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Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2006

On the one hand, it’s a small story. It only relates to 50 students or so. Other than a cameo appearance in Love Actually, Wisconsin is not a name brand state.

On the other hand, this is the third in a row. First it was Rutgers University in New Jersey. Then it was Georgetown University. Now the University of Wisconsin has ‘De-recognised’ the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group. On October 2, IVCF filed suit.

Every mosque attempts to be modelled on the first mosque built and directed by Muhammad in Medina.

The functions of a mosque cannot be understood without considering the first mosque and its role and rule in the first Muslim community.

Christians go to university with many of the same aims as everybody else. They want to spread their wings, find out who they are . . . perhaps even get a degree.

But there is one aim which Christian students do not share with their non-Christian counterparts. Many will spend much of their time at university being part of a student-run Christian community and trying to persuade non-Christians to join with all kinds of outreach activities.

It has been said that the Christian Union (CU) is the only university club or society that exists primarily for non-members. CUs are mission teams with a clear and focused agenda — to live for Jesus and speak for Jesus on campus. Their main priority is to see students come to a living faith in Jesus Christ.

Although CUs are led by students, Christian Union Staff Workers (CUSWs) have a vital role in keeping our university CUs healthy, vibrant, outward-looking and mission-focused.

As I now think of my life since 1948, I realise that it has followed a clear pattern.

Reading John Benton’s The Big Picture for Small Churches prompted some reflections. It seems that the Lord’s purpose for me was to be, what the business world would call, a ‘trouble shooter’. I should have been prepared for this because every morning at breakfast at Bible Institute I read: ‘Thinkest thou great things for thyself, think them not!’ It is only now, as I look back, that I understand.

Simon Guillebaud is a young man with a mission in one of the most dangerous parts of Africa.

EN: Could you tell us something about your background, (so the readers find out who you are and where you are coming from), your family and how you came to Christ?

Post the General Convention of Anglicanism in the USA, Chris Sugden sees power struggles and reversion to tribal religion.

The General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC, formerly known as ECUSA), which met recently, did not meet the requirements of the Windsor Report to place a moratorium on blessing same-sex unions or electing and consecrating bishops in same-sex relationships.

Leon Lamb Morris, who died on July 24, was perhaps Australia’s most prolific biblical and theological author. He wrote over 50 books of theology and biblical commentary which have sold nearly two million copies worldwide and been translated into many languages.

This is an astonishing output for an Australian writing technical or academic books. He was well known throughout the Christian world as a careful, conservative biblical scholar. Extraordinarily, Morris received no formal theological education, apart from two years of supervision for his doctorate in Cambridge. He was a self-taught theologian who brought his rigorous and disciplined training in scientific enquiry to his study of the Bible and theology.

Recently I went to my normal weekly church Bible study meeting (we are studying Romans) and had an enjoyable time of fellowship and study.

The next day I was due to sit in on a Bible study run by Community Bible Study International, and I have to admit to wondering what it would offer that would be distinct from my normal group. Of course, the fundamentals were similar — such as prayer and a focus on studying the Bible to understand it and apply it to one’s own life. There were however, differences about this ministry, and I found myself firmly convinced of the high value it has as a way of reaching people and strengthening their faith by grounding them ever more in the Bible.

One of the basic features of church life in the US today is the proliferation of worship and music forms.

This, in turn, has caused many severe conflicts both within individual congregations and whole denominations.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jun 2006

It is an interesting experience having lived for so long as a foreigner. Before coming to America, I lived for a year in the former Soviet Union, and before that for a year in Canada, but by and large most of my life was spent in England (a good ten years of it in Cambridge).

Having now lived for seven or so years in America, it’s becoming increasingly true that I feel the sense of being without home that, for the Christian, underlines the spiritual reality of this world not being our home but that we are ‘just a-passing through’.

More and more the 21st-century church is striving to reach into the local community. Scan the job pages in the Christian press and you will find advertisements for youth workers and community workers abounding. Look carefully at the job descriptions and you will uncover a real desire among Christians to get out to where people are on a day-to-day basis: shopping centres, hospitals, schools, youth centres, sports clubs…

Pastoral workers and lay people alike are being encouraged to join the visiting teams of local hospitals and hospices, to set up after school clubs, to get involved in crèches in large shopping centres. This is all about the local church reaching out.

When Nigel Lee first discovered he had life-threatening cancer he said to a friend ‘this is when people get to see if I really believe all I’ve been preaching about all these years.’

We have. He did. And now he is with the Lord in the glory of eternity and the famous Lee smile is broader than ever.

This year sees the centenary of the start of the Crusaders’ Union, which has been very influential in the lives of many lads and girls for Christ.

The story actually begins in the spring of 1900 when a missionary named Albert Kestin was walking through North London on a Sunday afternoon. As he walked he prayed for the young people he saw. They looked at a loose end and bored, and he felt that there was a great need for a new initiative to reach such youngsters for Christ.

We are rightly warned of worldly ambition that blights spiritual growth. But when one of God’s children reaches a high place in society and at the same time walks humbly with the Lord, the angels learn something more, to their amazement, of the power of God’s grace.

This is the best explanation of the life of John Doggett, who died at the age of 89 on Sunday May 7. No surprise then that the funeral service at St. Peter’s Church, Ugley, Essex, on May 15 ended with ‘Amazing grace! How sweet the sound’.

Relocating? As we saw last month, it’s a complicated business for Christians on the move. While issues like closeness to family or schools loom large and programmes like Escape to the Country push the line of finding the perfect house, Christians are faced with the challenge: how to move in a way that keeps the gospel central?

Whatever the presenting reason for moving — a need for more space, a new job, the need to care for family members, Christians only thrive when they are being fed by God’s Word and are part of a church family where they can use their gifts to serve and encourage others. This means that, for those of us who are thinking of moving house, the aim should be to put finding a church like this at the top of our list of priorities. In other words, to put those glossy house brochures to one side until it is clear which church it is right to settle in: one where the Bible is preached clearly and faithfully and where there will be opportunities to serve and encourage others. This month EN talks to four people, Jennifer, Bill, Richard and Jane (not their real names) who have sought to do that. They tell us how they went about it, what issues they faced and how they feel now about their decision to put church first.

I’m very pleased to announce the arrival of Oliver George Simpkin on May 27. 8 lbs. and rising. Why give The Times all my money when I can announce his birth for free in Evangelicals Now?! I’d also like to announce that Oliver has already been given his first tambourine. Philly and I are hoping that it will be his last. No kazoos either, please.

At the start of the academic year, I asked for prayer for students at the various music colleges. This is a mission field in which we’ve seen three or four new births this year. We’re full of praise because Jesus has proved himself powerful to save young men and women as they’ve heard and believed the gospel. With all the pressures they face, we have had to rely on the power of the Word of God to be brought home to their hearts by the Holy Spirit. We’ve been humbled by our own weaknesses in proclaiming that gospel, but Jesus has shown his strength through our weaknesses time after time. He is faithful to his promises to save.

Seven children from two Christian families, two Christian teachers and a chapel schoolroom were the foundation of Wyclif Independent Christian School in 1982.

The parents were convinced that the Lord was leading them to provide an education for their children which was God-centred, Bible-based and free of the secular humanism that was beginning to pervade the state education system.

Charlie is a typical student. His mop of unkempt hair hides an enquiring mind.

When he isn’t watching daytime TV, or attending one of his twice-weekly lectures, he likes nothing better than partying with his pals in the Students Union, where the beer flows freely. Dancing together, ankle deep in spilt drinks with the sweaty hordes might not be your idea of a good night out, but for Charlie it’s probably the best wash he’s had in weeks. And don’t let his image scare you off; Charlie wants to talk. He wants to know how he can help his friend Anna, who has an eating disorder. And how he can deal with the suffering his family is going through as a result of his mother being diagnosed with bowel cancer. So, he wants to meet you for coffee, to talk about how Christian hope might be able to give him some hope.

The Irishnman, Andrew Trimble, has quickly become a household name in the rugby world.

Thanks to his speed, agility and tough tackling, the young rugby giant has propelled himself to the centre stage of both club and international rugby. As the Six Nations Championship drew to a close with Ireland’s defeat of England, Jonathan Carswell, caught up with him to find out what the real ‘Trimble’ was like…

Churches produce a lot of paper. Most churches you go into have mission statements, basis of faith documents and all sorts.

It’s often the process that led to the document that is more important than the document. If the mission statement is left in a rack in the hope that someone will pick it up it probably wasn’t worth the effort, but if it expresses the heartbeat of the group then it will constantly be used. So anything we produce for our youth group must be a living document.

In our age of celebrity mania, we need heroes more than ever. How grateful I am to God for having given me a true hero.

Ruth Siemens came bursting into my life when I was a recently converted college student studying in Madrid, Spain, in the 1970s.

That is how a new course from America, called ‘The Person of Jesus’, introduces itself. It certainly promises to be something of benefit to the church here in Britain.

The course seems to hit two nails on the head at the same time.

In October, a South African bishop ordained three staff members of the Co-Mission Initiative churches, based in South West London, whose senior pastor is Richard Coekin. The Bishop of Southwark has since revoked Richard’s licence as a Church of England minister (see front page article).

Since the ordinations, there have been media interviews, in which Richard Coekin has clarified that his main concern is about the authority of the Bible in the modern Church of England. From right across the country, evangelical churches and individuals have inundated Richard’s church office with emails and letters of unqualified support. There have been messages from abroad, not just from South Africa, but from Australia, America, Brazil and more, simply saying that they agree wholeheartedly with what Richard is seeking to do.