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Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) has called on en readers to join them in praying for vicars who are struggling to know how to navigate their Parochial Church Council (PCC) and congregations through the current phase of the Living in Love and Faith process and into the Alliance’s de facto parallel province.

John Dunnett, National Director, CEEC, said: readers will be aware of the ‘en Alliance’s call to construct the de facto parallel province. Were we to see hundreds, if not thousands, of churches using the Ephesian Fund (EF), requesting Alternative Spiritual Oversight (ASO) and sending their ordinands through the Alliance pipeline, this could very, very quickly become a reality. Such a significant expression of conscience would impact the bishops and bring them to the negotiation table. In reality, however, many incumbents are struggling to lead their churches into participation in this de facto province. Their commitment to orthodoxy is unquestioned but their situation makes this far from easy.’

Milla Ling-Davies

Date posted: 5 Feb 2025

After months of prayer, a small group has boldly begun a new monthly service in Haverfordwest – delivered entirely in the Welsh language.

Described as a missional project rather than a church, the initiative (called ‘Rhywd y Brenin’ meaning the ‘net of the King’), was begun by seven people with a desire to better share the gospel with Welsh speakers across Pembrokeshire. They launched the first service on 6 October in Emmanuel Christian Centre in Merlins Bridge, and were delighted to welcome in 22 adults and eight children.

Nearly 400 church leaders and teams from across the denominations and networks in Wales recently gathered at Venue2 Swansea for the annual New Wine Cymru leaders conference.

In the light of the statistical and empirical evidence pointing to a significant spiritual openness in Wales and the UK, the conference theme was creating a Culture of Mission in the Local Church. Conference guest speakers were Paul Williams who is the Bible Societies CEO and research Professor of Marketplace Theology at Regents university Vancouver.

Milla Ling-Davies

Date posted: 20 Dec 2024

This autumn, a group of around 100 adults and children came together to launch a new church on an estate in Tolworth, south west London.

Hope Church Tolworth is an initiative between members of Cornerstone Church, Kingston (who are a part of church-planting network Co-Mission) and others who have come from Emmanuel Church, Tolworth (who are Anglican). They met for the first time on Sunday 24 November in a local Primary School building, following months of gathering for prayer, picnics and meals. The pastor is Bart Erlebach, who was formerly the minister of Emmanuel, Tolworth.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 23 Jan 2025

A man and a woman are under police investigation for suspected fraud, alongside the regulatory investigation into Barnabas Aid (formerly Barnabas Fund), a charity supporting persecuted Christians – which has been widened to include four linked charities.

Wiltshire Police has confirmed it arrested two people on 7 November 2024 ‘in connection with an ongoing fraud investigation’.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 4 Dec 2024

‘God speaks my language’ – the theme and testimony of many at Grace Baptist Mission’s Annual Mission Day.

At Friends House on London’s Euston Road, many GBM missionaries shared stories on the last Saturday in October of how people all over the world are hearing God’s word in their own heart language – through preaching, teaching, Bible translation, personal evangelism, literature and radio programmes.

Planting new churches to reach people with the good news of Jesus has always been part of the culture of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) and one that AMiE recognises will need to take different forms to suit a changing landscape across England.

One such church that AMiE is hoping to plant is in Bracknell with Nick Algeo, an ordained minister with a licence from the Diocesan Bishop of AMiE to start a church. Nick is moving with his family to Bracknell in the summer of 2025, and is looking to start Sunday services soon after. Over the next few months, he hopes to raise financial support and gather the beginnings of a group to start the church. A daunting prospect, but one that he trusts and prays that God will provide the resources for.

The Northern Gospel Project is seeking to see 30 gospel churches planted in Greater Manchester by 2030, through training, funding, and providing care for church planters and their teams.

So far, we have trained 15 church planters through the Incubator training course, cared for seven church planters through Planters Collectives, and raised £63,000 to seed fund church plants across the city.

The Grace Baptist Mission (GBM) has held its Annual Mission Day in Euston.

Highlights of this year included welcoming missionaries to serve in Uganda, in the Netherlands (Abigail and Adrian Yeboah – see photo), and a new missionary to join the Radio Team based in the UK.

A new Gospel Coalition for the UK and Ireland could help those with ‘broadly Reformed and complementarian convictions’ develop ‘new and dynamic partnerships,’ Affinity’s Graham Nicholls says.

Speaking to en, and in the wake of the most recent meeting of the advisory council of Affinity – an evangelical umbrella group uniting 1,200 evangelical churches and organisations which succeeded the old British Evangelical Council founded by Martyn Lloyd-Jones – Nicholls said no other organisation was quite filling that gap at the moment.

The Church of England’s lead bishop for the controversial ‘Living in Love and Faith’ (LLF) sexuality discussions – tipped by some as the next Archbishop of Canterbury – says he continues to believe sex is only for heterosexual marriage.

Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester, who is being touted as a possible successor to Justin Welby, answered ‘yes’ when pressed on the point in an interview with en. And he said Church of England evangelicals in the Alliance (the umbrella group of orthodox believers in the denomination) should not yet despair about their wishes for alternative structural provision being met.

Amid great uncertainty in the Church of England, 380 delegates from over 170 churches have gathered at the national ReNew conference in Leeds.

ReNew is a united movement of Anglican evangelicals, both inside and outside of the Church of England, with a positive vision for the growth of the gospel through pioneering, establishing and securing healthy local churches.

According to theologian Jim Packer, John Newton was ‘the friendliest, wisest, humblest and least pushy of the 18th -century evangelical leaders’. At a recent church history lecture by Dr Lesley Rowe, Leicestershire folk were also pleased to learn that Newton had a special place in his heart for the county and visited on several occasions.

Newton was motherless from the age of six, boarded at a harsh school from the age of eight, taken to sea at 11 and an accomplished blasphemer by age 12. He was press-ganged into the Navy, flogged, enslaved and, famously, became captain of a slave-trading ship.