Albania: 3,000 people hear the gospel
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jul 2024
Over 3,000 people have heard the gospel in Tirana, Albania, at a major event organised by evangelicals in the country.
Before the mission, about 800 evangelicals met to focus on the church’s evangelistic imperative and to remember that ‘Jesus teaches us that we as a church should be lifted as a city up on the mountain top,’ Evangelical Focus reported.
In the rainforest, something is stirring... the gospel
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 May 2024
Spiritual battles continue day and night across the globe, including in the heart of the remote rainforest. The following example was featured in The Washington Post recently.
Rupert Shelley, Director of Mission Partnerships at international mission agency Crosslinks, says it reminds us how ‘the gospel is indeed growing and bearing fruit in extraordinary ways across many parts of South America’.
Churches destroyed, thousands displaced
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 May 2024
Christians working in Mozambique are becoming increasingly concerned about the human cost of the wave of violence now sweeping south across the country.
The persecuted-church agency Open Doors reports that over 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced from their homes in northern Mozambique following a sharp rise in attacks by Islamist militants.
Gaza: can Christianity now survive?
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 May 2024
Thirty out of the estimated 1,000 Christians still left in Gaza have been killed, according to local church sources.
And as Gaza’s Christian population continues to shrink, down from about 3,500 before the war began, commentators fear that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world may be literally dying out.
Javier Milei: Do cry for me, Argentina?
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
The Church Mission Society (CMS), which absorbed the South American Mission Society (SAMS) in 2009, has responded to the election of far-right populist outsider Javier Milei as the new President of Argentina.
Speaking exclusively to Evangelicals Now, CMS spokesperson Naomi Steinberg commented: ‘From a mission point of view, we can see that the political, economic and environmental situation in Argentina is precarious and needs much prayer. Our people in mission in the region are praying that the new President will be surrounded by a leadership team that is wise, compassionate and full of integrity’.
Orthodox Jew wants Gazans to ‘get a little Jesus’
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Mar 2024
An Orthodox Jewish writer Jonathan Feldstein is currently ‘praying for Gazans to get a little Jesus in 2024’.
Feldstein is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation, whose declared mission is to ‘build bridges between Jews and Christians with Israel in ways that are new, unique, and meaningful’. He made the call as he believes ‘the best and safest way to change the situation and bring peace [in Gaza] is for the masses of Gazans, and Palestinian Arabs in general, to convert to Christianity’.
Climate hope – if promises are kept, say evangelicals
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Even as it opened, the UN Climate Change Conference COP 28 was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The BBC revealed claims that hosts, the United Arab Emirates, were planning to make oil and gas deals with 15 other countries at the event. Despite that, many Christian groups were represented there, some as part of the Christian Climate Observers Program, a non-denominational Christian presence advocating for God’s creation. All are, perhaps, encouraged by the fact that COP28 for the first time featured a ‘faith pavilion’. Evangelicals Now spoke to four leading Christian environmental organisations about their hopes and fears for the conference.
Portugal: rapid evangelical growth
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
UK mission agencies Crosslinks and European Mission Fellowship are hailing the astonishing growth of evangelical churches across Portugal over the last few years, driven mainly by highly intentional church planting.
Data recently published by the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance shows a remarkable increase in church plants by evangelical churches. Fully 44% of the evangelical churches in the country were started after 2001 and over 60% have ‘defined plans and locations to plant new churches in the next five years’. A large majority say their church is growing. These churches range in size from less than ten members to congregations of over 300.
S. Sudan: Believers share – though poor
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
South Sudanese Christians caught up in the
ongoing civil war have been sharing their
few possessions with others – and seeing
people give glory to God.
Tut Kony, director of a South Sudan-based
umbrella mission organisation
says:’ Our
organisation is partnering [Bible translators]
unfoldingWord
[sic]
in
translating
the
Bible into Sudan’s unreached-people group
languages. It also runs a school for believers
from a Muslim background who are leading house church networks. Since the start of the
war, we have also provided 562 families with
food, and basic medical supplies.
Christian climate scientists speak out
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
The summer heatwave across the northern hemisphere has seen almost uncontrollable forest fires break out from Canada to China, Algeria to Greece, as soaring, record temperatures hit the high-40°sC.
But as soon as the flames were doused, the question on many people’s minds was – to what extent are these record thermometer levels the result of human-made climate change?
French evangelical group under fire
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Evangelical group Torrents de Vie has attracted the hostility of the media and the government in France after a journalist covertly recorded images and conversations at one of the organisation’s summer camps.
Torrents de Vie means ‘Streams Of Life’. Part of a larger international inter-denominational Christian ministry, it is active in ten French cities offering seminars, pastoral counselling and conferences. Its website says it ‘offers spiritual support, combining teaching, listening and prayer, to Christians of all denominations seeking help for their personal difficulties. Our values are based on Biblical love and grace’.
Haiti: rare piece of good news in dark situation
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
A Christian nurse who was kidnapped in
Haiti has been released, saying she ‘holds
no grudges’ against her abductors and
forgives them.
She added: ‘My clinic doors are always
open to you or anyone in need when you’re
sick or wounded, without any problem.’
Morocco: help comes
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Christians from around the world are on the ground bringing urgent relief in Morocco, following the huge earthquake there. The epicentre of the quake was in the Atlas Mountains, about 40 miles southwest of the busy tourist city of Marrakech. Thousands are dead and injured.
A representative of the Bible Society in Morocco said: ‘Your prayers and concern mean a lot to us here in Morocco … I am in the affected area, working alongside teams from different churches. We are delivering food supplies to believers and their families, and we are also assessing the needs for the near future.’
Innovative outreach to Jerusalem holocaust survivors
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jul 2023
An innovative gospel outreach in Jerusalem has sparked great interest among hundreds of Jewish people wanting to know more about the claims of Jesus.
The brainchild of the International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP), the five-day initiative was specifically designed for those who had lived through the Holocaust. It comprised four tours of Biblical sites in Galilee, ending with a concert featuring performances by local musicians (all Jewish believers in Jesus), and a gospel presentation by IMJP missionary, Aviel Sela. It formed part of a strategic plan, developed over a number of years, to reach Jewish people with the good news about Jesus. More than 200 people joined the site tours, to places such as the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, and 185 Jewish people attended the concert, 156 of whom gave their contact details and took away Christian literature.
Young French believers meet en masse
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jul 2023
Around 6,500 teenagers and young people from churches across France gathered in Zénith d’Auvergne at a large triennial congress – Echo 2023 – that seeks to encourage young members of evangelical churches to discover God’s calling. The theme of Echo 2023 was ‘See, I Am Doing Something New’ (Isa. 43:9).
The programme was based on three areas: ‘Me and God; Us and God; You and Me’. It included preaching, worship, workshops, concerts and special programmes for Ados (12–17 years old) and Jeunes (18 and over). Christian youth workers also offered training and connections. Seminars addressed issues such as Bible reading, Christian ethics, science and faith, and sexuality.
‘All the drug dealers thought we were stealing their clients.’ This is Igal’s story
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Mar 2023
Igal Vender was born in Ukraine but emigrated to Israel with his family in 1988. He began using drugs as a child and later switched to heroin and cocaine.
Igal writes: ‘I was an addict and in and out of prison, but empty inside. I came to faith after meeting an old friend who had become a Christian. Now I am a missionary with IMJP (the International Mission to Jewish People) telling Jewish people about Jesus.’ Igal Vender tells his story to Iain Taylor for en.
Cyclone Freddy: missionary’s anguish
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Apr 2023
An evangelical missionary in Mozambique says storms and rain were ‘incessant’ and poorly-constructed houses around her were ‘flooding and collapsing’ as a tropical storm battered the country.
Cyclone Freddy, the longest-ever recorded tropical cyclone, which has returned several times, ripped through the country and neighbouring Malawi with over 600 dead and countless people missing, injured or made homeless.
Church planter and Bible student wins ‘Miss Germany’
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Apr 2023
The new Miss Germany, Kira Geiss,
is
a committed Christian. She has won a
title that, according to the organisers, is
no
longer about beauty alone, but also
about social engagement and the ability to
empower other people.
‘I think it is time to not only take care of
the healthy maintenance of our planet, but
also to actively engage in allowing people
to heal and grow internally’, she says on
the Miss Germany website, where she
is
described as a
‘theology student, aspiring religious and
community
educator, and
visual merchandiser’.
Persecution of Christians ‘doubles’ over 30 years
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Mar 2023
Persecution scores have almost doubled over the last 30 years, the latest 'World Watch List' from Open Doors reveals.
2023 marks the 30th year that the gruesome chart has been compiled. To mark the occasion, Evangelicals Now obtained exclusive interviews with Jim Shannon MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB), and Timothy Cho, Open Doors UK spokesperson for North Korea.
Successful missions in Guinea and Malawi
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Aug 2022
The GoodWORD
Partnership,
based
in Minneapolis, USA,
has
facilitated
evangelistic
and
training
initiatives
in
largely Moslem parts of Guinea, West
Africa, and Malawi, southern Africa.
In Guinea, where
only
7%
of
the
population is Christian, experienced church
leaders from five African countries and the
United States undertook
three weeks of
joint ministry. It included outreach to seven
prisons where a
total of 3,600
inmates
were
fed, both physically and spiritually;
equipping a Christian medical clinic in a
Moslem community; a three-day conference
on evangelism attended by 225 church
leaders and encouraging the local churches to cooperate
in
sharing
the gospel. One
evangelical
denominational
leader
in
Conakry, a city of 2 million people, said: ‘We
are now ready and committed to cooperate
in sharing the gospel in our city.’
Russia crackdown: outdoor evangelism ban
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Feb 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a controversial new package of counter-terrorism measures, including tougher sentences for extremism and heightened electronic surveillance of Russian citizens.
The law also bans evangelism outside church buildings, and anyone involved in a religious event must secure a government permit through a registered religious organisation. The restrictions even apply to activity in private residences and online. Foreign visitors who break this law will face deportation.
Israel: Netanyahu’s return prompts concern
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Dec 2022
The return of Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party, who has just swept back to power in Israel with the aid of new far-right allies, is causing concern amongst mission agencies working with Jewish people.
Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, having been in office for a total of 15 years, from 1996-99 and 2009-21. He has been a controversial figure for many years, not least for facing charges of bribery and fraud whilst previously in office. His main new coalition partner, the Religious Zionists, is led by the right-wing extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who celebrated their electoral success at an all-male campaign gathering overnight in Jerusalem, where supporters waved Israeli flags and chanted ‘death to terrorists’.
‘If we must die because of our faith in Jesus, that is what we must do’
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Dec 2022
Following the latest military coup in Burkina Faso, the West’s politicians are apparently now worried that Russian mercenaries may be invited in to quell the jihadist uprising there.
Meanwhile, Western Christians are being asked to pray for their brothers and sisters in the unstable and poverty-stricken West African nation, that they may have the courage to keep preaching the gospel.
From three to 25,000 – but militants tried to kidnap my teenage daughter
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Sep 2022
Indian church-planting missionary Elavatta Abraham has an extraordinary experience of how God has worked in his life.
He told his story exclusively to Evangelicals Now during a brief trip to the UK to attend the Cambridge Leaders Network conference.