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‘The finest missionary speaker, I ever heard’, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was reported to have said, by one of the six speakers at the memorial service held in Hereford Baptist Church on February 19.

Maths was never my strong point. But if (as Christian Research says) the church in the UK is in decline, it must be because there are fewer people born again each year than are leaving. Surely this is not good news for evangelicals, for whom the gospel is the ‘stuff of life’.

I can remember sitting under ‘faithful gospel preaching’ for years, and wondering why there were no unbelievers to hear it. We were told it was good for the saints to be comforted by the gospel. I still agree with that, but I think it misses the point. Surely the primary target for the good news is the hell-bound sinner who needs to be convicted and converted.

Widnes College Christian Union - possibly the smallest CU in the world.

Both members meet in a shabby classroom every Tuesday lunchtime for prayer and Bible study, led by their FE (further education) CU staff worker, Martin Povey. 'Not exactly the cutting edge of campus-based evangelism', you might be thinking.

The world’s population explosion is a much talked-about topic in development circles, and so it should be. After having taken millennia to pass the 2,000 million mark, it will take barely 100 years to increase from that figure to over 9,000 million by the middle of the 21st century.

The most densely populated countries have majority Muslim populations, so Muslims will constitute an increasing percentage of the world’s population in years to come. Coupled with this is the fact that Muslim communities worldwide are among the poorest. Therefore tackling population and poverty, urgent goals for world leaders in coming decades, will place increasing focus on the world of Islam.

Tim Chester

Date posted: 1 May 2005

Let me explain how I came to write this. I was reading the Bible with two friends who are Muslims.

Each week they faithfully came to my home and we discussed a passage of Scripture over a cup of tea. Many of their questions were about the Trinity: How can God have a son? How can there be three Gods and one God?

It was 50 years ago that Brother Andrew started his ministry to persecuted Christians which has developed over the years and spawned the organisation Open Doors.

Brother Andrew's message to the church in the West at this time is simple. 'The church needs to accept the fact that there is a Suffering Church and repent of our lack of understanding and compassion.

When was the last time you came across a website all about aircraft? Chances are that you never have, unless you have specifically searched for one. And that’s despite the fact that there are five million sites dedicated to flying machines.

This is the type of question that a group of internet evangelists hope to raise in churches across the world during a special focus day on April 24. Only the problems with which they are concerned are not those of the aviation enthusiast but how to get the non-believer to view Christian websites? And, even if they did, how to get them to stay long enough to learn something of the gospel?

The Volcker Commission, the internal inquiry into the United Nation’s running of the $64 billion Iraqi ‘oil-for-food’ programme, has published its interim report.

In this report Chairman Paul Volcker claimed to have evidence of the corruption of UN officials, whom he accuses of having ‘seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations’.

David Baker

Date posted: 1 Apr 2005

The meeting in mid-February in Newry, Northern Ireland, attended by 35 of the 38 top bishops from across the globe, asked the US and Canadian churches to ‘voluntarily withdraw’ from a key ecclesiastical body for the next three years and to ‘consider their place in the Anglican communion’.

Some orthodox leaders had wanted tougher action to be taken, but the primates were advised by lawyers that there was no legal process by which any of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces could be suspended.

John Wesley arrived in Newcastle upon Tyne on May 28 1742. He noted the following in his daily journal: 'We came to Newcastle about six, and after short refreshment, walked into town. I was surprised; so much drunkenness, cursing and swearing (even from the mouths of little children), do I never remember to have seen and heard before in so small a compass of time. Surely this place is ripe for Him who came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.'

250 years after Wesley arrived in the North East, it is fair to say that little has changed, perhaps it is even worse. Visit any of the university campuses, not just at the weekend, and hundreds of students will be consuming copious amounts of alcohol, having numerous sexual relationships, but having little or no regard for their Creator. However, surely we must respond, not with condemnation, but like Wesley did, with the attitude that these people are 'ripe for him'.

With over 2,000,000 students in this country, Christians with a passion for evangelism have to be a good thing. The Life Gospel Project last year fuelled a new enthusiasm among students for sharing the good news of Jesus with their peers - and the momentum is growing.

During the last term, three major regional student events have focused on the importance of evangelism. Each aimed to encourage students to live out their university and college years for Christ, sharing him with others with relevance, creativity and faithfulness to the gospel message. In Exeter, students from across the South West soaked up a day of evangelism training. This was followed by a practical session doing questionnaires in the city centre.

Thomas Tallis was born in 1505. One of the first composers of English Protestant church music, his music is still much performed and recorded.

1555 was the peak year for the burning of Protestants under Queen Mary Tudor, some of whom are mentioned individually below. In all, about 290 died this excruciating death - men, women and even young people, and preponderantly working-class - and thereby ensured that Mary's attempt to re-establish Roman Catholicism died with her.

For Christian students who are a part of the 2.7 million in Further Education (FE) colleges, CU life can be a hard slog.

The group is almost always small in number, they are less well-resourced than school or university CUs, and colleges are often deeply secular environments not used to the concept of a CU. However, as we have seen in recent years the labour is producing fruit, even if progress is slow.

On Boxing Day, the great tsunami hit the coasts of countries around the Indian Ocean, bringing devastation and death. Here we carry reports from some Christians in the area.

Jacqui Hoole, who is acting principal of Baldaeus Theological College in Trincomalee in north-east Sri Lanka, writes:

As the final chord of the hymn dies away the congregation sits and, to everyone's surprise, the lights go out.

The voice of Buddy Holly singing 'That'll be the day' comes through the PA. The front projector screen lights up and starts scrolling through photo after photo of famous faces, each dead, with the date they died displayed underneath. Albert Einstein, April 18 1955; Elvis Presley, August 16 1977; Princess Diana, August 31 1997; Jill Dando, April 16 1999.

Recently I had an opportunity to put a question to Imam Mumtaz, the Imam of Streatham mosque, regarding the Muslim view of the sinlessness of the prophets. The Imam seemed to admit that, from an absolute standpoint, everyone is a sinner. This was the first time I had had an opportunity to speak face-to-face with a South London Imam.

Unfortunately, confrontation is a frequent feature of Christian-Muslim encounter. Therefore, opportunities for such discussion in a friendly atmosphere are rare. Real communication often just does not happen.

Gerard Chrispin reports on the launch of the new DAYLIGHT Christian Prison Trust, seeking to bring the gospel to those behind bars...

A helpful missionary vision emphasis in recent years is the concentration on the needs of people groups, in addition to focusing on geographical areas.

I have no hesitation in saying that the greatest and most momentous decision I have ever made in my life was the decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ.

Prior to my conversion I had always felt, to some degree at least, that there was a longing within my heart to know God in the way my parents seemed to know him, but I was afraid to pursue it in case I might be disappointed. Many times God had tapped at the window-pane of my soul. Like times just before bedtime when I would kneel to pray - something I had been taught as a child - and the feeling would come over me that I needed to take spiritual realities more seriously. Even in my most rebellious times, I would never slip under the blankets without saying a prayer. It was a simple and short prayer recited very quickly:

Christmas stocking

This article is going to be a bit like a Christmas stocking - a few things chucked in, some of them boring but useful; some interesting but useless; or a combination of the above.

While the Lord has indeed brought millions of people to Christ in China over recent years, the character and some of the claims of ‘Brother Yun’ — whose story is told in the book The Heavenly Man — are being called into question by indigenous Chinese house church leaders.

Samuel Lamb (Lin Xiangao) has strongly attacked the ‘heavenly man’ (Brother Yun) in a pamphlet issued in August. The two most respected house church leaders in Beijing, Moses Xie and Allen Yuan, have also come out strongly against him and Peter Xu. Allen Yuan, who is himself from a Pentecostal background, has said that they are ‘black sheep disturbing the church’.

The world we inhabit today is both larger and smaller than ever before. In our global village, events in one hemisphere hit the airwaves instantly to affect millions on the other side of the world.

Yet most people in the West live a more privatised, isolated and self-preoccupied existence than at any time in history. Vast horizons coexist alongside incredible insularity.

A new booklet is published this month on giving. John Stott takes ten principles set out by the Apostle Paul, and applies them to us now. Here we look at four of those principles...

When we become Christians, our giving has a new impetus. We are called to give generously, and with joy, as a fruit of the Spirit's life within us.

Lugging backpacks and hefty bags on Sunday at sunrise, they trickle in to the expanse of dirt and gravel under Interstate 35.

Littering this city block between 4th and 5th streets in Waco, Texas, are taillight shards and pigeon feathers. The men sit mostly in solitude at the base of support columns, waiting for something to happen.

In 1988 a group of Christians in the south of Birmingham were amazed at the turnout to a small Sunday gathering at which just a few families had been expected.

The meeting had been arranged in a local home to provide ministry for some who had been travelling long distances for systematic Bible teaching. The fact that over 30 people appeared highlighted a real desire for this kind of ministry in the area, and out of that South Birmingham Evangelical Church was soon formed.