history
Loving the lost: following the example of Jonathan Edwards
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Feb 2020
When Jonathan Edwards, who has been rightly described as ‘America’s Augustine’, left his pastoral charge in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1750, he received a number of ‘attractive’ ministry offers, including the presidency of a theological college in Scotland. He chose instead to go with his family to a small out-of-the-way frontier village by the name of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Why this unusual choice?
Some have surmised that Edwards settled in Stockbridge because the rigours of ministry among a smaller congregation, which consisted mostly of Mahican Indians, would prove minimal, and he could then devote himself largely to his study and the major treatises that he wanted to write books on such issues as free will and original sin.
2020 birmingham: Happy New Year... what’s next?
John James
Date posted: 1 Feb 2020
‘20 new churches in Birmingham by 2020.’ That was the stretch goal that we set for ourselves, under God in 2010.
It was beyond any single church, network or denomination to achieve it, and humanly speaking, it seemed impossible. The last ten years have been a lesson in how God delights to do the impossible, and it has been a privilege to have front-row seats.
Churches uniting in prayer for London
London Gospel Partnership
Date posted: 1 Dec 2019
Wednesday 6 November saw the inaugur-al ‘Pray for London’ event hosted by the London Gospel Partnership.
Over 100 church leaders and church workers, along with many other believers, gathered together at East London Tabernacle for a time of dedicated prayer for God’s saving grace to be seen powerfully throughout London.
Chile: hospital mission
OM International
Date posted: 1 Mar 2019
Logos Hope volunteers connected with
people in front of Antofagasta’s hospital, to
tell them the gospel and pray with those who
are unwell and their visitors.
The crew members approached people and
relatives waiting for treatment outside the
hospital. After introducing themselves, they
asked if there was anything they could pray for. When people accepted prayer, they spoke
with them more personally, prayed for their
requests and told them about their faith.
news in brief
New pastor in the Cwm
5 October saw
the
induction of Pastor
Steve Dyer to the pastorate of the Mission
Cwmtwrch, a village 15 miles north of
Swansea in the South Wales valleys.
Pastor Dyer’s
relationship with
the
Mission has grown steadily for several years.
In Spring 2019, he felt led to accept a call
from the Mission – a church that has its
origins in the 1904 Welsh Revival. Pastor
Dyer continues to work with Oasis Church,
now based in Gorseinon, which he planted
in early 2008.
London Church Planting Academy
Co-Mission
Date posted: 1 Nov 2019
Co-Mission churches have long used the metaphor of a lifeboat to remind ourselves that we need to be rescuing the perishing.
Richard Coekin (Co-Mission) has drawn on lessons from the Titanic disaster and Neil Powell (City to City) has written of the need for ‘a Dunkirk spirit, where a huge number of lifeboats were mobilised to realise a vision far too big for any group to achieve alone’.
Bahamas: dealing with Dorian
Gary Clayton
Date posted: 1 Dec 2019
On 1 September 2019, Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas. The Category 5 storm, with 185mph winds and storm surges of up to 23 feet, is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall.
Regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country’s history, the storm caused widespread flooding and destruction. It killed at least 50 people and left more than 70,000 people homeless.
A new home
Graham Miller
Date posted: 1 Dec 2019
The Christmas holidays tend to be a great time for kids. The average family in the UK will spend an additional £2,000 over the Christmas period on gifts, food and trips.
It is not the same picture for everyone, though. 700,000 kids in London are living below the poverty line, after you’ve taken housing costs into account. For these homes the additional financial stress of Christmas can often be the cause of family arguments, stress, and domestic abuse. It is not surprising that, despite the cold weather, winter is a time when many kids run away for the first time.
news in brief
Albania: earthquake
A Christian charity has offered ‘practical, emotional and spiritual support’ to the thousands of families left homeless by the devastating earthquake in late November.
More than 50 people were killed and a further 13,000 were left homeless, with 26 schools also damaged – affecting 10,500 children. Some being helped noted that their faith in the Lord was not shaken despite the devastation surrounding them now.
Highfields: ‘open-air preaching to a million people’
FIEC
Date posted: 1 Jan 2020
Highfields Church in Cardiff was able to share the hope of Christ with around a million people as they hosted BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship on 17 November.
The live broadcast lasted 38 minutes and was split equally between singing and speaking, giving Lead Minister Dave Gobbett a great opportunity to share Christ with a worldwide audience. He said: ‘The main thrust of my message from Ephesians 2 was that Jesus uniquely brings people together because Jesus uniquely brings people to God. Only Jesus can pull our troubled world together.
Hundreds attend new Cotswold Bible Festival
John Martin
Date posted: 1 Jan 2020
Saturday 23 November marked the inaugural Cotswold Bible Festival. Around 700 adults and children converged on the festival town of Cheltenham for a day of thought-provoking Bible teaching, excel-lent music and a whole host of seminars and fun activities.
The event was conceived by a group of like-minded local evangelical Christian leaders who were keen to run a Keswick-style event for churches across the Cotswolds. The vision for the event came together a year ago, with encouraging conversations with Jonathan Lamb and James Robson at Keswick Ministries leading to the formation of ‘Keswick Gloucestershire’ in association with the Keswick Fellowship – a network of similar events across the country. The event itself was given separate branding to help draw in those who were less familiar with ‘Keswick’, and to allow for other events to be run under the ‘Keswick Gloucestershire’ banner in the future.
El Salvador: faith on the frontline
OM
Date posted: 1 Jan 2020
Josué Sánchez, 32, from El Salvador, knows all about risk.
‘I grew up in the most dangerous town in Central America,’ Josué said. ‘There are violent gangs who fight for territory and will kill for no reason. Everyone in El Salvador faces this every day. It’s a matter of knowing how to survive. It’s like: “Welcome to the jungle”.’
SAVING VALLEY CHAPELS
BBC Wales
Date posted: 1 Jan 2020
In a chapel in the heart of the South Wales valleys a coffee morning is in full flow. A handful of retired men are in attendance. Like most weeks numbers are relatively low. But for the minister who has organised it, the Revd Robert Stivey, it is still something of a triumph.
Just over a year ago, the Calfaria Calvinistic Methodist Chapel in Porth was shut and was awaiting demolition. However, Stivey stepped in, purchased it for under £40,000 of his own money, and then re-opened the vestry once more.
The modern war on truth
Chris Wright
Date posted: 1 Jan 2020
Chris Wright discusses the ramifications of living in a society where lying is the norm
‘What is truth?’ asked Pontius Pilate. Jesus had just said: ‘Everyone who is on the side of truth listens to me’ (John 18:37-38).
history
Reformers & mission V
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Nov 2018
Geneva was not a large city. During Calvin’s lifetime it reached a peak of slightly more than 21,000 by 1560, of whom a goodly number were religious refugees.
Nevertheless, it became the missionary centre of Europe in this period of the Reformation. Calvin sought to harness the energies and gifts of many of the religious refugees so as to make Geneva central to the expansion of Reformation thought and piety throughout Europe. This meant training and preparing many of these refugees to go back to their native lands as evangelists and reformers.
Maria Millis: the definition of an unsung saint
Brian Maiden
Date posted: 1 Oct 2019
In a new series, Brian Maiden gives a short biography of some believers you may not have heard of...
Have you ever heard of Maria Millis? Probably not. But before I tell you about her, let me tell you about Lord Shaftesbury.
Wycliffe in Wales
Wycliffe
Date posted: 1 Nov 2019
Wycliffe Bible Translators opened its new
Wales office in Bridgend on 14 September.
Carwyn Graves, Wycliffe’s Wales Team
Leader,
spoke about
the
long history of
Welsh mission workers, who often pushed
for mother-tongue Bibles
and
literacy
programmes where others
ignored
them.
Yet, he also focused on the future, and how
churches in Wales can still be meaningfully
involved
in world mission today through
praying, giving and going.
USA: more than ten minutes
Christianheadlines.com
Date posted: 1 Nov 2019
A 134-page report released in September,
shows that some 35 million youths raised in
Christian families in the USA will give up
on Christianity by the year 2050.
Greg Stier – founder of the youth ministry
Dare 2 Share – says the report, called The
Great Opportunity, is a chance for Christians
to
‘flip the switch’.
‘How about not
just
slowing down the bleeding, what if there
was a revival that flipped those stats? That
is what we are praying for. How do we flip
the switch?’
Eisteddfod outreach
Evangelical Movement of Wales
Date posted: 1 Oct 2019
News from the Eisteddfod Mission during August always shows that an eclectic group of people are reached by the missioners who speak to Welsh and English-speaking festival goers.
This year was no exception. The first day included a couple who had belonged to a sect. On the second day, a person said that after death she would return as a cat or dog. As with most times of mission, there can be the feeling that one is trying to sell umbrellas to people who are living in a dry desert. Most people just don’t see their need of Christ. In fact many people answering the question ‘describe your life in three words’, used happy and contented in their responses.
When Google becomes God
John Benton
Date posted: 1 Dec 2019
Book Review
THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM:
The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power
Read review
Who was at Bethlehem?
John Peet
Date posted: 1 Dec 2019
John Peet sheds light on the central characters in the nativity scene and explains their significance of their presence.
Last Christmas my wife and I were talking about those who were at Bethlehem. We found it most instructive to think on who and why.
Evangelicals tomorrow?
I’ve been visiting Athens annually for the last eight years to speak in various Greek Evangelical churches and lecture at the Greek Bible College.
It’s always a fascinating cross-cultural experience, and it’s not unwelcome that the weather in Autumn is always much nicer there than it is in Cambridge. My last trip was the strangest yet, however, as I had also been invited to give a lecture to a large audience containing the Papal Nuncio, the Catholic Archbishop, Jesuit priests, lots of nuns, some Reformed Presbyterians, and the odd Anglican.