Go boldly: From world mission to out-of-this-world mission...
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 1 Dec 2025
With billionaires racing to colonise Mars and build orbital resorts, one theologian is asking: “Who will bring the gospel to outer space?”
Stephen Stallard is author of “The Final Frontier of Mission: Space Tourism, Lunar Colonies, and the Future of Interplanetary Mission” – a chapter in the book New Frontiers in Missiology (2025).
Churches gear up for Life ’26 nationwide mission
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 1 Jan 2026
Churches across the country are preparing for a focused period of evangelism. Life ’26 is a nationwide gospel mission, starting in March, where church fellowships will share the gospel with their communities. A Passion for Life (APFL) oversees the mission. This year, the theme is a question: “Ever feel like something’s missing?”
Alex Hillman, APFL’s Communications and Operations Lead, told en: “Over 250 churches, from Thurso in the North of Scotland to St Helier in Jersey, will be joining together to share the gospel with friends, family, neighbours and people in their communities, under a common banner [and] with a shared mission campaign identity.”
A Passion for Life ignites church outreach
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 23 Mar 2026
More than 340 churches are taking part in a nationwide evangelistic mission around the Easter period.
Churches as far north as Thurso, Scotland and as far south as Jersey (plus a church in France, en has been told!) are participating in Life’26 – facilitated by outreach organisation A Passion for Life (APFL) and covered in detail in both the January and February print editions of en.
Prayer for 100,000 Scots
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 4 Mar 2026
The Free Church of Scotland is encouraging Christians to each pray for ten people in their lives, throughout this year and beyond, as part of a new nationwide prayer initiative.
Engage 2026 plans to see believers across Scotland praying daily for friends, family, colleagues, neighbours and others God has placed in their lives - including those they may find it difficult to connect with.
FIEC and Wycliffe partner for vital African initiative
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 28 Jan 2026
The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) is partnering with Wycliffe Bible Translators to support an Africa Bible translation project.
The country in question can’t be named, to protect the Bible translators and church leaders involved, but it’s a war-torn country in Africa where new church leaders don’t have a Bible in their language. FIEC got involved at its November leaders’ conference, where £7,000 was raised for the project; Wycliffe speakers got invited to 120 churches to share about the need for Bible translation. The goal is to raise £70,000 – with matched funding – to help unlock the Scriptures in 11 languages spoken by 850,000 people.
Street evangelists affected by Birmingham ban
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 14 Nov 2025
Street preachers in Birmingham have adjusted their evangelistic strategies to comply with a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) that came into force earlier this year (see this en article).
The PSPO focuses on the amplification of noise. Evangelists have ceased using PA systems or have chosen to operate outside of the area protected by the order.
Online misogyny should concern believers, says Christian organisation
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 10 Dec 2025
Believers should be concerned because the internet "harbours dangers that disproportionately target girls and young women," says a Christian women's organisation.
Girls' Brigade England and Wales - an organisation that helps women and girls explore the Christian faith - says online platforms "expose girls to relentless pressures, toxic role models, and gender-based abuse that corrodes self-worth and mental health." These are not Kingdom values, says the organisation, and so this issue should concern Christians "deeply."
Young people are ‘open to reading the Bible’
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 6 Dec 2025
Lots of young people are responding positively to the question “What would you say if a friend asked you to read the Bible with them?”
In an Instagram reel posted by @uncoverJesus, seven out of nine young people said that yes, they would read the Bible if a friend asked.
Birmingham ban raises street preaching fears
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 28 Sep 2025
Street evangelism will be hindered, it is feared, after Birmingham City Council imposed a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO).
The order prohibits the use of amplification equipment, musical instruments, or “other items used as musical instruments” within the stated “restricted area” – a designated part of Birmingham city centre highlighted by the local authority in the order.
Students invited to ‘uncover Jesus' with their friends
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 27 Sep 2025
“See for yourself” – that’s been the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship’s (UCCF’s) invitation through its Uncover publication series. The first Uncover, released in 2011, explored Luke’s Gospel and was followed by Uncover John (2015) and Uncover Mark (2018). This year marks the next release in the family – a new version of Uncover Luke.
“How much do your friends know about the most famous Person in world history?” UCCF writes. Designed to help students and their friends discover more about Jesus and the life He offers, Uncover Luke (2025) was launched at this year’s national Forum conference where more than 1,000 students gathered to encourage one another, share Christian Union mission ideas, and pray together.
Mullally 'gaslighting' church - claim
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 17 Oct 2025
A leading conservative evangelical in the CofE says Sarah Mullally has led the way in an attempt to “institutionally gaslight the entire church.”
In an article published by the Gospel Coalition in the USA, Lee Gatiss, Director of Church Society, writes: “The biggest challenge for the new Archbishop is the crisis of trust and credibility she faces. She has led the way in an attempt to institutionally gaslight the entire church, claiming that she and other revisionist bishops are not changing the doctrine of the church on marriage and sexuality, even while they attempt the most radical change to Church of England teaching and practice for 500 years.
An interview with new UCCF head Matt Lillicrap
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 14 Oct 2025
This summer saw more than 1,000 students descend on The Quinta Christian Centre in Oswestry, Shropshire, for the annual Forum conference, hosted by the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF).
Attending the gathering for the first time in his role as CEO was Matt Lillicrap, who took over leadership last autumn. en had an exclusive opportunity to chat with him about all things student ministry, just as UCCF is launching its brand-new Uncover Luke publication.
Four decades of faith and fellowship: The Quinta celebrates 40 years
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 23 Sep 2025
In the heart of a “sleepy” corner of Shropshire sits The Quinta Christian Centre – a country house on 50 acres of estate, offering meeting spaces, accommodation and camping for Christians. But 2025 isn’t just any year for The Quinta – it’s its 40th, and you’d best believe celebrations have been taking place.
On a Saturday afternoon, as a long, sunny summer drew to a close, around 150 people from local churches gathered at The Quinta for coffee, cake, and an opportunity to reflect on the Centre’s heritage – giving thanks for all that has happened over the last four decades and praying for what lies ahead. But what has happened in the past 40 years? Well, Centre Manager Alistair Nurden spoke with en from the depths of Quinta Hall: “Thomas Barnes [a Christian MP] is the man who built this building that we’re in. He built it partly as a country retreat for him, his wife, and children. But he also wanted it to be somewhere where pastors could come on retreat. For [over 150 years], Christians have been coming to this very spot, on retreat, to rest, relax, and meet with God.”
Savings protection rise could help churches
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 1 Sep 2025
Kingdom Bank - a UK Christian bank whose mission is to help churches grow - has welcomed a proposal to raise savings protection, saying it'll help churches.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) exists to protect people's money if a financial firm fails. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has proposed an increase to the FSCS standard deposit protection limit, from £85,000 to £110,000 per eligible depositor, per authorised firm.
‘Lost’ Martyn Lloyd-Jones tapes recovered
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 22 Aug 2025
Several recordings, currently not available anywhere in the world, have been obtained by the organisation committed to preserving and distributing the sermons of Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust (MLJ Trust) wrote on X: “One recording in particular is of special interest, and as far as we know, this ‘might be’ one of the last surviving copies of that sermon from [the evening of Friday] 1st November 1974!”
After #KesCon25: Some reflections
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 14 Aug 2025
“Hear God’s Word, become like God’s Son, and serve God’s mission.” That’s what Keswick Ministries is hoping to have achieved with its three-week 2025 convention.
This year, the event celebrated 150 years since its first gathering. An estimated 14,000 people, including 3,500 children and teenagers, took part in a programme spread across three weeks (14 July to 1 August).
Global dismay at Welsh Archbishop's election
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 8 Aug 2025
Orthodox Anglicans around the world are reacting with dismay after the election of the new Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, who is openly in a same-sex relationship.
The Biblically orthodox Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) called Vann’s election “another painful nail in the coffin of Anglican orthodoxy.”
Brother Andrew’s Open Doors at 70: Smuggling Bibles and seeing miracles
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 18 Jul 2025
Smuggling Bibles to believers in communist countries – that’s how Open Doors UK & Ireland began. 70 years on, the organisation has become an international ministry working for the good of the persecuted church.
In 1955, Dutch missionary Brother Andrew set off for Poland with a suitcase containing his Bible and hundreds of tracts entitled “The Way of Salvation”. Behind the Iron Curtain (the divide between Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe and the West during the Cold War) he discovered churches desperately in need of Bibles, support, and prayer.
Ministry to farmers: sowing and growing
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 24 May 2025
A Christian association is seeking to fill a reported gospel need in farming communities.
Tony Baskerville, Cheshire-based tenant farmer on the Rode Estate, Scholar Green, and elder at Grace Church, Sandbach, says that farmers are feeling increasingly marginalised. “There is a tremendous opportunity to reach out to them in genuine Christian love,” said Baskerville.
New college with Christian aims and ethos launches
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 23 May 2025
In response to the increasingly prevalent liberal and progressive ideologies appearing in universities, a “new and unique” Christian college has been launched.
Selden College will be based in Oxford and has a twofold vision: to recover the heritage of Christian higher education, and to glorify God in this arena.