The Third Degree
UCCF
Date posted: 1 Jan 2004
How's your personal evangelism going? - I'm not just asking if you've been leading on Christianity Explored course or even speaking at guest events. I'm wondering how we're all doing in making opportunities to explain the gospel to people, talking about Jesus with our work colleagues, or unbelieving family members, and finding ways of being a witness in the community in which we live?
I'm asking, not because I'm in a position to make such a challenge, but because I have been deeply challenged. And by a surprising group of people: students in Christian Unions.
Look back with thanks - anniversaries in 2004
Joy Horn
Date posted: 1 Jan 2004
General
Robert Bruce, Scottish minister, was born in 1554. Having opposed King James VI's design to introduce bishops into the Church of Scotland, he was banished from Edinburgh and for several years confined to Inverness, but great crowds attended whenever he was able to preach.
James Buchanan, Scottish Free Church theologian, was born in 1804. Like most Scottish evangelicals, he left the established church in 1843, and became minister of St. Stephen's Free Church, Edinburgh, and later professor in New College.
'Worse than us!'
Gerard Chrispin
Date posted: 1 Mar 2004
Hypocrisy is just as alive in the prisons as it is in the churches!
Usually, preaching the gospel in prison means that most of your hearers know they have 'messed up' their lives, and they know that you know they have. So there is often a more honest starting point of admission of sin than sometimes we see in our respectable churches.
Letter from America
A tale of two games
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Mar 2004
This year the Super Bowl was between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. During the Super Bowl I went to a Super Bowl party.
A Super Bowl party means eating and watching the game on TV, or at least the commercials which air in between the frequent time outs and other interruptions which so bemuse a British observer. The commercials are particularly expensive to air during this prime time viewing moment of the year and consequently vie for being the most memorable or funny.
Holes
Mary Stolarski
Date posted: 1 Mar 2004
None Review
Sit back & enjoy HOLES
Read review
English lessons
John Marsh
Date posted: 1 Mar 2004
Book Review
MORE THAN A METHODIST
The life and ministry of Donald English
Read review
Mission impossible
Many evangelical churches are relatively small and face great problems. At EN we dreamed up the kind of difficult local church situation into which young ministers/pastors and their families are often sent.
We asked four men to comment on how they might, under God, seek to turn things round if they were confronted with such a church.
Islam unveiled
Paul Wells
Date posted: 1 Feb 2004
Islam in France is on the move. It is estimated that there are now about five million Muslims in France (against fewer than one million Protestants or Jews), and one million or so have full voting rights.
Such a substantial minority can only be expected to make its voice heard and to retain the electoral attentions of politicians.
Reach the lost estates of Britain
Jen Baxter
Date posted: 1 Feb 2004
Twenty per cent of Britain's population lives on housing estates - almost ten million people. Yet these areas are little impacted by churches.
The Living in Estates Conference was designed 'to refresh and encourage those already engaged in this mission field and to inspire and advise those thinking about making the move'.
Paul Brand: joy beyond riches
John Benton
Date posted: 1 Dec 2003
Dr. Paul Brand was best known for his medical labours among lepers in India. His work was immortalised in the popular book 'Ten Fingers for God' by Dorothy Clarke Wilson. He died in July, though his obituary did not appear in The Daily Telegraph until September.
He was the son of missionary parents in India. When I saw the notice of Dr. Brand's passing I took a special interest because his father, Jesse Brand, was sent out to India as a missionary from our own congregation way back in 1907. In fact, his grandfather, Henry, besides being an alderman of Guildford, was also a deacon of our church. Jesse was noted for his evangelistic zeal. With others he had begun a tract society in the town and it is interesting to read some of its records. The members distributed Christian tracts to houses, on public transport and in the public parks. During 1905-6, nearly 19,000 tracts were given out. One entry in the records reads: 'Dogs were a menace. But two women went to a house with a tract in one hand and a bone for the dog in the other!'
Monthly column on youth work
UCCF
Date posted: 1 Dec 2003
Admin is like Marmite: you either love it or hate it. For me, when it comes to hot buttered toast, I can't resist adding a dollop of the brown sticky stuff, but for all things administrative I am more than happy to put them off until another day.
So, after a recent bout of filing, I was surprised to find myself feeling encouraged and full of thankfulness to God. For one, my desk now looked respectable beside the desk of the girl I share an office with (who barely allows a piece of paper to stay on her desk for two minutes). More significantly though, I created a file labelled 'EN' and, as I inserted cuttings of this column from the last 18 months, saw how God has been working.
UCCF's contribution to the Worldwide Church
Lindsay Brown
Date posted: 1 Dec 2003
UCCF celebrated 75 years of student ministry this year. In a two-part article, Lindsay Brown reflects on its contribution to the church. This month he looks at the UK.
I served on UCCF staff nearly 25 years ago and, as I write, I cast my mind back further, to my own student days in the early-mid 70s. I carry a deep sense of gratitude to God for the Inter-Varsity Fellowship, now UCCF.
Music
Yaks with bronchitis!
Richard Simpkin
Date posted: 1 Jan 2004
Have you ever sat next to someone in church who sings like a yak with bronchitis? What can possibly be going on in their heart as they honk out 'I'm in that place once again' on a monotone?
I spoke on a Christian Union's house party a while ago, and we saw in the Bible that if we belong to Jesus, then whoever we are, whether we can sing or not, we have the most intimate relationship with God that we could ever hope for or deserve (1 Corinthians 6.17).
Iraq: 'The Lord is doing something'
Mike Creswell
Date posted: 1 Jan 2004
Mike Creswell works for the Southern Baptist News Service. In November he visited Iraq and looked at some of the projects the Southern Baptists are involved with.
Approaching Baghdad, the twin-prop, 19-seat plane does not circle. It does not descend slowly. Instead, the plane does a hard right turn, goes just about sideways and sort of falls out of the air, levelling off at the last minute to land some seconds ahead of your stomach. Fortunately the pilot tells you before it happens that it's going to happen, but still . . .
JOINED UP
Roger Fawcett
Date posted: 1 Jan 2004
Book Review
An Introduction to Youthwork and Ministry
Read review
NEAC: Anglicans stand firm
David Baker
Date posted: 1 Nov 2003
Hundreds of delegates at a landmark gathering of Anglican evangelicals have been challenged to renew their passion for the essentials of evangelical belief - and to trust one another more.
Around 2,000 people, including about 30 bishops from Britain and abroad, attended the Fourth National Evangelical Anglican Conference (NEAC4) in Blackpool over five days to hear dozens of speakers focus on the theme 'Bible, Cross and Mission'.
Start a Christian group at work
Ben Stone
Date posted: 1 Nov 2003
At the London Men's Convention in May there was an interview with Ben Stone, who works for Schroders.
This month Ben tells EN more about life as a Christian in the City (London's financial district), and how he set up the Christian group that meets regularly at his firm . . .
Letter from America
A shining sun
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Dec 2003
I recently went to hear Chuck Colson, the famed author of Born Again, once notorious as an insider in the political Watergate scandal. He was sent to prison. But in the midst of the maelstrom surrounding him, Chuck Colson became 'born again'. Ever since, he has been the highly regarded and influential leader of Prison Fellowship.
Colson was speaking about Jonathan Edwards. In his lecture he touched on a wide variety of contemporary themes and issues that are facing evangelicals. In particular, he suggested, the drift towards moral relativism was likely to face a turnaround as a result of September 11. It's hard, was the gist of what he was saying, to swallow the idea that there is no evil in the world when you watch airplanes on suicide missions colliding into buildings containing thousands of human lives.
Replanting the Bible on campus
Jonny Woodrow & Matthew Spriggs
Date posted: 1 Sep 2003
UCCF came into being as it defended Bible Christianity on campus. Recent events Loughborough University show that their historical stance is still necessary...
We are two Christian students at Loughborough and this is our account of the attempts that have been made to maintain a biblical witness on campus over the last few years. Our purpose in writing this article is to encourage university students to be faithful disciples of Christ by rooting evangelism and discipleship in the word of God.
