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What does cross-cultural mission mean to you? Brave souls hopping on a plane and flying across the world? But what about Britain? In many towns and cities, different faith communities live cheek-by-jowl.

If you are contemplating mission abroad but have not yet reached out to Asians here in Britain, why not? 'Reaching out to Muslims in Huddersfield' may not have quite the same ring as 'pioneering mission in rural Pakistan' but it is essentially the same thing.

We stand at one of the most exciting periods of human history. It is truly 'the best of times and the worst of times'. Modern technology is transforming our lives. We perform keyhole surgery with laser beams, we put cameras on Mars, we have more leisure time, more shops, more choice, more holidays, more TV channels, more power over our daily lives. In today's brave new world a virgin can bring forth a son.

But there is an awful truth. And it is this. We face a spiritual peril in which so many in society have everything to live with and nothing to live for. We are a society in danger of 'gaining the whole world' but at the expense of 'losing our own souls'.

Hundreds were streaming into the Capitol. They call themselves 'Promise Keepers' and by Saturday October 4 1997, approximately half a million participated in the largest evangelical Christian gathering in American history.

For six sunny hours, men (and a fair number of women) from the Empire State of New York to the Golden State of California were planted on Washington DC's 'Mall' (a strip of grass between the United States Capitol and the Washington Monument).

‘Sorry, we’re full up. You’ll have to try again next break.’

Ian Fry, Christian schools’ worker in Kingston, often has to say this to pupils queuing up in the playground to get onto the Surrey Good News Bus.

This remarkable woman was born in Aberdeen in 1848, but, when she was ten, her parents moved to Dundee, looking for work as weavers.

Her father was an alcoholic and died young, but her mother was a Christian in the United Presbyterian Church. This church had started a pioneer mission work in Calabar, now part of Eastern Nigeria, and the stories from Calabar were studied in the Slessor house.

Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith lives in retirement with his wife Arlette. Ordained into the Anglican church after the war, he edited Crusade magazine, was Secretary of CPAS, and became Bishop of Thetford and President of Evangelical Alliance. But he is most well-known as a hymn writer. EN had the opportunity to interview him at his home in the countryside just outside Salisbury.

Q: Could you begin by telling us how you became a Christian ?

First, let's see the 28-year-old John Elias fighting one of his greatest battles. It is the Battle of Rhuddlan.

It is the late summer of 1802. Unlike South Wales, North Wales is still largely a mission field, and Rhuddlan is playing host to a fair on a Sunday. There are men and women dancing, drinking and revelling. Musicians and singers are everywhere. People have come to Rhuddlan from miles around in the hope of being hired to work in the harvest fields.

EN talked to Merrily Richie of DivorceCare, an initiative to train local churches to help people in marital trauma.

Q: When did you become a Christian?

A: I was nine years old when I realised that because of my sin I needed Jesus to be my Saviour. I don't remember much about this decision since it occurred more than 40 years ago. My pastor talked and prayed with me after a worship service in our Reformed Presbyterian church.

This extract is taken from Upon high places, stories from the mountains of Wales by Mike Perrin, published by Gwasg Byntirion Press at £6.99, and is used with permission.

From high on the hillside above, only the occasional bleat of a sheep broke the silence of the night. A gust of wind rustled some rushes nearby. I shivered, drew the hood of my sleeping-bag a little tighter and lay there looking up at a host of stars.

I have a confession to make. It's not that I have done anything illegal or even grossly immoral. It's just that sometimes I question my role.

You see, I work as a psychologist down in the East End of London. That place where the soap opera comes from - except there aren't any cameras. It is not a lack of work that is my problem, there has always been plenty of that. Nor do I question the effectiveness of psychology in helping many of the people I meet.

When I heard that Eric had cancer of the bowel, I felt very guilty. I had lived next-door to this 70-year-old man for seven-and-a-half years and never spoken to him of Christ.

Somehow it did not seem appropriate now to knock at his door and tell him he needed to be saved. How could I reach this dying man with the message of the gospel when I had done little over the years to show him God's love and had hardly ever prayed for him?

For me the past year or so has been a time of diverse experiences and challenges, but the most testing, both spiritually and emotionally, have been the many instances where I have tried to help despondent Christians ejected from the current merry-go-round of the 'signs and wonders' movement.

Those whose lives have suffered under what is described as 'Radical Christianity' need hope and consolation. But worse still is the burden to reach those still held captive by this movement. Most individuals caught up in the so called 'move of God' will only ever have fellowship with like-minded enthusiasts. Their personal experiences become their doctrinal yardstick and the wider picture is obscured to them.

Leith Samuel, a former minister of Above Bar Church in Southampton, and senior evangelical statesman looks back on family conversions.

'Janet, are you sure you are married?' the missionary, home from Africa, asked my mother.

Concluding his article from last month, Dr. Holmgren details parallels of behaviour change in other social areas.

The best examples of sustainable changes of large population groups come from grass-roots movements. These have often used all available channels, such as the power of small groups and peer pressure to convince people about the value of behaviour change.

AIDS intervention programmes have often been characterised by an obsession with the theory, rather than the practical outworking of that theory.

Thus the two extremes in approach of activists wanting to change sexual behaviour are described as the 'moralisers' and the 'public health fundamentalists'. These are said to be mutually incompatible with a strong polarisation of their approaches and their messages.

It is now four years since three Americans working with New Tribes Mission were kidnapped in Panama by Colombian revolutionaries.

In the village of Pucuro, Panama, just 15 miles from the border with Colombia, phase one of chronological Bible teaching was completed. The entire village had been given the opportunity to hear the gospel in their own language. The New Tribes missionaries, Dave Mankins, Mark Rich and Rick Tenenoff were now discipling Kuna believers.

Can our future be in Europe?

How fresh manuscript evidence can help us to face today's question . . .

From time to time, scholars poring over fragments of dusty documents startle the world with some amazing new discovery about the origins of the Christian church, and indeed of the faith itself.