news in brief
Evangelical Presbyterians thankful for Oxford growth
It has been standing room only at times for Oxford Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) as it returned to in-person Sunday morning services after 83 weeks online.
The church, which has held its 5pm services in person through most of the pandemic, has given thanks for the many new people, including couples, students and families, it has seen. Last November, the church held its first ever Thanksgiving celebration since its initial planting four years ago.
Jewish openness prompts new outreach
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2022
International Mission
to
Jewish People
(IMJP) is to step up its efforts to reach and
share the gospel with Jewish people living
in London, the result of a discernible new
openness among some to hear and receive
the good news.
One
such person was Simon, a young
Jewish punk rock singer. Befriended by an
IMJP missionary, he revealed how tough he
was finding lockdown. The missionary talked
about the hope he had in Jesus, Simon accepted
a copy of John’s Gospel and the two are now
having regular one-to-one Bible studies.
‘I fear Christendom has given much effort to hiding and ignoring iniquities we have known about…’
Diane Langberg
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
In recent years, we who call ourselves Christians have been speaking and writing about topics like ‘abuse in the church’, ‘cruelty in the sanctuary’ and the dangers that can be found in ‘God’s house’. It seems that the place God designed to be a refuge for His people has instead, at times, become a den of thieves.
These descriptions are what we call an oxymoron – statements that are a combination of contradictory words and incongruous elements. Think about this now common phrase: ‘abuse in Christian organisations’. These words should take our breath away and cause up to weep. Sadly, they often result in scrambling for ways to hide or ignore the abuse so that the ‘Christian’ organisation can proceed undisturbed. We have forgotten God’s word to the young boy Samuel. When called by God, Samuel responded: ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’ God told him that he was about to bring judgment on Eli’s house forever for the iniquity he knew … and did not rebuke’ (1 Sam. 3:13).
Jerusalem: Jewish people told of Jesus
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP) is organising evangelistic coach tours in order to reach Jewish Holocaust survivors with the gospel.
An increased openness among Jewish people to hear about Jesus as Messiah means that hundreds of Jewish people are now regularly joining IMJP’s Bible tours, where they visit sites in the Holy Land which have a particular significance in the story, life, and claims of Jesus.
Exclusive: persecuted Finn speaks out
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
As this edition of Evangelicals Now went to press, the trials of Finnish Christians Päivi Räsänen MP and Bishop Juhana Pohjola, of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, had started.
Both are accused of agitation against an ethnic group, specifically Räsänen’s ‘insulting’ of homosexuals on a radio programme and in a booklet published in 2004 by Pohjola.
Russia: a new spiritual awakening
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
Evangelicals Now is regularly privileged to come across much faithful gospel witness by often small and (humanly-speaking) under-resourced evangelical ministries in sometimes far-flung areas of the world. The GoodWORD Partnership (GWP), founded by Blair Carlson in Minneapolis in 2005, is one of those.
Blair coaches national church leaders in local evangelism, guiding them with their outreach, including preparation and follow-up within local churches. He has just returned from Russia and Poland, where GWP helped lead a major evangelism training conference, the Forum for Evangelism in Russia, which is now in its fifth year. Blair spoke to Evangelicals Now afterwards:
Meeting Frank Schaeffer – atheist son of Francis
Luke Barrs
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
Frank Schaeffer (not to be confused with his father Francis) titled his memoir Crazy for God with the helpful subtitle How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.
His writing is engaging and thought-provoking, especially for myself as a Christian father and pastor. His father, Francis Schaeffer, was a much-beloved Christian thinker who utilised contemporary music, art history, and philosophy to answer the questions of his day. He was truly countercultural in the way he wrote and lived.
history
Evangelical weaknesses?
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
When did Evangelicalism as a movement emerge?
Is it a relative newbie, as some would assert, a creation of the 1940s out of the ruins of Fundamentalism or is it even more recent, a product of the Sixties? Or does it have much older roots?
Marking 160 years of Christian service in an Arab city
Mireia Prats Llivina
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
The Nazareth Trust is one of the largest Scottish Christian organisations, the third-largest employer in Nazareth and one of the largest Christian organisations in Israel.
We are a diverse organisation with individuals from different backgrounds working together. Our story traces its roots back to 1861 when Dr Vartan, a freshly graduated Armenian doctor and devoted Christian, opened the first clinic in Ottoman Galilee.
New hope in Hull
Hull 2030 Steering Group
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
Around 50 members of more
than
ten
different churches have met at
Jubilee
Church Hull to celebrate all that God has
been doing since October 2018.
The vision of Hull 2030, which began
then, is to pray and work together to see 20
healthy gospel-centred churches planted in
Hull by 2030; as well as to encourage church
revitalisation and gospel co-operation.
Target may be exceeded
Davy Ellison
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
April 2022 marks the half-way point of a
Ten Year Vision for the Irish Baptist College
(IBC).
As of this year, IBC has been in existence
for 130 years. Originating in Dublin in 1892,
it moved to Belfast in 1963 and since 2003
has been
located
in
the
lush countryside
near Moira. The College’s primary focus has
always been to serve the Irish church context;
even so, graduates have served on all the
inhabited continents of the globe.
Durham church inquiry plea
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
Christchurch Durham is facing mounting pressure to commission an independent review following serious allegations of abuse of power against the pastor, who left last December.
Tony Jones, senior pastor at the independent Anglican church until his resignation last year, has been accused of abuses of power and governance and presiding over a ‘culture of fear’.
everyday evangelism
The priesthood of all believers: is it really what you think it is?
Glen Scrivener
Date posted: 1 Jan 2022
‘Gosh, that was marvellous, I could never do that’ said the woman next to me at an evangelism seminar.
We had just watched an excellent evangelist run a 90-minute training session on leading others to Christ. We both agreed that the session was terrific and we both agreed that we could not do what the evangelist had just done (and I say this as someone with ‘Evangelist’ on my business card). But I think we can all recognise the sentiment.
Nine million mission gifts en route around the globe
Nick Cole
Date posted: 1 Jan 2022
Samaritan’s Purse is once again sending over 9million shoebox gifts to thousands of churches around the world to give out to children in their local communities and take the opportunity to share the gospel with them.
Over 1,000 churches and many more families and individuals in the UK donated at least 250,000 shoeboxes to the Operation Christmas Child annual project. Additionally over 300 churches around the nation opened their doors as collection centres in November. The gifts are being sent to 2,355 churches in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Central Asia, Liberia, Middle East, Moldova, Nigeria and Serbia. The largest consignment of ten containers (80,000 shoeboxes) was sent to 556 church partners in Liberia and the smallest shipment of one container to the Middle East will be distributed in refugee camps and among the persecuted Christian community.
pastoral care
Letting down others?
Helen Thorne-Allenson
Date posted: 1 Feb 2022
Do you ever feel as if you are letting everyone down? The inbox is out of control. The people you’ve been meaning to phone still haven’t heard from you. The to-do list is spiralling. And, even when you do meet with someone, you’re conscious they’re not getting your best (It’s not just you! Ed.).
At times like this we know that life isn’t sustainable, but we also desperately want to deliver what we (or others) think we should. So, distracted, demoralised and demotivated, we try to plod on, hoping that – one day, if we try hard enough – we’ll manage to catch up. If that doesn’t work, we can always run away, we remind ourselves – subconsciously at least, that’s often our Plan B.
On The Edge: a safe space
A recent initiative is helping evangelicals in some of the traditional denominations evaluate their long-term future within them. Susie Leafe writes:
On The Edge exists for those, who with great reluctance, are at different stages of pondering whether for reasons of conscience, practicality or ministry effectiveness they can remain in the Scottish Episcopal Church, Church of England or Church in Wales.
Beware of gospel-ending conversations
Jimmy Carr’s comedy is certainly not to everyone’s taste: he has built his career on telling risky one-liners.
In his Netflix show His Dark Materials (the clue is in the name), he played with the idea of career-ending jokes, and one such joke may have proved his point.