Very different… but all one
Emma Harrison
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
Record numbers of children and young people attended this year’s Keswick Convention, the organisers say.
Keswick Ministries has revealed that of the 10,000 attendees this summer, 2,500 were youngsters and teenagers.
When a ‘naming day’ replaces a Christian prayer
Kevin Bettany
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
A few weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon in the beautiful countryside setting of Devon, an event involving about 50 friends and family gathered to mark our latest grandson’s birth. Called a ‘naming day’, it represented a kind of non-Christian christening.
Partly, perhaps because paganism pre-dates Christianity, my son and his partner hoped, like themselves, that everyone would be touched by a deeper and more meaningful experience of creation. Obviously, as infants, we would have been present when our parents had us either christened with names or prayed over with thanks to God. This event was markedly different and more interactively engaging than a traditional Christian service. As the ceremony began all those present were recognised as having different religious or non-religious backgrounds. This implied, for me at least, that some unspecified acceptance of religious diversity was expected.
Islam in the UK
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
Dear Editor,
Just a quick note to thank you for Andrew
Marsay’s piece ‘How can we think deeply
about Islam?’
in the July
issue of en. I
thought this was an excellent article and
Andrew did a great job packing so much into
a short space.
news in brief
Uganda: wife killed for
becoming a Christian
40-year-old Abudullah Waiswa, a Muslim
in Bugiri, eastern Uganda has killed his
wife for converting to Christianity. Amina
Nanfuka, 31, had returned from a medical
check-up
in Kampala, where
she also
attended a worship service at a church.
A
relative
said
‘We went
inside
the
bedroom and
found Amina unconscious
with blood coming out of her mouth. She
was rushed to a nearby clinic, but the doctor
pronounced her dead upon arrival. She had
been strangled and hit with an object around
her mouth’. The couple had three children,
aged 3, 6 and 9.
Niger: plea for prayer
en staff
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
Niger Christians are asking for prayer as the country continues to face turbulence.
Mission organisation Open Doors UK says people should pray for the safety of the churches, and especially believers who have converted from Islam.
Church plants spurred on by Irish mission initiative
Mark Loughridge
Date posted: 1 Jan 2023
At least two new churches have been planted in Ireland in tandem with the recent ‘What’s the Story?’ (WTS) outreach initiative in Ireland.
Christ City Church in central Dublin (some members pictured) had been looking to plant a church in the more residential area in the south of the city to reach the people there.
From poles apart to magnetic points
John Woods
Date posted: 1 Jul 2023
en reviews editor John Woods interviews Dr Dan Strange, Director of the Crosslands Forum.
Before joining Crosslands full time, Dan was College Director for Oak Hill Theological College. A former UCCF worker with a PhD in Theology and Religious Studies, Dan lives in Gateshead with his wife Elly and most of their seven children, where they are part of Hope Community Church. He is a trustee of Tyndale House and author of several books including Making Faith Magnetic.
Innovative outreach to Jerusalem holocaust survivors
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jul 2023
An innovative gospel outreach in Jerusalem has sparked great interest among hundreds of Jewish people wanting to know more about the claims of Jesus.
The brainchild of the International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP), the five-day initiative was specifically designed for those who had lived through the Holocaust. It comprised four tours of Biblical sites in Galilee, ending with a concert featuring performances by local musicians (all Jewish believers in Jesus), and a gospel presentation by IMJP missionary, Aviel Sela. It formed part of a strategic plan, developed over a number of years, to reach Jewish people with the good news about Jesus. More than 200 people joined the site tours, to places such as the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, and 185 Jewish people attended the concert, 156 of whom gave their contact details and took away Christian literature.
Fifty years of a family’s faithful witness in PNG
In 2019, website devpolicy.org told the story of Sally’s life and background. Cleo Fleming wrote:
Sally’s family has lived and worked with the Bedamuni people of PNG since the late 1960s, when her parents, Tom and Salome Hoey, went to Western Province to establish a Christian mission there. Raised in farming families from Queensland, they were both immensely practical people who had a range of life skills to add to the training they received at Tahlee Bible College before leaving Australia.
A plea for pastoral brotherhood
Aaron Prelock
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
Between 1979 and 1999 the Pope, John Paul II, published a collection of essays titled ‘Letters to My Brother Priests’. That sentiment, that his fellow clergy were his brothers, is something we would do well to learn from in our Protestant circles.
Those who serve Christ’s sheep as shepherds should see themselves as being in a spiritual brotherhood, a brotherhood that’s in desperate need of each other. The church has struggled with pastoral abuse, scandals, burnouts, and dropouts. The last few years of Covid, war, civil unrest and political instability have only heightened the weight carried by pastors. These trials have taken their toll. But where are pastors to turn when they need help?
How can pastors go the distance?
Jeremy Brooks
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
It was my tenth anniversary in my current pastorate, and I was given a three-month sabbatical.
When contemplating potential sabbatical projects my thoughts went to surviving and thriving in pastoral ministry over the long haul, and then I hatched a plan.
Should we be ‘nice’?
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
Dear Editor,
David Robertson (en March), poses the very relevant question of why many Christians today are so concerned about being ‘nice’. Robertson Biblically demonstrates the case at appropriate times, for preaching the gospel extremely vigorously. It is also obvious there would be no Christianity today without Christ’s unwavering mission stance and likewise that of His steadfast followers down the succeeding ages, whether Catholics or Protestants.
Bournemouth Bible Week
David Cook
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
‘Growing in faith, hope and love’ was the theme of this year as hundreds of people joined for the face-to-face meetings from 3-7 July.
The strapline of the Bournemouth Bible Week is 'Gathering the Churches, Preaching the Word.' It was encouraging to see larger numbers meet together this year than has been possible since 2020.
Keswick: James Robson's personal reflections
James Robson
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
The Keswick Convention has been running since 1875. Over these years, much has stayed the same: the same passion for Christ, the same longing for lives transformed by God’s word, the same heart for global mission.
The event is open to everyone and is funded by donations. There is no fee to attend. The beautiful town of Keswick in the Lake District remains the home of the Convention.
Praying in Parliament
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
The Prime Minister was among a bumper crop of MPs attending this year’s Parliamentary Breakfast on 27 June, alongside representatives from the Christian community.
More than 700 parliamentarians - including a record 180-plus MPs - and Christian leaders met together at Westminster Hall for the annual recognition of Christianity’s contribution to UK life.
politics & policy
Families and God’s grace
Krish Kandiah
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
A while back I got a call out of the blue from a Swiss bank. For a moment I began imagining they were ringing to inform me of a secret cache of gold they had discovered in my name.
It turned out they had something of rather less monetary significance to give me, but something arguably even more valuable.
Grief inspires ministry of grace in Romania
Slavic Gospel Association
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
The tragic early death of a young man, Filip Faragau, after a long battle with cancer, is providing the inspiration for a unique ministry in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Violeta, Filip’s widow, carried out their shared desire to provide affordable accommodation for cancer patients and their families in the city. In the months leading up to Filip’s death they met many who could not afford the cost of staying there, either to access treatment themselves or to care for loved ones receiving cancer care. The seed was sown for what is now ‘Casa Filip’, in Violeta’s own words, ‘a nice, comfortable place, where people could come and stay without having to spend a fortune for their accommodation’. Slavic Gospel Association (UK) have supported this vital work prayerfully and practically from the start. Filip and his family were valued, long-term friends of the mission.
everyday evangelism
Are you glad in your faith?
Glen Scrivener
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
For the last few columns we’ve been trying to follow Blaise Pascal’s advice about persuading the sceptical.
Before his death in 1662 he suggested that we make people of good will ‘wish it were true, then show them that it is.’ I promise we’ll move on from this Pascalian perspective next month, but allow me one last word on the subject. In this column it’s very much a case of ‘once more with feeling.’
‘The central plank of women’s rights is the cross’
Rebecca McLaughlin
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
Rebecca McLaughlin holds a PhD from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill Theological College in London. She is the author of several books including Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. She spoke to Rebecca Chapman for en.
en: Tell me how you came to faith?
A missed opportunity ?
Statistical evidence would suggest that the commitment of the church in the UK to overseas mission has been on a downward path for some time, whether measured in terms of personnel volunteering to go and serve or in terms of financial support.
Anecdotally, I was asked recently if it was still the case that some Christians offer to leave home to serve the Lord in cross-cultural situations. This was a genuine question from a godly pastor who just had no experience of this happening either in his own church or others which he knew of.