news in brief
Outbid in Canterbury
Emmanuel
Church
Canterbury
(see
January en) was outbid in an auction for a
redundant chapel.
Despite the disappointment, the church
family has seen the Lord at work within it,
bringing a great sense of unity, seeing very
generous giving, and bringing
together a
team of ‘professionals’ from both within and
outside the church to work on the acquisition of a property. They plan to work together to this end in the months ahead.
NHS: missionaries miss out
Global Connections / various
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
Concerns have been raised regarding the NHS (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 which will come into force on 6 April and as to how these will affect missionaries who require hospital treatment.
The Government has taken the view that, since the UK has a residency-based health-care system, free NHS hospital treatment should only be provided to visitors in rare cases, for example when they are working for the UK Government (including on humanitarian projects) or when an international obligation requires it.
Two new AMiE churches
Susie Leafe
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
‘Thanks be to God’, as us Anglicans like to say, two brand new Conservative Evangelical Anglican churches have opened in the last few months: one in Salisbury and another in Guildford.
Both have been started under the auspices of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) where they join a good number of other churches already identifying with AMiE’s remit and, wonderfully, there are many more churches in the pipeline.
Remembering the year ahead
Joy Horn
Date posted: 1 Jan 2015
Joy Horn highlights some significant anniversaries from Christian history coming up in 2015
EVENTS
Justin Martyr was put to death in Rome in 165. From a pagan background, he became a Christian aged about 30, and taught in Ephesus and Rome. He wrote two ‘Apologies’ or defences of Christianity against misrepresentation.
Ken Wycherley 1943 –2014
Julia Cameron
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
Ken Wycherley served with UCCF
from
1975 to 1989, first as a Travelling Secretary,
then on the senior staff team.
In the early 1980s he played a strategic role
in restructuring the student department to
meet the needs of rapid growth in the tertiary
sector. Ken’s clarity of thought was appreciated by staff and student leaders alike, as policies and guidance were formulated on a range
of campus issues. He always retained a strong
commitment to evangelism and mission.
Joyful, infectious theology
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
... Mike Reeves has a dream
The Revd Dr Michael Reeves is Director of Union and Senior Lecturer at Wales Evangelical School of Theology.
Fruit after 60 years
Alex Bowler
Date posted: 1 Jan 2015
Sixty years after Billy Graham held the 1954 Greater London Crusade in the old Harringay Arena, another gospel mission in Harringay took place in mid-October with an amazing conversion story with a link to that original event.
A lady who went to hear Billy Graham preach the gospel in the Harringay Arena in 1954 left that event without committing her life to Christ but 60 years later she came to the ‘Hope For Harringay’ mission and received Jesus as her Saviour! Like the others who came to the Saviour of the world during the mission, she shone with the joy of her salvation.
news in brief
CAR: awards
On 13 November, three top religious leaders of the Central African Republic were awarded a prize for their efforts for peace in the war-torn Central African Republic.
In the midst of the country's two years of violence, often portrayed as confessional conflict, the three clerics formed a joint platform to promote peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims. Their message: violence in CAR is not primarily caused by religious conflict; instead, the root of the conflict lies in the struggle for political power.
Enfield: what’s next?
en staff
Date posted: 1 Mar 2015
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.
Website Smith video clip
Edward Fisher
Date posted: 1 Mar 2015
Dear Sir,
Thank you so much for having the courage
to present the Jay Smith video clip in the
news item headlined ‘Charlie at the corner’
on the online version of en on your website.
What Jay Smith says gets to the heart of the
problem with the Qu’ran: how to treat the
later surahs compared to the earlier.
Clear as mud
David Baker
Date posted: 1 Mar 2015
Recently someone discovered and posted on Facebook a list entitled A Short Guide to the Duties of Church Membership issued at the requests of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Here it is:
1. To follow the example of Christ in home and daily life and to bear witness to him.
A successful mission week
With prayer and planning a church can get a good number of people to hear the gospel
From June 23-30, Cowplain
Evangelical Church in
Hampshire held a week of
mission.
The Third Degree
38,000 attend CU missions
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 Jun 2014
UCCF Staff Workers report that around 38,000 students attended a Christian Union (CU) mission week in 2014.
The 2014 figures represent a 19% increase from 32,000 students in the previous year. The figures include both CU and non-CU member attendance at lunchtime, evening and small group evangelistic events spread across 115 university missions.
The Third Degree
Messaging that matters
Daniel Stafford
Date posted: 1 Jan 2015
Social media is a relatively recent phenomenon.
According to an ONS report the number of adults accessing the Internet every day in Great Britain more than doubled between 2006 and 2012, largely driven by social media.1 Mention the phrase ‘social media’ and I suspect most people fit into one of three broad categories: willing participants, uneasy users, or steadfast refusers!
Keeping the bookshop sailing
en staff
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
The high street still provides tremendous opportunities for the gospel
The double award-winning Manna Christian Bookshop in Streatham, South London, opened in 1981.
Carey: too comfortable?
JEB
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
‘Afflicting the comfortable’ could be taken as
the keynote of this year’s Carey Conference
held at the Hayes, Swanick, 6-8 January.
The main
speaker was Professor Greg
Beale of Westminster Theological Seminary,
Philadelphia. He is the author of a landmark
and voluminous commentary on the Greek
text of the book of Revelation and he treated
the participants to a magisterial introduction
to John’s apocalypse. The book is meant to
be understood symbolically, according to its
opening verse. The dramatic word pictures of
the apostle will sedate the nominal Christian
but shock God’s true people
into action.
There are seven churches addressed in the
opening chapters of which only
two are
faithful. The others must change or be
judged with the world. Hence John’s writing
is addressed
first
to
the whole professed
church, but only the faithful remnant will
ultimately benefit.
London: a new church for the whole world
FIEC
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
A new church is being planted on the South Bank of the Thames in London during 2015, and just in case you were wondering about the reasoning behind this, the FIEC have put together a very valuable Q&A about the real need for another Bible-centred church in the metropolis that is the UK capital city.
Q: Aren’t there already lots of gospel churches in London?
GBM: real fruit
EN
Date posted: 1 Dec 2014
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!
FIEC: moving forwards together
John Risbridger
Date posted: 1 Dec 2014
The first week of November saw over 460 delegates meeting on the Norfolk coast for what is fast-becoming a key gathering for gospel-focused leaders in the free churches. It was this year’s FIEC Leaders’ Conference. Julian Hardyman (Eden Baptist, Cambridge) described it as ‘unmissable’ and ‘one of the highlights of my year’!
By any standards it was an outstanding time with spiritually nourishing, expository preaching, excellent seminars, encouraging reports of developments within the FIEC family of churches, well-led corporate worship and many informal opportunities to encourage one another in ministry. In the final session, John Stevens (FIEC national director) said simply: ‘I think we met the Lord Jesus together’. It would be hard to find a better or truer description of the week.
