The Third Degree
Filling up at Forum
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 Oct 2013
1,300 Christian Union
Leaders, UCCF staff and
Relay Workers attended
Forum 2013 —UCCF’s
national training event for
Christian Union Leaders.
The five-day residential training event (September 2-6) —which has grown from
300 students to over 1,000 since 2003 —
remains one the most important components of UCCF’s CU Leadership Training
Programme.
Evangelism out in the open
Andy Banton
Date posted: 1 Jul 2013
Andy Banton celebrates a great anniversary for the Open-Air Mission
It is sometimes said that you can make statistics say anything.
ENGAGING OUR CITIES
Jonny Dyer
Date posted: 1 Jul 2013
In 1800, 2% of the world’s population lived in cities.
By 1900 that figure was 12%. Today 52% of us are city dwellers and by 2050 it is estimated that will rise to 70%.
God is your life
Peter Baker
Date posted: 1 Jul 2013
When a pastor moves churches it gives him time to reflect
Peter Baker was senior pastor at Highfields Church, Cardiff, for 18 years.
Youth Leaders
A Barnabas spirit...
Dave Fenton
Date posted: 1 Aug 2013
We’re all quite good at
structure these days.
We have our aims, objectives, values and
mission statements and, generally, these have
improved the way we do things. There is
more
training around, particularly
in all
these fields, but I wonder if our training
stretches to, or even includes, the way we
deal with people.
The Third Degree
Stafford CU online
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 Aug 2013
The University of Staffordshire
Christian Union has started
streaming evangelistic
meetings live on the internet
for students to enjoy from
the comfort of their own hall
of residence.
The Christian Union — which is made up
of just 12 students — decided to live stream
CU meetings because of the high tech and
internet
savvy
nature
of
Staffordshire
University students.
Bible, boomers and below
Chris Wright
Date posted: 1 Jun 2013
‘Hey, Dad, the sermon today was 1 hour 7 minutes and 20 seconds long. All in Portuguese.’
My gap-year daughter was on her regular Sunday collect-call home from her short-term mission placement in Brazil. ‘So I spent the time memorising the books of the Bible. Do you want to know what they are? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus….’ My first thought was: ‘I’m paying for this call while you rattle off all the books of the Bible’. My second was: ‘Isn’t it great that my teenage daughter wants to knows her way around the Bible?’
Dr. William Lees, 1924 - 2013
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Jun 2013
Bill Lees died on March 14 in Reading where he had lived since 1966.
His earlier ministry in Malaysia had continued to be a major part of his life so that it was appropriate that the main address at his Thanksgiving Service was by Dr. Philip Lyn from Skyline Church, Kota Kinabalu, East Malaysia.
A Passion for Life 2014
Tim Hanson
Date posted: 1 Jun 2013
EN: How would you sum up the success of A Passion For Life 2010?
TH: A Passion for Life 2010 was hard work!
Mission is hard work and it costs us to do it. It means that we stick our heads up and make some noise in our communities; it means inviting people to events and therefore introducing the risk of being known not only as Christians but as Christians who believe some serious things and want other people to believe the same.
The heroine who said nothing
Tom Chapman
Date posted: 1 Jul 2013
Pastor Tom Chapman remembers the life of a Christian missionary who saved Jewish children from the Holocaust
It is a great privilege to belong to a church with a history.
The Third Degree
And the award goes to...
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 Jul 2013
Record numbers of Christian
Unions have been nominated for awards in 2013
Christian Unions have been
formally
recognised for their contribution to university life by either winning or being nominated
for a record-breaking 34 Students’ Union
(SU) awards in 2013.
Pastoral care in nursing homes
Wes English
Date posted: 1 May 2013
I lead a pastoral team with a Christian charity, Mission Care, which provides nursing and residential care for vulnerable adults in South East London.
What kind of God?
David Gobbett
Date posted: 1 Apr 2013
Over 800 students each day in February heard compelling presentations of the Christian faith.
Richard Cunningham (Director of UCCF: The Christian Unions) spoke at the university mission in my first year as an undergraduate in Cambridge 17 years ago, and the student evangelism bug that I caught back then hasn’t left me. So it was especially thrilling to see him welcomed back by the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) to speak at their ‘What Kind of God?’ mission event from February 4-8, alongside Os Guinness (respected author and social critic).
CE breaks into prison
Ian Roberts & Stephen James
Date posted: 1 Apr 2013
Can prisoners be transformed by the gospel? In theory, we know the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. But here are three recent examples where that is exactly what has happened in practice.
‘C’ came from a church background but had lost his faith when his little nephew died. By the time he was released from prison he had rediscovered his relationship with God and was committed to serving him in the mission context in a local church. ‘J’ decided, when he came to prison, that it was now or never in terms of finding out about Christianity. He will be baptised shortly, and is seeking to give his life to Jesus. ‘S’ has been a Christian for a number of years but has struggled with drugs. Although very knowledgeable about Jesus, the basics of his faith have been rebuilt, and he too is now considering baptism. That is a major step for him, because, as he says, ‘It’s a once and for all’ — when he is baptised, there is no turning back to his old ways.
Truth unchanged, unchanging
Bruce Ware
Date posted: 1 Apr 2013
Ahead of his visit to the UK to speal at New Word Alive, EN caught up with Professor Bruce Ware and asked him a few questions.
EN: How did you come to know the Lord and how did you end up teaching theology at Southern Baptist Seminary?
BW: I was greatly blessed to have grown up with parents who were devoted to Christ and committed to his work. I trusted in Christ as my Saviour when I was six years old, and was baptised the following year. Both of my parents loved missions and missionaries, and gave sacrificially to help in a multitude of ways. Our home was the one that missionaries stayed in while visiting our church. My parents’ heart for missions was reflected in their desire that their children be exposed to missions work and, as a result, they sent me for a summer missions trip to Madagascar when I was 15 years old. You can imagine the impact that had on my young life.
Andrew Butler, 1949-2013
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 May 2013
Andrew Butler, who died from cancer in Taiwan on March 2, had served for 40 years with OMF International.
Edith Schaeffer, 1914-2013
Barry Seagren
Date posted: 1 May 2013
Edith Rachel Merritt Seville Schaeffer was born in Wenzhou, China, to missionary parents working in the China Inland Mission.
Though she lived in China only until the age of six, she retained vivid memories and a life-long love of China. The family moved back to the States and, while attending Beaver College, she met Francis Schaeffer. They were married in 1935. He had three pastorates in the States in the then Bible Presbyterian Church, with her always completely involved. Their daughters Priscilla, Susan and Deborah were born during those years while their son Franky was born in Switzerland in 1952.
Wow! What a week!
St. Andrew’s Parish Church, Leyland, packed over 70 events into an amazing nine days under the umbrella of ‘Life Week’ in March.
A team of 12 students from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, led by the enthusiastic octogenarian evangelist Dr. Michael Green, spearheaded the mission. The church and surrounding venues were consistently packed as exciting and varied events drew in many from this enclave of South Ribble Borough, Lancashire.
Letter from America
Growing up in the manse
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 May 2013
I grew up in a boarding school. My father was a boarding school house master, and we lived on the grounds of this community.
I did not grow up in a manse or vicarage or parsonage. My children, of course, are growing up ‘Pastor’s Kids’ (PKs). How can I help them flourish in that environment?
Let's find foster families
EN
Date posted: 1 Jun 2013
A young Nigerian boy looks out of his bedroom window. Hoping to see the flash of headlights. Hoping to hear the sound of tyres on the gravel drive. He isn’t waiting for the postman to deliver his shiny new bike. He isn’t waiting for his mate to collect him for the long-awaited cinema trip. He is simply waiting for his mum and dad to turn up to take him home — the mum and dad he has never met.
He waits his whole childhood. He thinks he would have made quite a good son, despite his high energy levels. He certainly would have made them proud the day he won his Olympic medals, or the day he was awarded an MBE for services to athletics. But Kriss Akabusi spent his whole life in foster care and care homes; potential parents visited him, but none picked him.
Melvin and Magdalene
Karen Soole
Date posted: 1 May 2013
Some Christians were offended by the airing of Melvin Bragg’s BBC documentary The Mystery of Mary Magdalene on Good Friday.
I was not one of them; possibly because my expectations were so low that I was pleasantly surprised by the affirmation of the Gospel accounts as historical evidence.
Notes to Growing Christians
Joy is...
David Jackman
Date posted: 1 May 2013
‘The fruit of the Spirit is joy.’
If a Christian is defined as someone in whom God’s Spirit lives, then a joyless Christian is a contradiction in terms. Yet we all know that much of life is not characterised by joy, and so we either tend to feel guilty, because clearly we are not ‘spiritual’ enough, or we sigh briefly and then get on with things. But there are those nagging Bible commands. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice’ (Philippians 4.4). What’s it all about?
More than happiness
The first thing to realise is that joy is not the same thing as happiness. Often people say that joy is much deeper, which has led to the observation that some Christians’ joy is so deep it never seems to surface! The difference is not so much in depth as in duration. Happiness happens — it comes and goes and is largely the response of our emotions and feelings to external events. Nobody can be permanently happy; indeed you only have to set out determined to ‘be happy’ to soon feel quite miserable. So what is the joy that Christians have which is not experienced by those who do not share our faith?
The Third Degree
90 missions!
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 Apr 2012
Over 90 CU mission weeks have taken place on campuses all around Britain this academic year.
Responses to the gospel have been varied but Christian Union events weeks continue to be a source of great encouragement.
Disciple-making leaders
JR: You speak around the country about the need to grow and disciple leaders within local churches. Briefly, how do you understand biblical leadership?
MH: Paul speaks in Philippians 1 and 2 Corinthians 1 about working with people for their progress and joy in God, so that they grow firm in their faith and have abundant joy in Christ. That’s a great, simple definition of spiritual leadership. You don’t have to think very hard to see why a church that is standing firm in their faith and full of godly joy is going to be a beacon for the gospel.