The fastest-growing church? Maybe not what you think
Milla Ling-Davies
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
A new report from the Bible Society has
revealed that the fastest-growing church in
the UK is the Chinese Church.
In just the last two years, there has been
29% growth in the Chinese Church in the
UK – a large jump from the 7% growth they’d seen in the previous ten years. This is
largely due to people emigrating from Hong
Kong to Britain.
Job done, says missionary to Africa
Charles Gardner
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
Ex-Muslims are making disciples among a largely unreached people.
After 25 years of sharing the gospel in sub-Saharan Africa, a previously London-based physiotherapist feels able to say that her ‘mission is accomplished’.
A cry from the heart of London: can you help us?
Andrew Murray
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
A Soho church is issuing a heartfelt plea for a new pastor to join it in one of the UK’s toughest mission areas.
Andrew Murray, who has been pastor of Hope Church, West End – which serves Soho and Covent Garden – says that after four decades of struggle the congregation is now just nine.
Palestinian Christians urge Western believers to repent
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
Palestinian Christians have urged Western church leaders and theologians to repent of voicing ‘uncritical support for Israel’ and ‘re-examine’ their positions.
A group of Christians, including Kairos Palestine, Bethlehem Bible College, and Christ at the Checkpoint, has published an open letter saying they ‘grieve and lament the renewed cycle of violence in our land’.
Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul?
David Baldwin
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
The message of Christ is for ‘all the nations’. Every Christian celebrates this little Biblical phrase because without it we wouldn’t have heard the gospel.
Of course over time many involved in missions have found it more manageable to focus on one particular region or people group. There’s some good sense in that, but I’m far less happy when I hear missionaries saying things like I heard again the other day: ‘The Lord has only sent us among (name of people group)’.
The future of the West
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Dear Editor,
I read with interest Josh Moody’s view that the West is at a tipping point. Sadly, I believe the West has long passed that point. For years in the US, Christians have aligned themselves with the Republican Party rather than the Democrats, presumably because they felt there was more hope in politics than in God. In Britain, the Christian Institute has successfully garnered funding at a time when missions struggle to get sufficient for their needs. This is not to cast aspersions on the Institute, which does a fine job, but it does make me think that British Christians are more interested in preserving their disappearing public presence and protection than in promoting the gospel of Christ, which is the only hope for turning the tables, as it always was. Europe has lost its hold on the Biblical truths rescued by the reformers, and we have to look to places where the church is persecuted to see growth!
Punched leader prays for attackers
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
London City Mission’s chief executive Graham Miller and his wife Alison are recovering after an assault in Earlsfield. Their daughter witnessed the attack.
Miller said they were assaulted after he ‘challenged some kids for abusing a cafe manager next to the station’. He tweeted: ‘We were both punched repeatedly in the head from behind and Alison was knocked down. Kids were still hitting her whilst on the floor and passers-by had to tear them off.’
Climate hope – if promises are kept, say evangelicals
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Even as it opened, the UN Climate Change Conference COP 28 was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The BBC revealed claims that hosts, the United Arab Emirates, were planning to make oil and gas deals with 15 other countries at the event. Despite that, many Christian groups were represented there, some as part of the Christian Climate Observers Program, a non-denominational Christian presence advocating for God’s creation. All are, perhaps, encouraged by the fact that COP28 for the first time featured a ‘faith pavilion’. Evangelicals Now spoke to four leading Christian environmental organisations about their hopes and fears for the conference.
news in brief
Andy Croft resigns from Soul Survivor
On 23 November, it was announced that Senior Pastor Andy Croft would leave Soul Survivor Watford. He made the decision despite being allowed to return to ministry following an investigation into his safeguarding practices, and the practices of his former colleague Mike Pilavachi (who was found guilty of an abuse of power and spiritual abuse across 40 years of ministry).
In a letter to his congregation, Andy shared that he made the decision ‘after much soul searching and prayer’ and said that he and his family ‘intend to stay as part of the congregation’ while they discern their next steps. ‘I need to acknowledge that I myself have also been deeply impacted by aspects of Mike’s abusive behaviour’, he added.
Testing the fire
Tony Wilkinson
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Book Review
ISLAND AFLAME:
The Famed Lewis Awakening that
Never Occurred and the Glorious
Revival that Did (Lewis & Harris 1949–52)
Read review
Baby-boomers to Generation Z?
Charlotte Mayhew
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
How do we bridge generational divides to make Jesus known together?
The recent London City Mission ‘Diaspora Conference’ was an opportunity to bring Christians together from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere, to explore this vital question. With no easy answers to the complex tensions that often exist between generations in our church communities, we focused on listening and learning from each other’s experiences.
Moscow via the US to Wales...
Dave Gobbett
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Dave Gobbett, Lead Pastor, Highfields Church Cardiff, writes: It is a great thrill to report the launch of a new gospel congregation in South Wales.
November 5th will be the date to remember as the first meeting of Penarth Evangelical Church (penarthchurch.org.uk), planted by Highfields Church, Cardiff. With a core team of around 30 led by three elders, between 70 and 80 people, young and old, mature believers and interested enquirers, are now gathering together each week, committed to Bible-believing, cross-preaching, soul-reaching, and community-creating life together.
Chris Wigram
Luke Randall
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Chris Wigram has been announced by trustees as the Interim Chief Executive Officer of Global Connections (GC). He started in the post in late November, having previously served as GC’s Chair of Global Conventions between 2006 and 2008, and also as a board member. Chris has also served in leadership positions with OMF and ECM.
Global Connections is made up of several organisations and individuals including churches and charities, as well as others. It exists to support the UK church’s mission community at home and abroad.
Stay, says bishop
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Jill Duff, Bishop of Lancaster, who is orthodox on issues of sex and sexuality, and has been a leading voice opposing change, spoke to en.
She said: ‘Why should we leave? One of my heroes of church planting in the Polynesian islands was George Selwyn, an architect of the Anglican Communion. He had a compellingly pragmatic response to error: “But how, you will ask, shall the truth of doctrine be maintained if we tolerate in the mission field every form of error, and provide no safeguard for the purity of the faith? I answer that, as running water purifies itself, so Christian work is seen to correct its own mistakes.” I urge evangelicals to resist any intimidation, but instead to stay and contend for the gospel through the Church of England.’
YWAM founder Cunningham dies
en staff
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Loren Cunningham, the founder of international mission agency YWAM (Youth With A Mission), has died.
US magazine Christianity Today described him as a ‘charismatic visionary’ who ‘mobilized millions of young people for short-term trips’. He was 88.
Crisis crystallises new seriousness of purpose
James Ballinger
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
In 1560 Oda Nobunaga, known as the Great Unifier of Japan, fought a crucial battle in Owari Province that was to change the course of Japanese history. Some four and a half centuries later, over 1,000 evangelical church and ministry leaders of the church in Japan gathered in the same area, longing for a similar turning of the tide in the history of the church in Japan.
The theme of JCE7 (Japan Congress on Evangelism), which took place from 19-22 September in Gifu, was ‘Beginning from the End’ – Working together in the Mission of the Church. Aside from the pun (‘Owari’ is a homonym which can also mean ‘the End’) this title was an expression of the way that the current culture of the church is at something of a dead-end.* With the average age of a Japanese pastor close to 70, and with many churches facing closure before the next Congress planned in seven years’ time, this was a remarkably courageous acknowledgement of the dangers facing the church. But it was also a rallying cry to return to the Bible: ‘We want to examine the customs and cultures that have become embedded in the Japanese church. We want to take this as an opportunity to begin to sift these through the filter of the Bible, discarding what should be thrown away, and begin a movement to put an end to the customs and practices that don’t ‘make the cut.’
West Kilburn
Elizabeth Sims writes: On 16 September about 150 people met to give God praise and thanks for a new season in the life of West Kilburn Baptist Church (WKBC); the induction of Steve Palframan as the new pastor and the commissioning of our church revitalisation.
During the service, we recalled how over the past 2 years God had led us to this day. We gave God thanks for His gracious hand upon us whilst we were without a pastor and praised Him for the help and guidance of Johnny Prime and Trevor Archer from the FIEC.
Huge statue’s mission story
Mike Beresford
Date posted: 1 Nov 2022
A new statue called ‘Antelope’ has been unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London.
The artwork depicts Malawian pastor John Chilembwe standing next to a white pastor, John Chorley (see photo below, bottom left). Chilembwe came to faith in Christ in 1893 and was baptised on 17 July that year after getting to know Joseph Booth of the Zambesi Industrial Mission (now Zambesi Mission).
Scripture Union aims for ‘at least’ 3,500 groups in five year programme
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Scripture Union is aiming for ‘at least’ 3,500 groups in just three to five years time as it embarks on a new nationwide initiative.
SU – a Christian charity for children and young people aiming to share the gospel – is beginning its new ‘Mission Possible’ nationwide tour.
FIEC focuses on shepherding
Joel Murray
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Nearly 90 church leaders from across London arrived at Stockwell Baptist Church on for the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Church’s (FIEC) latest regular London Gathering.
The event is organised three times a year for church leaders (pastors, elders, women’s workers, and others) who are serving in FIEC churches and in other evangelical churches, groups and missions across London.
What is evangelical unity? Does it even matter?
Graham Nicholls
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
What is evangelical unity and does it matter? And anyway, who’s to say what an evangelical actually is, and even then, what would visible evangelical unity look like?
That was part of our discussion at the autumn meeting of the Affinity Council – a group of leaders from churches and Christian organisations that help guide Affinity as we set our priorities.
‘This will sear Jews and Arabs for years to come...’
Joseph Steinberg
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Isaiah 40:1 ‘Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.’
When I was eight years old, I remember sitting in front of my family’s black and white television while watching the Yom Kippur war unfolding in front of my eyes. It was exactly 50 years ago and, as a Jewish boy growing up in the USA, it was my first realisation that there was a country named Israel that Jewish people call home.
Unity? This spurious unity is sinful and deadly
In the aftermath of November’s General Synod, there has been a lot of talk about unity, whether the lack of it or the form of it.
When asked about division in the House of Bishops, Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, has been quoted as saying: ‘What we’re trying to model is how do you, despite the fact we may have different views, seek to try to find a place we can occupy together.’ Justin Welby, reflected: ‘Archbishops of Canterbury must always work for the maximum possible unity in the Church, however impossible that may seem and however deep our differences.’