed by a defence with a counterargument returned.