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I love the church, but something is happening to the church that I don't like. Over the past year I have visited a number of independent evangelical churches in the area where I live and my visits have left me feeling uneasy.

This is not because the Christians that I have met are ungodly people, or because the Bible is not being taught week by week, or because major heresy has crept unnoticed into church life. No, I feel uneasy because of the 'church culture' that seems to pervade many of these conservative evangelical churches - a culture that hinders Christian growth and denies outsiders the opportunity of hearing the gospel.

I believe it is an important responsibility to support young people at school, although my own involvement in the local Christian Union ebbs and flows. Do you know if your teenagers or younger children have a Christian Union or club at school?

As a youth leadership team think what you can do. You can pray for them, offer to visit, provide Bible Study resources, train the leaders, and invest in outreach projects. Don't forget about your youth group when they go home on Sunday night. On Monday morning they head for their battleground and try to live for Christ in one of the toughest places they will encounter - a 21st-century school.

Singleness was a great Goliath that roared at me during the first 11 years of my Christian life.

For some people it is not a problem, but for a considerable number it is a severe one. Many married couples carry colossal burdens which are frequently obvious. The trials of singleness are not often appreciated or understood as they are so inward and against nature.

Southern Baptist missionary Don Caswell saw the armed terrorist walking towards him and knew - just knew - the gunman was coming to kill him.

'I was looking at him and I saw him look at me. And that instant I realised he was coming right towards the pharmacy', Caswell said in his soft Texan's accent.

Peter Jensen is the evangelical Archbishop of Sydney. He flies into Britain in January to take a series of meetings under the title, Anglicanism past, present and future - what is the future for the Church of England?

Though these meetings were planned many months ago they have taken on new significance since Dr. Rowan Williams has been named as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anniversaries for 2003

General

Robert Estienne, the leading printer in Geneva at the time of the Reformation, was born in 1503. He printed Bibles in French, using roman type rather than the heavy 'Black Letter' type, which made for greater ease of reading, and from 1551 introduced the practice of numbering individual verses, which has been followed in English translations.

Lilias Trotter, missionary to Algeria, was born in London in 1853. A gifted painter and sensitive writer, she formed the Algiers Mission Band (now Arab World Ministries).

You're in church. You get chatting to a student who has just finished their first term studying Theology. You ask if they are struggling being an evangelical in that environment and they say, 'Not really'. You know the position of some in the department at their university, so you ask the question again, 'Surely, you must be finding it tough?'. They casually reply, 'No'.

Discovering this to be the typical response of most Theology and RS students in the UK, has been one of the biggest surprises for Daniel Strange and David Gibson, who co-ordinate UCCF's work among this group. 'We both started the job expecting to work with students wanting help with loads of theological issues', explains David. 'But the reality is that we have great resources, but few students are interested.'

I'm often asked if I see any encouragement in my travelling and preaching throughout the country. There are many heartening things happening, despite the difficulties we often face. Christmas events already seem part of the dim and distant past, but my itinerary throughout December illustrates some of the things from the evangelical scene that do my heart good.

* It is thrilling to see groups of 18-21 year-olds organising major evangelistic events which hundreds of their friends attend. This is what university carol services are. Bath Abbey, Coventry Cathedral, a derelict Anglican church in Plymouth, Great Halls in Reading, Cardiff and Aston were packed with students hearing the gospel.

The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) is a global fellowship with ministry in over 140 countries - UCCF is the UK national movement.

EN: You have your World Assembly in 2003. Tell us first about that.

Your churches are sleeping!

Brother Yun escaped to the West a couple of years ago, and is now based in Germany. Here, in a further extract from his book, he gives an opinion of the church in the West.

I've seen people in Western churches worshipping as if they're already in heaven. Then someone invariably brings a comforting message like, 'My children, I love you. Don't be afraid, I'm with you'. I'm not opposed to such words, but why is it that nobody seems to hear a Word from the Lord like, 'My child, I want to send you to the slums of Asia or the darkness of Africa to be my messenger to people dying in their sin'?