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God has been at work in the South East of England. Over the last two years the Chinese Christian Fellowship in the town of Guildford has seen around 40 people come to Christ. One of the leaders tells their story …

God has a purpose for the Chinese people. We have a dream, that one day the land of China will not only be filled with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also be a place of mission to the whole world.

Roger Carswell

Date posted: 1 Aug 2005

Evangelist Roger Carswell sees many churches in his work. Here he tells of a recent mission and some of its lessons.

One of the changes in evangelistic approach over recent years is the development of event-based, and targeted evangelistic meetings.

So much of the book of Acts is so encouraging that it comes as quite a shock to see Luke including the closing verses of chapter 15, where we read of a heated dispute between Paul and Barnabas.

Yet we need a realistic appreciation of how easy it is for the closest of friends in the leadership of a local church not only to disagree and fall out, but to divide with bitterness and go their own separate ways. And the Holy Spirit does so much more than show us the dangers of such division. He shows us the underlying attitudes that can cause divisions to arise over such practical issues as the suitability of a young man like John Mark for responsibility in an outreach venture.

100 years ago this month, the great missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, went to be with the Lord . . .

On June 3 1905, 30 guests from six missionary societies attended a reception at the mission house of the China Inland Mission in Changsha.

?I wish I?d known it would be like this; I would have brought a bus load!? This was just one comment from a student after attending the recent missions conference for university students at New Tribes Mission, North Cotes.

Students gathered from universities all over the UK and indeed Europe, to be part of it. Until they arrived they were not quite sure what they were letting themselves in for, as it was the first conference of its kind ? but a pleasant surprise for waiting ? it was a super weekend.

Have you ever had the experience of feeling that God has guided you only for everything to seemingly go wrong? If you have been, this article from the pen of a missionary of the 1930s, Mildred Cable, might help.

‘It was well that it was in thine heart’.

‘We have carefully considered your case and have very regretfully reached the conclusion that we cannot accept you for foreign service.’

The radio was still on when I opened my bleary eyes. I must have dropped off to sleep the night before without turning it off. The last few weeks of term had been hard work. I rolled over, giving myself ten more minutes under the duvet. Then it hit me ? ten more minutes wasn?t an option.

A common complaint among churches is the dearth of candidates for the pastoral ministry.

A recent article contrasted two approaches: selecting men and challenging them to consider this calling, and praying, preaching and leaving it to men to hear God’s call. Actually there need be no conflict between these two approaches; both have been effective. In times of spiritual awakening, under powerful ministry, many more men hear the call than in less fruitful times.

Steve Price has been performing tricks and illusions since he was a boy. In July this year he left his post as Head of Design in an independent secondary school to use his mix of comedy and magic tricks to reach people for Christ. Here’s what he has to say about it all …

I guess it all started when my parents gave me a book called Ali Bongo’s Book of Magic for my ninth birthday. I played around with a few simple tricks and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Roger Carswell has been an itinerant evangelist for over 20 years, faithfully preaching the gospel at church and university Christian Union missions across the UK.

At the last count he had been the main missioner at over 70 university missions. This year he spoke at Bristol, Durham, Newcastle, Stockton, Sheffield and Exeter. He just loves university missions! EN?s The Third Degree caught up with Roger to find out why.

Elmer Albright was a fellow-carpenter, born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, whose father was a coal miner. He and his wife, Evie, had come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Shamokin about five years earlier under the ministry of a Scotsman named George Atcheson.

As he worked with Ernie, Elmer began to speak to him of the Lord Jesus Christ, someone he invariably referred to as his Saviour. He told Ernie of God the Creator who made and sustained the universe, whose Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had been sent into the world to deal with our greatest need, the guilt of our wayward living: ‘We deserve eternal death, because we are sinners, but the Lord Jesus, because he loved us, died for us.’ While Elmer explained the good news to him and urged him to read the Bible, he invited Ernie to come to the Sunday School which the government allowed a small group of Christians to hold in a recreational building on the base.

If you are part of a small church you have a choice. You can choose to see the small size of the congregation as a reason to be discouraged and downhearted. Or you can choose to see the church’s smallness as a reason why you might be just the church God can use.

Where am I coming from with that last statement? Is it just foolish optimism? I don’t think it is. Here is my reasoning.

‘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.

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?

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.

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.