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Despite worsening societal conditions and a spiritual malaise among the churches, God is pleased to grant encouragements.

One such encouragement is the growth and development of Grace Baptist Partnership. Firmly committed to the doctrines of grace, convinced Baptists in terms of ecclesiology, and concerned not only with the independence of local churches but with their interdependence as well, the Partnership seeks to glorify God by growing leaders, planting churches and reaching nations.

UCCF is set to enter the second phase of the Uncover project by launching an interactive gospel.

Following on from the success of Uncover (where CU members have been reading the Bible with their non-Christian friends), UCCF’s sixth Gospel Project will carry the same name. Using Luke’s account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the resource will host a number of interactive features utilising new technologies such as QR codes.

Mike Reeves is Head of Theology for UCCF: The Christian Unions.

We caught up for natter about theology, mission and his new book The Good God.

No one comes to know Jesus except by God’s own hand. This is nowhere more evident than where believers are persecuted for their faith.

When he calls people, he gives them the faith to stand their ground, and fulfils his purpose in them.

‘It was a privilege to speak at four packed carol services on December 11 [for Southampton Christian Union]’, commented Adrian Holloway, evangelist at Christ Church in London.

He continued: ‘As 550 people filed out of the first service through one door, another 550 entered through a different door for the second! The CU president had to interrupt the service to ask people to ‘budge up’ to create space for these folks to get seats.

‘Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful’ (Revelation 17.14).

We come — from across the world — to remember our brother John. We come to give thanks to God for him; and to offer his family, with those like Frances Whitehead who were closest to him, our shared support in loss, and in that grief which goes with love. And along with them, his curates, colleagues, study assistants and innumerable friends — and latterly his devoted nurses and carers at the College of St. Barnabas.

Christianity Explored has just celebrated its tenth birthday.

We thought we should celebrate what has been achieved and — most importantly — plan and pray about how to take the ministry forward over the next ten years.

Sam believes that he is called to full-time gospel ministry. His church leaders agree.

He has led a home group for some time and has done a little preaching. He is a godly man and gives evidence of having the necessary gifts. He and the elders of the church think it is time for him to begin serious training. How should he go about it?

After rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, ‘the city was large and spacious’, but there were few people in it (Nehemiah 7.4).

There is a similar situation in many churches in our inner cities. There are small congregations in buildings that quite simply need more people. It would be wonderful if these were filled through conversions, but that is not happening. No doubt some churches are in-grown, but most churches I know are actively evangelistic. What these churches need is more people with the attitude, gifts and money that will strengthen them in their mission.

Don Carson's talk at Grace Baptist Mission's 150th anniversary was broadcast by BBC Radio 4's Sunday Worship.

For many people, the thought of missionary work sounds, at best, painfully old-fashioned.

General

A famous letter was written in AD 112 by Pliny, the governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, to the Roman emperor Trajan, asking for advice concerning the attitude to take in relation to groups of Christians in his province. This is a fascinating and vital piece of evidence concerning the activities of early Christians and the attitude of the Roman authorities to them.

Thomas Helwys founded the first Baptist congregation in Spitalfields, London, in 1612. He advocated the principle of religious liberty, and for this was thrown into Newgate prison, where he died by 1616.

For the past two years, since stepping down as Senior Pastor of Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh, Peter Grainger, along with his wife, has been ‘pastor at large’, visiting some of the Chapel’s 40-strong missionary family — in North Africa, India, Bolivia, Romania, Malawi and the UK.

It took eight months from leaving Britain in March 1871 for journalist Henry Stanley to reach the town of Ujiji near Lake Tangyanika and to utter the immortal words, ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ on meeting the famous missionary. It took my wife and me 18 hours to reach the city of Blantyre (named after Livingstone’s Scottish birthplace) in Malawi to meet our missionaries, David and Kirsty Kanyumi, serving at the Evangelical Bible College of Malawi.

No props. No costumes. No professionals. Every incident in Mark's Gospel in 90 minutes.

Andrew Page tells us about his brainchild, the Mark Drama, which gets student groups and churches acting out the gospel.

God has done a remarkable work in the country of Albania. Gani Smolica was caught up in it from the beginning….

Gani was born in Peja, Kosovo in 1958. His family were Albanian Muslims, but at school, being part of the former Yugoslavia, he was taught atheistic Marxism. He studied English Language at university and, as a good student, was invited to become a member of the Communist Party. It was an offer you could not refuse. So he went to Communist Party meetings, but at home he observed the Muslim feasts, though he did not really believe in God at all.

The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is made up of three small islands in the Caribbean.

The largest island, Grand Cayman, is home to 55,000 people from over 100 nationalities. While small, the island represents an important opportunity for exporting the gospel, as the nations traffic to and from her shores.

Helen Thorne-Allenson

Date posted: 1 Jan 2012

On November 12, 1,200 young people aged 14-18 and their leaders descended on central London. Not to watch the Lord Mayor’s show. Nor to take part in any of the current protests in the capital. But to head to Westminster Chapel to learn about Jesus Christ at the one-day event ‘Sorted’.

This annual feature of the youth work calendar, dedicated to encouraging and supporting Bible-centred youth work throughout London and beyond, has now been running for over ten years. Shortly after this year’s event, Helen Thorne caught up with chair of the planning team, Nathan Howard to find out for EN what went on and why events like Sorted are so important.

Polygamy is the practice of having more than one wife or husband at once.

It is practised in a number of religions, including some branches of Mormonism, African tribal cults and Islam.

Retire to the Costa del Sol to help plant churches!

What follows is one believer’s account of an annual six-month winter sojourn that has become a spiritual blessing of deepening faith and joy.

A fly-tipped estate in Wales, the sparkling coast of Italy, the diversity of London: what do these entirely different places have in common?

They share not only great gospel need, but also, by God’s grace, blossoming gospel witness. Western Europe has a vibrant cultural heritage. This region offers hundreds of years of spiritual, academic, artistic, musical, scientific and architectural abundance. But today it is a spiritual wasteland; the most secular continent in the world.

It began in a chapel in Bloomsbury in 1861.

150 years later, Grace Baptist Mission is at work helping churches support their missionaries on four continents and in 13 countries. Jim Sayers tells the story of the growth of this work of God’s grace.

GBM began life in 1861 as the Strict Baptist Mission. A group of Strict Baptist churches in London were concerned to come together to support ‘the work of spreading the gospel among the heathen’. They decided to focus their efforts on supporting workers in India. Mr. Henry Doll, an Anglo-Indian already living in India, became the long-serving superintendent of the work on the field, supporting Indian Christians who worked as pastors and evangelists. Madras became the focus of the work, and a new area opened up in Tinnevelly in the south of Tamil Nadu, as well as a work in Ceylon.

Mission weeks are the focal point of a CU’s evangelistic campaign. These weeks are where CU members can invite their friends to hear the gospel being preached in a way that is persuasive, attractive and relevant.

Pod Bhogal, UCCF’s Head of Communications talks to Michael Ots (Associate Christian Union Staff Worker, itinerant evangelist and mission speaker) about his involvement with CU mission weeks this year.

Robin Sydserff

Date posted: 1 Dec 2011

At its General Assembly last May, the Church of Scotland took a decision that set a ‘trajectory’ towards recognising same-sex relationships as appropriate for those in leadership in the Church.

This is one of a number of decisions that marks a radical departure from biblical orthodoxy. Evangelicals now find themselves facing in a different direction from the denomination. While technically no decision has been made (a theological commission will report to the General Assembly in 2013), the majority of evangelicals believe that the path is set. The progress of secular legislation through the Scottish Parliament will add further impetus to the liberal agenda.

Recently a church leader said to me: ‘It has just dawned on me that the Bible says that my job is to work with people for their joy in God. That revolutionises what I think I should be doing’.

He had made a critical discovery: biblical leadership is about growing and equipping disciples who are full of the joy of the Lord. And who, in turn, make more disciples.

Transformed is an organisation founded by ex-offenders for ex-offenders. Its goals are simple: to serve those who are trying to escape from the crime and addiction subcultures.

It also seeks to encourage hope in the hopeless, to show a cynical world by stories of changed lives that Jesus is alive today, and to mobilise the wider church to do the same. In particular, it sees its calling to the mission field beyond (as opposed to behind) the prison gates.