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The 600 men who attended the fifth Cardiff Men’s Convention in 2008 are still telling us that it was ‘the best convention yet’. Once more the All Nations Centre in Cardiff was filled with men who brought a compassion to worship, a real hunger for truth in the teaching and, maybe most important of all, the encouragement of being with other Christian men.

The title of this year’s convention was ‘Leaving a Legacy’, the central idea being that Christian men have a significant responsibility to create a positive legacy in their churches, their family, their workplace and in the wider community. The teaching was designed to challenge and inspire, but also to equip men to take on that responsibility.

I recently heard a sermon on Luke 13 and the parable of the diminutive-but-soon-to-be-huge mustard seed. One of the upshots of Jesus telling us that the Kingdom of God is steadily growing is that we need to get a right understanding about what is really important and cultivate a ‘healthy disrespect for the rich and powerful’.

I assume that an unhealthy disrespect for the rich and powerful might be some sort of shallow critical attitude that licences feelings of prejudice and moral superiority. A healthy disrespect, meanwhile, recognises that although some people have the privilege of great wealth and power, it is not an enviable privilege. The mustard seed teaches that, eventually, having material riches and power will count for nothing if they are not invested in the growth of the Kingdom of God.

One day last summer I lost my church. Or rather, it lost me.

I’d been out of the country a couple weeks, and, therefore, hadn’t been to church in a while. My first Sunday back, I showed up at the usual time and place ready to reconnect with friends through a communal experience of faith.

There is a mission field that I’ve always struggled to know how to reach with the gospel. It’s made up of what I call ‘choral atheists’.

These are people who belong to church choirs or choral societies, they sing Christ-centred works like Bach’s Matthew Passion or Handel’s Messiah, and yet they don’t believe a word of what they sing. To be honest, I find that choral atheists are more hardened to the gospel than anyone else I meet. Just as hardened are the non-believers who like to listen to this music, which, though I don’t like the definition, I’ll refer to as sacred music.

Barry Seagren finds that the parallels between Islamic extremists and evangelical Christians are too close for comfort.

The term fundamentalist has always had negative connotations, and especially so since 9/11.

Towards a theology of sustainability

‘Sustainability’ is a concept in search of a home. Many have an idea of what it means, but scratch beneath the surface and the ideas are diverse at best, contradictory at worst.

Today sustainability has become a great rallying cry, adopted by politicians, economists, multinational corporations, scientists, environmentalists, town planners and faith leaders . . . but they use it to mean what they want it to mean.

Ali writes well, her opening is striking as she describes her mother’s and grandmother’s upbringing in nomadic clans in Somalia. Life is harsh and honour-based, Islam a mere veneer on ancient animistic culture.

EN: What is IFES? Could you explain something of its nature, history and objectives?

LB: IFES is a network of evangelical student ministries in 150 countries. In 1947 leaders of ten national student ministries met in Harvard with a vision to see a witness to Christ among students in every country. The largest movement is in Nigeria where close to 40,000 students meet in small group Bible studies.

Adrian Reynolds

Date posted: 1 Sep 2007

After months of anticipation, Cheltenham Bible Festival (CBF) finally arrived (August 9-11 2007) and, judging by this year’s success, will be around for quite a few years to come. The festival promised much — refreshed for life was the strap line — and it did exactly what it said on the tin.

Those who attended were extremely positive about the three days on the edge of the Cotswold hills — one word heard a lot by the jazz stage, kids’ clubs, main venue, exhibition halls, splash pools, creativity tent and circus area was ‘great.’

In 2005, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that if evangelicals chose a Pope, they would be likely to select John Stott.

Stott, who is 85, has been at the heart of evangelical renewal in the UK. His books and biblical sermons have transfixed millions throughout the world, and he has been involved in many important world councils and dialogues, not least as chair of the committee that drafted the Lausanne Covenant (1974) and the Manila Manifesto (1989), defining statements for evangelicals.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2005

Katrina did her worst. For many years geologists have predicted that the Mardi Gras city of New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. Situated between a river, a lake and the ocean, New Orleans is also significantly beneath sea level. There are levees (like the Dutch dikes) which exist to prevent the city from being swallowed by the sea. The old French settlers discovered that the city went under water in the summer and so built their houses on stilts.

Despite all such man-made attempts to turn back the basic rules of nature, hurricane Katrina, a force four, ripped through the barriers and destroyed a famous city at the end of August. The news and the pictures and the stories coming out of the area are simply horrific. Not now is there simply the natural disaster (of biblical proportions as one secular commentator noted), but there is also the human chaos inflicted on a society broken down, and rumours and eyewitness accounts of brutality and looting begin to abound.

Academic Theology as it is taught and studied in university faculties (AT in future) has changed progressively over the last 100 years.

It was once seen as the best way to prepare people for ministry, but is now frequently acknowledged to be almost irrelevant to that aim. University theology today is just not intended for that purpose. A senior academic theologian in a university department recently told me that if people wanted training for ministry they should look for it outside the universities, in institutions that aim to provide just that. This is a big change, and churches have not always caught up with the situation. For instance, some Anglican proposals for improving the training of ministers recently urged that there should be more academic theology insisted on for ordinands.

To mark such a special anniversary, a booklet has been produced which outlines this wonderful history. Compiled by IMM’s Hon. General Secretary, David Shillitoe, this testament to God’s work among the mining community makes very encouraging and inspiring reading. The extract below selected by Alicia Felce gives an example.

Having begun in a truly miraculous way with the conversion of a 70-year-old wealthy mine owner, the Mission has moved on to working in challenging situations to bring the gospel to dark places.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Apr 2006

Readers of a certain ilk may recognise the reference to an album from the aged rock group Supertramp: ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ The picture on that album ironically captured a man sunbathing with icons of industrial waste in the background.

For many today, the American establishment’s refusal to act on warnings of global warming has a similarly absurd, ostrich-like head in the sand feel. It would be funny if it were not so tragic.

Stuart Townend’s songs have captured the hearts of Christian people across the whole church spectrum. As he embarked on a new tour, he talked to EN.

EN: What, or whom, are your primary musical influences?

Over recent months God has intervened in the life of one local church and a national mission organisation to cause them both great happiness.

Their problem

What seemed to be an impossible situation for the Railway Mission (RM) and Calvary Evangelical Church (CEC) in Brighton proved eventually to be no problem to God.

Five substantial but well-proportioned buildings in natural stone overlook the Gloucester County Cricket Ground on Ashley Down in Bristol.

These are now the City of Bristol College, Brunel Campus, but stand as a lasting memorial to God’s amazing power in transforming a profligate sinner, and in graciously providing all the resources to establish and maintain a caring ministry which continues to this day, the bicentenary of his birth. How did this all come about?

Dr. Helen Roseveare, now in her 80th year worked with the Heart of Africa Mission during the 1950s and 60s. Her autobiography Give me this Mountain is a Christian missionary classic. With the publication of her new book Digging Ditches, EN was able to get an interview with her.

EN: What part of Africa did you serve in as a missionary?

The liberty of Christians to live and speak according to their moral beliefs is an area of growing concern to The Christian Institute.

There have been a number of alarming cases recently that demonstrate the rapidly changing attitude to Christian freedom. A street preacher from Bournemouth was convicted by magistrates for displaying a sign which said homosexuality was immoral.

Being a pastor never was an easy job, and in our society’s current secular climate there are extra pressures. Earlier this year EN conducted a survey of pastors to try to get some facts about being in the ministry in these days.

The survey asked ministers to comment on their experience of seven common areas of ministerial difficulty.