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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.

United Beach Missions (UBM) holds a variety of outreach events every summer.

Among them, is a ‘Smugglers Trail’ in Benllech, Anglesey.

Milla Ling-Davies

Date posted: 30 Sep 2024

In a display of unity, three churches in Worcestershire have overcome stylistic and theological differences to form a new church plant, recognised by the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches).

Set to officially launch in January 2025, the formation of the new Grace Church Kidderminster occurred after two churches in the Wyre Forest each approached the lead pastor of nearby Woodgreen Church, Richard Lacey, for help. With small and aging congregations, both Kidderminster Evangelical Church (KEC) and Christ Church Wyre Forest, (CCWF) had recognised a need for external assistance – they contacted Lacey within weeks of each other.

John Woods

Date posted: 17 Jul 2024

Preachers, politicians and stand-up comedians still speak to crowds. President Zelensky of Ukraine has combined the last two of these in his colourful career. He has demonstrated the power of well-chosen words delivered in the right place to the right people.

Many speeches have been delivered during the UK election campaign that drew to a decisive conclusion on 4 July.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 7 Jul 2024

Festival Teesside, featuring evangelist Andrew Palau, was ‘a massive success’ and the ‘fruition of 15 years of hard work,’ says mission organiser Stephen Sutton.

Sutton, who is pastor of Beacon Baptist Church, Middlesborough, also said that the gospel seed had been sown and that local churches were now deploying ‘the skills of the harvest field’ which the Palau team provided.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 24 Aug 2024

The imposition of VAT on private school fees threatens the survival of small Christian schools, which are ‘worlds away from the Harrows and Etons of this world’, the Association of Christian Teachers (ACT) is warning.

Meanwhile, the head of a small private school says Christian parents are being punished, and has challenged the church to support families and Christian education.

Philippa Lomas shares her journey of faith and discipleship:

I was born without any eyes and am completely blind. As you can probably imagine, this was a great shock to my parents, who had other, fully sighted, children. My parents are both Christians, but they really wondered what good God could bring out of the situation.

‘A lift for Narberth’ is more than a building project. It sums up the church’s vision, says Phil Prosser, senior leader of Grace Church.

Narberth is a small but growing market town in south-west Wales with a lively shopping centre, arts and cultural scene, a very active community life, and a charismatic evangelical church with ‘high hopes’ for its future mission in the community.

Luke Randall

Date posted: 17 Jul 2024

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) agreed at its General Assembly for 2024 that it needs a radical shake up of mission and ministry, while new Moderator Richard Murray called on the PCI to find better ways of connecting the gospel’s message to an uninterested and at times ‘hostile’ world.

About 1,000 ministers and elders from the denomination’s more than 500 congregations attended the three-day Assembly in Belfast which agreed to what it described as a ‘radical process that will see a comprehensive reconfiguration of ministry’ across the denomination.

Where is the next generation of church leaders coming from? Is there really a crisis in ministry recruitment? And if so, how can we work together to address it? This was the theme of a major consultation day held just recently.

The National Consultation Day organised by 9:38 – which serves local churches as they envision people in gospel ministry and raise up the next generation of gospel workers – was held at Yarnton Manor in Oxfordshire.