The Shack: re-inventing God
JEB
Date posted: 1 Jul 2017
Revisiting William Paul Young’s book as the story comes to the cinema
Back in 2007 when the book by William Paul Young came out I can remember reading in the end-notes a rather impassioned plea from the author that his readers should pray that one day his story would be made into a movie.
Latin America
Alan Tower
Date posted: 1 May 2017
Dear en,
Thank you for your concern for historical perspective and a coverage of global mission issues. We refer to the article on Latin America in the April issue (p.10).
New Zealand: Middle-earth at crossroads
Peter Riddell
Date posted: 1 May 2017
Some things will never change in New Zealand. The spectacular scenery in the South Island, so graphically captured in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, will remain for the benefit of future generations, as will the more subtle but equally appealing beauty of the country’s North Island.
Similarly, but less desirable, the country’s location on the Pacific Ring of Fire, prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, will remain for posterity.
Awakening Latin America
Nathan Schmutz
Date posted: 1 Apr 2017
For the first half of the 20th century, Latin America was an almost exclusively Catholic continent. Though the gospel had been preached in Latin countries for decades, the local evangelical church hadn’t grown significantly. In 1970, only 4% of the population identified as evangelical and the continent was still considered a mission field. But this was about to change.
Operation Mobilisation started with an outreach of a few young students in Mexico, but the focus soon shifted towards Europe, the Muslim World and India. MV Logos, OM’s first ship, was already in service in those parts of the world when the prospect of a second ship opened the possibility for OM to return to Latin America in an impactful way.
A turning point in our society?
Paul Barnes
Date posted: 1 May 2017
Paul Barnes interviews Mike Overd and comments on the Street Preacher Movement
A new threshold was crossed for British justice in February.
standing together
Post-Christian Christianity
Graham Nicholls
Date posted: 1 May 2017
How does the church operate in an increasingly hostile culture which no longer assumes Christianity is essentially good?
That was the topic when around 75 people, mostly church leaders and theological students from across the whole of the UK and from widely different denominational groups came together in March for the biennial Affinity Theological Study Conference.
Life is Christ, death is gain
Peter Jensen
Date posted: 1 May 2017
Peter Jensen’s sermon from the thanksgiving service for Mike Ovey, at All Souls, Langham Place on 13 March
Here is the world’s stark truth: you are either alive or you are nothing.
France: camp fire
World Watch Monitor
Date posted: 1 May 2017
Local churches in Dunkirk helped to evacuate terrified migrants on 10 April as a devastating fire spread through their camp in northern France.
La Linière camp in Grande-Synthe, just outside Dunkirk, housed an estimated 1,500 migrants, including a handful of Christian converts, but was reduced to ‘a heap of ashes’, a local official said. Afghan migrants reportedly began to set fire to the chipboard cabins in which the migrants lived and the fires quickly spread. Riot police intervened.
Banner conference starts new life
JEB
Date posted: 1 Jun 2017
A new page has been turned. For over 50
years the Banner of Truth ministers’ conference met at Leicester University. This year
(24-27 April) the venue changed.
Around 300 men gathered for the first
time at Yarnfield Park in Staffordshire. It is a
purpose-built conference centre and proved
to be rather a pleasant upgrade.
Did he say it?
Graeme Fairbairn
Date posted: 1 Jun 2017
Dear Sir,
I read with interest the article by John McLernon on mission strategy (en, May 2017); he presented well some of the challenges and competing claims that we experience as we aim to remain faithful to our calling to make disciples in a rapidly changing world.
Virtual ministry?
en staff
Date posted: 1 Jun 2017
en looks at how we are being encouraged to utilise online resources in our churches
Everyone values high-quality resources.
Niger: no news on kidnap
World Watch Monitor
Date posted: 1 Apr 2017
It’s been over five months since a pioneering US missionary was kidnapped in Niger.
Jeff Woodke, who worked for Jeunesse en Mission Entraide et Developpement, a branch of the US-based Youth With a Mission, was abducted by unknown assailants in October, from the town of Abalak in northern Niger.
Techno-philiacs
Zuckerberg’s epistle
Ed Brooks & Pete Nicholas
Date posted: 1 Apr 2017
At the age of 33, Jesus Christ was a figure of scorn.
A little more than three years from the beginning of his public ministry, the following he had built had all but deserted him. His mission to establish a global community under the loving rule of God seemed to be a sad joke. He was crucified, dead and buried.
Looking outwards with the gospel
Chris Sugden
Date posted: 1 Apr 2017
In February, the Secretary General of the
Anglican
Communion,
a
Nigerian
Archbishop, Josiah Idowu-Fearon, addressed
the General Synod of the Church of England;
and Growth and Decline in the Anglican
Communion – 1980 to the Present, edited by
David Goodhew of Cranmer Hall, Durham,
was launched at a conference.
Archbishop Fearon clarified that the term
‘Anglican Communion’ referred to churches
which find their common roots through the
CofE and its tradition to the witness and mission of the apostolic church. ‘The very word
anglicana implies a living tradition of faith in
the gospel as this church has received it …
from Augustine of Canterbury … to renewal
in
the English Reformation and beyond.’
‘They feel they owe so much of their faith, in
human
terms,
to
the
faithful giving of
Christians in the CofE over the centuries.’
Mary Sumner’s leaky umbrella
Charles Raven
Date posted: 1 May 2017
The Mothers Union (MU) is one of the great success stories of the Anglican Communion.
Beginning in 1876 with Mary Sumner’s vision for Christian marriage and family life, the movement now numbers some 4 million members worldwide, with the largest concentration being in Africa.
Denis J. Lane 1929 –2017
Ray Porter
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
In the 1960s and 1970s two remarkable men led OMF International. The General Director was Michael Griffiths, the public face of the mission. The other was the Overseas Director, Denis Lane, who was responsible for its daily running. He was the man who turned vision into reality.
Born in Worthing, in 1949 he graduated from London University with a Law degree. The next year he started training for CofE ministry at Oak Hill. The Vice-Principal at the time was Alan Stibbs, who had served with OMF’s predecessor, China Inland Mission. Denis then went to a curacy in Deptford while completing the London University BD. A second curacy followed in Cambridge before, in 1960, with his wife June, he joined CIM/OMF to serve in Malaya. Isabel Kuhn’s book Ascent to the Tribes was instrumental in leading them to this ministry. They went with their young son and spent six years in the South Perak district.
Nigeria: fighting Boko Haram with books
The Revd Dr Sid Garland
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
The story of the Chibok girls has gone around the world to make many people aware of the brutal activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria.
The very name conjures fear and conveys their conviction that Western (or Christian) education is wicked. Education standards in the area had been in decline because of the low priority given to schools. The outbreak of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009 gave a further deadly blow to the little that was left of education in the region. Most schools in Borno State have remained closed since 2013 with many of the children in stop-gap camps or in the homes of relatives across different parts of the country as internally displaced persons.
Conference for the FEW
D.J.Carswell
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
What do you call a collection of evangelistic workers? Answer: F.E.W.
Under the banner of the Fellowship of Evangelistic Workers (www.thefew.org.uk) there is now an annual conference for evangelists, several regional days around the country with guest speakers, and time for prayer and fellowship.
Helen Roseveare 1925–2016
Julia Cameron
Date posted: 1 Feb 2017
Julia Cameron reflects on the remarkable life and ministry of Dr Helen Roseveare, who died on 7 December 2016 aged 91
Helen Roseveare is widely-recognised as one of the most courageous and influential missionaries of the 20th century.
Churches together again?
David Stone
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
David Stone’s concluding article concerning lessons from the past about church cooperation
In last month’s article, we looked at the development of the Baptist Union (BUGB) and the Congregational Union (CUEW).
Anglican renewal in Brazil
Charles Raven
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
Most Christians in the UK probably have
only the haziest idea of what Anglicanism
looks
like
in
South
America.
The
Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910
inhibited Protestant and Anglican missionary work in the continent, while the English
language has always been marginal, unlike
most
other
areas
of
the
Anglican
Communion where British influence was
much stronger.
This is a pity, because out of the continuing
crisis
in
the world-wide Anglican
Communion a reinvigorated and missionary
church is emerging in South America, in
spite of official persecution and rejection. In
fact the pattern of North America is being
repeated. Just as a new GAFCON-recognised
Province,
the Anglican Church
in North
America (ACNA), arose out of the aggressive
and assertive revisionism of the American
Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican
Church of Canada, so in South America a
new orthodox Province is coming into being
as the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil
(IEAB) and various TEC satellite provinces
in central and northern South America
follow the
lead of their North American
counterparts.
Reflecting on spiritual abuse
Karen Soole
Date posted: 1 Apr 2017
Karen Soole tells of her own experience and reminds us of some needed lessons
Horrific stories of historic abuse within the evangelical community were recently exposed by Channel 4 News.
