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When I was around 13 years old, our church inducted a new minister. Our choir was asked to sing at the service. I can remember the serious misgivings I had as I was learning the words of the song:

So send I you to labour unrewarded, to serve unpaid, unloved, unsought unknown;

The Hebrides is a group of islands around 40 miles west of the north of Scotland. Lewis is the most northerly island and Harris is its southern peninsula.

The Western Isles had experienced a number of short periods of revival at the end of the 19th and during the first half of the 20th centuries, but especially between 1949 and 1952.

While the financial problems of the Eurozone continue to bring political uncertainty, a step forward for biblical Christianity in Europe seems to be on the cards.

One sign of this was the striking popularity of two recent conferences in Switzerland and Germany with input from the Gospel Coalition from the USA.

Recent research suggests that you will only find provision for under 18s in around 50% of churches in the UK.

If you reduce that to provision for 11s to 18s (youth) your chances are reduced to 25%. Starting up in youth ministry can be hard work and discouraging, but, if the figures are right, then 25% of churches providing something for children have nothing for post-11s. What those children do at 11 is open to speculation, but I suspect it is a mixture of moving on to other churches or staying at home.

India’s outcast Dalits (untouchables) have endured three millennia of oppression and injustice.

Leaders of this group, which totals a quarter of a billion people, have in recent years asked the church and Christian organisations in India to assist them in their plight. Good Shepherd / Operation Mobilisation India Ministries (GS/OM India Ministries) is at the forefront of this response and the massive movement of the Holy Spirit underway among India’s Dalits.

The Apostle Paul instructed the Christians in Corinth to do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10.31).

Being a Christian is that life-long pursuit of submitting all that we are, have and do to the Lordship of Christ so that God is glorified in all we are, have and do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.