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Rico Tice (pictured) has launched the 2022 Passion for Life mission with 2 Timothy 1:10, reminding everyone that Jesus has destroyed death.

In a short video he says: ‘I know the pandemic has been brutal, but it has opened things up. [People] are looking for answers. We’ve all been rocked. How can we help people to go from hunger and spectating, to actively following Jesus? Let’s come together as we seek to answer that question.’ A Passion for Life took place nationwide in 2010 and 2014. Tice says the hope is that ‘life and immortality will be brought to light as we proclaim the gospel of Jesus to all corners of the UK. ‘So many are talking about this being a reset. Surely there’s no better time for us to gather together again and proclaim Christ … put March and April 2022 in the church diary, and begin praying and planning for a Passion for Life.’

A new chaplain has joined the Railway Mission – an organisation founded in 1881 to provide pastoral care and support for staff on trains and in stations.

Helen Lewis (see photo) is the new Railway and British Transport Police Chaplain for South and Mid-Wales. Helen came to faith in Christ at the age of 14 and re-committed her life to serving God while at university.

en explains the latest developments – and what may come

What has happened?

First, independent Christian safeguarding charity Thirtyone:eight published a ‘lessons learnt’ report into disgraced former minister Jonathan Fletcher’s time at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon from 1982 and 2012. Previously it had emerged that Fletcher had engaged in naked massages with men as well as beatings on their bare backsides, among other things.

Almost 1,000 church leaders have urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson not to impose controversial vaccine passports on churches in England.

In an open letter published a few days ago, the pastors and ministers say they are ‘are wholly opposed to this suggestion’ and say that to ‘deny people entry to hear this life-giving message and to receive this life-giving ministry would be a fundamental betrayal of Christ and the gospel.’

Scripture Union England and Wales (SU) has launched a mission framework, Revealing Jesus, based upon research undertaken about how people come to faith. Its aim is to see children and young people find a personal vibrant faith in Jesus.

It’s designed to connect with the 95% of under-18s who have no contact with church in England and Wales. In four steps, – Connect, Explore, Respond, Grow – young people are guided and supported on their faith journey.

Evangelicals in the Church of England have been preparing to contend in the wake of the launch of Living in Love and Faith – while a new Anglican network has also been set up.

At the latest General Synod, a presentation was given on the new Living in Love and Faith (LLF) resources on issues of sexuality and gender.

Founded in 1893 as the Foreign Missions Club, the Highbury Centre is a Christian guest house in North London which has given shelter to missionaries, pastors, full-time Christian workers and their families for over 100 years.

Now, in the second English lockdown, unable to open unless people are travelling on essential business, Sue Scalora of the Centre said: ‘The Lord has helped us through the ups and downs, and we’ll try and keep open even though we’re making a loss at the moment serving the Lord’s people.’

Three evangelical church plants in differing networks have taken their first steps forward across the UK.

Grace Church Beckenham

Pastor of the new Grace Church Beckenham, Matt Dew-Jones, says people in this new congregation are passionate about both Beckenham itself, and God’s grace. ‘God is a giver (in so many ways), and ultimately at the cross. As we see a world marked by taking …we love that [God] gives forgiveness and the power to change.’ In statements on their website, the church is clear it wants to ‘become generous like Jesus. We want our lives, our time, energy and money to be used to serve Jesus and His world’ and they want to be a place where ‘people like me love people who are not like me in a committed church family’.

A Reading shopping centre, part-owned by an investment company based in Abu Dhabi, caved in to LGBT demands to drop a US fast-food restaurant from renting premises, it was reported in October.

Owners of the Oracle centre in Reading will not renew Chic-fil-A’s six-month lease, claiming it is the ‘right thing to do’. In 2012 the restaurant’s CEO, Dan Cathy, stated that the company supported the ‘biblical definition of the family unit’. It donated money to Christian charities that support traditional marriage.

The government opened a consultation¹ in July (closing on 7 November) on Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education, seeking views on the draft regulations and statutory guidance to schools.

This is already part of the curriculum in most schools as PHSE, but is due to become compulsory. Many parents, including Christians, are abdicating their responsibility to teach sex and relationships to their own children. Aware of this, the government has taken the chance to construct a curriculum which includes some helpful elements, but also some unhelpful teaching about sex and family life.

On 3 July George Verwer celebrated his 80th birthday and announced a tour of the UK to 20 or so train stations to give friends a chance to meet him and pray.

He said he needed a ‘sabbatical’ from big events after last year’s OM 60th celebration. George said he wanted to be able to have time to sit with people, and big parties don’t allow for that. So through July and August he plans to sit in coffee shops and train stations for a few hours so people can have a few minutes conversation, ‘maybe a prayer and for sure a photo – for me maybe a few tears’.

Reach out. Build up. Send out.

A mission statement of ‘sharing the life-giving story of God with London and the world’ could seem overambitious to say the least, but with the use of a vast building in central London surrounded by people from all around the world, this Euston Church statement is wonderfully appropriate.

After their church building was compulsory purchased, one might think that the church family, moving into a new building, might just take a few years to settle.

But this has not been the case at Enfield Evangelical Free Church (EEFC) in the north of London.

There was a glossy feel to the annual meetings of the Grace Baptist Mission on Saturday 27 October.

First of all, the venue, the Friends Meeting House in Euston, London had been refurbished – new seats, new stage, flashy data projector equipment and perhaps best of all new loos!

After 40 years of beach mission work at Lyme Regis, United Beach Mission (UBM) are happy that in the Spring of this year they were granted a further three years to run the children’s summer club after a challenge by a local councillor, over the past two years, put the work under threat.

Councillor Mark Gage, who in his profile on the Lyme Regis Town Council website puts a priority area for development as ‘youth facilities’, expressed concerns about UBM’s work with children on the beach. In the local paper, Tim Howlett, UBM’s executive officer, was clear that families are made aware of the Christian nature of the work of UBM and its aim to share the good news of Jesus, encouraging families to be involved and that no children are encouraged to attend without the permission of their parents.