Bibles opened in Bulgaria
Thomas McBride
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Students from the UK have formed a mission team with UCCF to Bulgaria for the first time in eight years.
A team of students from university CUs across the Midlands, led by two staff from UCCF (the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship), spent a fortnight teaching local students English while providing an opportunity to study God’s word with them.
2,957 patients... 17,520 animals... 1,520 filmgoers –
and 800 people finding solace and hope in Christ
Gary Clayton
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
In the West, it’s fairly easy to see a doctor,
dentist or vet. In a remote, drought-stricken
area of Kenya, however, the inhabitants are
not so fortunate, Gary Clayton writes.
Earlier
this
year, Mission
Aviation
Fellowship partnered with
friends
from
Christ Is The Answer Ministries (CITAM) to
fly a team of doctors, dentists, veterinarians
and missionaries
to Olturot
in northern
Kenya.
‘Numerous’ conversions and baptisms in new network
Susie Leafe
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
The Anglican Network in Europe (ANiE) is growing. Not just because churches are joining or because new churches are being planted – but because God is at work in the lives of ordinary men and women who want to profess their newfound faith in the Lord Jesus.
In June, Trinity Church, Scarborough posted online some fantastic photos (some of which are show here) of a service where nine of their congregation were baptised, which prompted the question, to a WhatsApp group of ANiE leaders, of where else this was happening,
Pain after report on Mike Pilavachi
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Churches and Christian organisations have spoken of their sadness and pain as the official report into well-known charismatic leader Mike Pilavachi said he displayed coercive and controlling behaviour at the church and had inappropriate relationships.
His actions included massaging young male interns and wrestling young men as he used his ‘spiritual authority to control people’.
‘I thought, wow, that is three seismic events in one year...’
John Woods
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Andrew Wilson is based in Eastbourne and serves as the Teaching Pastor at King’s Church London.
Andrew will be familiar to many from his books, including The God of All Things and 1 Corinthians for Today, the Think Theology website, and his regular columns in US magazine, Christianity Today. Our Reviews Editor John Woods was pleased to have the opportunity to chat with Andrew about his latest book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, which is now hot off the press from Crossway.
Seniors’ champ
Faith in Later Life
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Faith
in Later Life
has announced
the
appointment
of
a
new Lead Officer,
Alexandra Drew, to
take forward its work
to inspire and equip
Christians to reach,
serve and empower older people in every
community, through the local church.
Alexandra (known as Alex) comes from
the West of England Baptist Network and
the Seventy-Two network, which describes
itself as ‘a catalyst for missional movement,
across England and Wales, through Baptist
networks.’
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.’
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.’
news in brief
Central America –
evangelical majority
Evangelicalism is now the majority faith
in Central America, a new survey shows.
42% now identify as Protestants (mostly
evangelical) while under 40% identify as
Roman Catholics.
The research was carried out in Nicaragua,
Guatemeala, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador
and Honduras
by M&R Consultores.
In Nicaragua,
for example,
the Catholic
Church has lost 60% of its adherents since
1950 and currently only one person
in
three claims to be Catholic. Non-Catholics
represented only 4% then, but by 2023 that
number has risen to 65%.
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’.
Scotland & Jewish people
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Dear Editor,
I greatly appreciated David Robertson’s forthright feature on the Church of Scotland’s decline It (September en). particularly grieves me too because of the debt my family owe to Scottish missionaries who came out to South Africa to help shepherd my Dutch-Afrikaner ancestors, scattered to the interior by overbearing British rule in Cape Town.
AI – our unnecessary angst?
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
If you’ve seen Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, you’ll know the hunt is on for the key to a powerful sentient AI entity – a villainous entity that threatens to unleash god-like omnipotence over the entire world.
It’s a timely movie, illustrating the potential (if fictional) power of artificial intelligence; it’s prescience wasn’t lost on me (I watched it the same night I’d finished the first part of this article).
Ten Questions: Dad jokes and Spurgeon
Ross Hendry
1. How did you become a Christian?
Will there be a place for me in the Church of England?
In August, the Church of England announced that a series of meetings were to be held in September ahead of the bishops presenting to November’s General Synod ‘proposals to enable same-sex couples to come to church following a civil marriage or civil partnership for prayers of dedication, thanksgiving and for God’s blessing’.
This was a stark signal that the bishops are still intending to ‘move the goalposts’ in the Church of England’s teaching and practice regarding sexual ethics and to introduce significant change. As such, this will be a more substantive change than other liberalising changes in recent times since it will formally enshrine in our liturgy a doctrinal change divergent to our ‘foundation deeds’.