HK: mission fear
Peter Morrison
Date posted: 1 Nov 2020
Christian missions from across the world, which are based in Hong Kong, may be forced out, it is feared.
There is an increasing ‘climate of fear’ in the former colony, according to a missionary speaking under a pseudonym to Evangelicals Now.
Gabby’s new mission at FIEC
FIEC
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
Gabby Samuel has joined the FIEC as the Women’s Ministry Development Worker.
Gabby is the youngest member of the Ministry Team and is supporting the FIEC as it raises the next generation of women’s ministry workers, as well as helping FIEC to think carefully and wisely about issues related to ethnic diversity in church.
Mission in the suffering church
Ben Kwashi
Date posted: 1 May 2020
Ben Kwashi, Bishop of Jos, calls Christians to keep sacrificing for the sake of the gospel
Mission is the hallmark of the church. John Stott put it this way: ‘Mission is an activity arising out of the very nature of God. The living God of the Bible is a sending God, which is what “mission” means.’
UCCF: online CU mission
Milla Ling
Date posted: 1 Jul 2020
In March, as universities shut and most students dispersed back to their homes, the Christian Unions (CUs) were suddenly faced with questions that they never thought they would need to ask. How would God’s mission continue?
Could they operate online? What would the future of evangelism among students look like? Over the last two months, these questions have been answered. As the CUs have begun using online platforms to share the gospel – running quizzes, hosting apologetics talks and sharing testimonies – they have seen encouraging fruit. New people have connected with the CU, others are continuing to ask questions and, wonderfully, some have come into new life.
Co-Mission: REVIVE Sunday
Co-Mission
Date posted: 1 Aug 2020
Normally at this time of year, Co-Mission churches would have been reflecting on another cracking REVIVE weekend – the annual Co-Mission festival.
We’d have been thanking God for over 2,000 people squeezed into a big top for excellent Bible teaching and singing; we’d have been reminiscing about late nights chatting around blazing fire pits, about packed kids’ programmes, about silent discos, about soul-nourishing seminars and about sipping something cold under the stretch tent as the sun sets.
Co-Mission: pressing on and finding opportunities despite challenges and delays
Co-Mission
Date posted: 1 Nov 2020
London church planting network, Co-Mission, gives an update on some of its newest congregations:
‘Realistically, a few of the Co-Mission church plants in and around London might not come out of this alive. But so far – to the credit of our church planters, the resilience of their launch teams and the goodness of God – none of our recent church plants, nor any of our proposed church plants, have had to close or look like they’re facing imminent death. We pray that this will remain the case.
evangelicals & catholics
Roman Catholic universalism?
Leonardo De Chirico
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
It has been rightly called the ‘political manifesto’ of Pope Francis’ pontificate.
In fact, there is a lot of politics and a lot of sociology in the new encyclical All Brothers, a very long document (130 pages) that looks more like a book than a letter. Francis wants to plead the cause of universal fraternity and social friendship. To do this, he speaks of borders to be broken down, of waste to be avoided, of human rights that are not sufficiently universal, of unjust globalisation, of burdensome pandemics, of migrants to be welcomed, of open societies, of solidarity, of peoples’ rights, of local and global exchanges, of the limits of the liberal political vision, of world governance, of political love, of the recognition of the other, of the injustice of any war, of the abolition of the death penalty. These are all interesting ‘political’ themes which, were it not for some comments on the parable of the Good Samaritan that intersperse the chapters, could have been written by a group of sociologists and humanitarian workers from some international organisation, perhaps after reading, for example, Edgar Morin and Zygmunt Bauman.
Co-Mission: praying the Lord’s Prayer
Co-Mission
Date posted: 1 May 2020
Along with
churches
throughout
the
country, Co-Mission churches in London
are adjusting to life in the face of a global
pandemic. We are finding new ways to keep
congregations connected, preach the gospel
of Jesus Christ and care practically for one
another and our neighbours.
On Sunday 15 March, Dundonald Church
met together for the last time before social-distancing
rules made church gatherings
impossible. Richard Coekin (Senior Pastor
of Dundonald Church) led the congregation
in this expanded version of the Lord’s Prayer:
Kenya: church marks 50
years with warning
Charles Raven
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
The story of Anglican growth in Africa and
decline in the West is very familiar, but this
is often spoken of as if it were simply the
result of underlying social, economic and
cultural
forces, without giving sufficient
attention to the role that leadership plays,
for good or ill.
The Anglican Church of Kenya, which
has just celebrated its 50th anniversary as
an independent Province, is an interesting
example. The
current Archbishop
and
Primate, Jackson Ole Sapit, may not yet
be as well known outside Kenya as some of
his predecessors (such as David Gitari who
was a prominent opponent of President
Moi’s attempt to entrench one-party rule, and Eliud Wabukala, who was Chairman
of GAFCON
from 2011
to 2016), but
he too is bringing courageous and creative
leadership to the Anglican Church of Kenya.
Global partnership to reach the world
China Christian Daily
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
The Global Assembly
of Pastors
for
Finishing the Task (FTT) has held an online
forum to discuss how to mobilise churches
to cover 5,000 unengaged and unreached
people groups.
FTT is a movement of 1,600 churches and
organisations who have come together to reach
the Unengaged, Unreached People Groups
(UUPGs). These are people groups who have
no access to a Bible, believers, or a body of Christ and have less than 0.1% evangelical
believers. Rick Warren is the director.
New outreach aimed at 95% of under-18s
en staff
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
Scripture Union England and Wales (SU) has
launched a mission framework, Revealing
Jesus, based upon
research undertaken
about how people come to faith. Its aim
is to see children and young people find a
personal vibrant faith in Jesus.
It’s designed to connect with the 95% of
under-18s who have no contact with church
in England and Wales.
In
four
steps, –
Connect, Explore, Respond, Grow – young
people are guided and supported on their
faith journey.
LCM: Bible study boom
London City Mission
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
Graham Miller of London City Mission writes:
Are we preaching the word in season and out of season? My friend, Jeremy Marshall, said that he’s never had so many take-ups for one-to-one Bible studies as he had at the beginning of lockdown. One of our missionaries, Olly Sherwood, had so many wanting to study with him that he had to train up extra study leaders. Preach the word in season and out of season.
Stuart King
Gary Clayton
Date posted: 1 Nov 2020
1922 – 2020: MAF pioneer
It’s not often that the good-natured office comedian is the person who founded the organisation, but it says something about the humour and humility of Stuart King, pioneering founder of the world’s largest humanitarian airline, who ascended into glory on 29 August 2020.
Stuart, who died age 98 in the 75th year of Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), combined a mischievous sense of humour which led him to make jokes at meetings and then ask the person leading to get on with it, with a deep desire to glorify God and serve the developing world through aviation and technology.
Jewish ministry
name change
IMJP
Date posted: 1 Nov 2020
Christian Witness to Israel is changing its
name to International Ministry to Jewish
People.
CEO Joseph Steinberg explained that: ‘We
became increasingly aware that the name of
our mission, Christian Witness to Israel, has
become a hindrance to engage parts of the
church as we seek to expand our reach and
share the Good News of Jesus with as many
Jewish people as possible. This
is due to
the assumption many make that our name
means we are focused on politics or land
issues in the Middle East when in fact we, as
an evangelistic mission, are solely focused on
telling Jewish people about Jesus, wherever
they may be.’
history
Bede, the quiet monk who lived through events that shook the world
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
If I were asked which historian I would love to meet apart from the Biblical authors, I would say, without hesitation, Bede (c. 673–735).
An English Benedictine monk and scholar, Bede is chiefly known for his Church History of the English People (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum), a history of England from the Roman occupation to 731, the year that it was completed. In the Middle Ages, though, Bede was equally known for his 20 or so commentaries on various books of the Bible and a work on the Lord’s Prayer. In all, Bede wrote about 40 works, nearly all of which are extant. Regretfully, one that we do not have is his translation of the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon.
400 years on, how the Mayflower Pilgrims can still inspire us...
Martyn Whittock
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
In 1620, 102 ill-prepared settlers landed two months later than planned, in the wrong place on the eastern coast of North America.
They were a mixture of ‘saints’ (asylum-seeking members of separatist Puritan congregations) and ‘strangers’ (economic migrants necessary for the financial success of the venture). By the next summer, half of them were dead. Yet, from this inauspicious beginning, the impact of the Mayflower settlement still resonates 400 years later.
news in brief
Franklin Graham
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
(BGEA)
is suing venues
in Manchester,
Birmingham, Sheffield and Wales for breach
of contract, it was reported on 1 November.
Franklin Graham told the Guardian that
he was ‘being denied [a platform] because of
religious beliefs’. Some people have regarded
his views as homophobic or Islamophobic.
Others have welcomed the opportunity to
have him speak in the UK. The events were
cancelled amid protests made by LGBT rights campaigners.
‘The Lord has
helped us’
en staff
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
Founded in 1893 as the Foreign Missions
Club, the Highbury Centre is a Christian
guest house in North London which has
given shelter to missionaries, pastors, full-time Christian workers and their families
for over 100 years.
Now,
in the second English
lockdown,
unable to open unless people are travelling
on essential business, Sue Scalora of
the
Centre said: ‘The Lord has helped us through
the ups and downs, and we’ll try and keep
open even though we’re making a loss at the
moment serving the Lord’s people.’
‘12 Associates’ commissioned to help pastors and spouses
Living Leadership
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
Living Leadership, which supports leaders across the UK and Ireland, writes:
These are strange times. The rapidly changing landscape for churches and Christian organisations has created immense pressures for leaders. Some are weary and fed up with the feeling that every time they get going with one set of restrictions, the goalposts shift. Others are growing fainthearted, close to collapse and chronically discouraged.
Helping HK Christians
Date posted: 1 Oct 2020
Dear Editor,
In September’s en you helpfully drew attention to developments in Hong Kong, explaining that this may result in some Christians using rights granted by the UK government to settle here.
To boldly go... to eternity and beyond?
‘These are difficult times when there’s not that much good news. And I think this is one of those things that is universally good. No matter where you are on planet Earth, this is a universally good thing.’
Those words were delivered earlier this summer. So quick quiz (without cheating and looking down this column for answers): who said them, and about what?