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Jonathan Winch

Date posted: 1 Mar 2022

Jonathan Winch, Executive Director of Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Newcastle, spoke to Ronaldo André, one of their students. This is part of their conversation. ‘When I was five I ran away from home; my father was an alcoholic and would have killed me. I spent the next year and a half living on the streets of Brazil.

‘The police can’t arrest little children; they just beat them up and let them go. My life as a little child became about drugs, theft and robbery on behalf of the criminal gangs that vie for control of Brazil’s streets. I witnessed stabbings; I saw people setting others on fire. And then one day a woman stopped me and offered me a place in a children’s home.

The Free Church of Scotland have recently released a video and booklet promoting their aim to see a healthy gospel church for every community in Scotland:

Healthy in ministry; healthy in mission; healthy in training; and healthy, growing gospel congregations that are a blessing to the community around them. David Meredith, the Mission Director of the Free Church of Scotland, said: ‘The key to developing a healthy gospel church is to be rooted in two things – rooted in the world of the Bible and its proclamation, while building a bridge into contemporary society. The sweet spot of being faithful to Christ and the Bible, and engaging with our own society.’

The Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) says it is seeing encouraging signs of growth both in existing churches and in new fellowships joining.

AMiE describes itself as ‘a fellowship of faithful Anglican churches committed to gospel mission’ and is linked to GAFCON, the global movement of Anglicans committed to orthodox views on sexuality.

Dr Michael Griffiths, renowned author, speaker and former General Director of OMF International, died at the age of 93 on 9 January.

Michael was born in Cardiff in 1928, and came to faith in Christ in 1942 at a Christ’s Hospital School Christian Union meeting, under the preaching of an exiled German pastor. Studying Natural Sciences at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, he served on the Executive Committee of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union in several positions, including as President. He graduated in 1952, but stayed on at Ridley Hall to train for Anglican ministry. At this time Michael met his wife Valerie, at a conference on English Puritans at Martyn Lloyd Jones’ Westminster Chapel.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 1 Mar 2022

More than 750 churches across the UK and Ireland have signed up to A Passion for Life – a pioneering, month-long, evangelistic mission this Easter.

The mission is providing the tools to enable individual churches to ‘plan, build and promote’ their evangelism in the lead-up to Easter. They range from online support resources to training videos, which the organisers said are being well-received by churches.

The Annual Conference of the London Gospel Partnership has taken place at East London Tabernacle, hosted by their pastor Ray Brown.

Given the effort and necessity of pastors and churches across London to respond faithfully to the challenges of the pandemic, the conference’s theme was gospel hope in a post-Covid landscape.

Jim Sayers

Date posted: 1 Apr 2022

With news of how God brings blessing and new life out of the darkest of situations in His church, Jim Sayers of the Association of Grace Baptist Churches writes:

What happens when your church building gets destroyed in an air raid? That happened to the church in Chatham Road, Wandsworth Common on 15 October 1940. After World War 2, large numbers of Londoners moved out to the new towns. A number of Grace Baptist churches were planted in these new towns in the 50s and 60s, a time of real social change. So Fryerns Baptist Church was planted in Basildon, Essex in 1954 to replace the church in Wandsworth.

The Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) has met for the first time as a Convocation since the pandemic.

AMiE – a network of Anglican churches outside the Church of England, and linked to GAFCON – had as its conference theme ‘Thrive.’

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Jan 2022

International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP) is to step up its efforts to reach and share the gospel with Jewish people living in London, the result of a discernible new openness among some to hear and receive the good news.

One such person was Simon, a young Jewish punk rock singer. Befriended by an IMJP missionary, he revealed how tough he was finding lockdown. The missionary talked about the hope he had in Jesus, Simon accepted a copy of John’s Gospel and the two are now having regular one-to-one Bible studies.

Around 50 members of more than ten different churches have met at Jubilee Church Hull to celebrate all that God has been doing since October 2018.

The vision of Hull 2030, which began then, is to pray and work together to see 20 healthy gospel-centred churches planted in Hull by 2030; as well as to encourage church revitalisation and gospel co-operation.

April 2022 marks the half-way point of a Ten Year Vision for the Irish Baptist College (IBC).

As of this year, IBC has been in existence for 130 years. Originating in Dublin in 1892, it moved to Belfast in 1963 and since 2003 has been located in the lush countryside near Moira. The College’s primary focus has always been to serve the Irish church context; even so, graduates have served on all the inhabited continents of the globe.

Nicola Laver

Date posted: 1 Mar 2022

Christchurch Durham is facing mounting pressure to commission an independent review following serious allegations of abuse of power against the pastor, who left last December.

Tony Jones, senior pastor at the independent Anglican church until his resignation last year, has been accused of abuses of power and governance and presiding over a ‘culture of fear’.

The future of organisations like the Titus Trust depends on whether they realise power must be redeemed as well as people, a psychologist who attended the Iwerne Camps has told en.

Dr Simon Walker, a Christian psychologist who works in school mental-health safeguarding, and who was at Iwerne Camps in the 1980s, was speaking after the publication of a report into the Titus Trust by independent charity Thirtyone:eight, which aims to protect vulnerable people from abuse.

From Kingston-upon-Thames (photo left) to Strathclyde (photo right), students in Christian Unions across the UK have been active welcoming first-year students.

Dinners, picnics, tables at Freshers’ Fairs laden with cake, even an online ‘Yorkshire pudding bake-along’ – all these sought to create an inclusive space for any students’ first contact with Christians.