Lausanne & the polemical imperative
Ranald Macaulay
Date posted: 1 Mar 2016
Ranald Macaulay asks if the 1974 Congress missed something vital
When the Lausanne Congress opened in 1974 the global community was being treated to searing images of the Ethiopian famine.
Mary contrary
John Brand
Date posted: 1 May 2016
Book Review
ARE WE TOGETHER?
A Protestant Analyzes Roman Catholicism
Read review
Pray for Scotland
John Brand
Date posted: 1 May 2016
Dear Friends,
Please could I use your letter section to rally
Christians throughout the UK to be much in
prayer for Scotland in these days. The nation
that used to be known as the ‘land of the book’,
i.e. the Bible, is now in peril of judgment.
Lausanne and true truth
Ranald Macaulay
Date posted: 1 May 2016
Dear en,
I was thankful for Chris Wright’s gentle
corrective in the April edition. I should have
expressed more appreciation for The Cape
Town Commitment because it is full of helpful
affirmations and observations.
Extreme Christianity?
Matthew Roberts
Date posted: 1 May 2016
As the government ponders bringing the church into line with ‘British Values’, Matthew Roberts speaks up for radical faith
I have a confession to make. I am an extremist.
Christ on the campus
Mindi Aleme
Date posted: 1 May 2016
Mindi Aleme tells us of a remarkable school which is deeply influencing missionary children in Ethiopia
When some think of Ethiopia, they think only of her poverty.
C.A.R.: support required
Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Date posted: 1 May 2016
Marie-Thérèse Keita-Bocoum,
the UN
independent expert on the Central African
Republic (CAR), called on the international
community
to continue supporting
the
country as newly elected President Faustin
Archange Touadéra (a Christian) took office
on 25 March.
In a statement to the UN Human Rights
Council (HRC) in Geneva on 22 March following her recent visit to CAR, Ms Keita-Bocoum applauded the progress achieved by
the Transitional Government
and UN
Peacekeeping Mission with the support of
the international community, and noted that
the presidential and legislative elections held
in December 2015 and February 2016 were
largely
free,
fair and
relatively peaceful.
However, Ms Keita-Bocoum
said:
‘There
have been great steps taken, but the next six
months are vital.’
EMF: goodbye/hello
EMF
Date posted: 1 May 2016
The European Mission Fellowship (EMF)
held a special farewell and welcome service
on 12 March at Welwyn Evangelical Church
in Hertfordshire.
They said goodbye to outgoing director
Martin Leech, who later this year will take up
a pastorate
in Australia. Those being welcomed were Martin’s replacement Ian Parry,
founding pastor of The Bay Church
in
Cardiff,
and Steven Bowers, pastor of
Cornerstone Church
in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. Steven is taking up a new post as
assistant director with responsibility for running the headquarters and administration.
Paying female church staff?
Rebecca and Eleanor’s second article based on research among single Christian women working for churches and ministries
In last month’s en, we gave an overview of our findings concerning single women Christian workers.
WEST in Union
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
There are big changes afoot for one of the UK’s independent theological colleges
On 12 January, WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology) announced that it is to transform into Union.
Five years after Cape Town
Julia Cameron
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
Julia Cameron brings us up-to-date with the Lausanne Movement
It is five years this month since the Cape Town Commitment was published. In that time it has spread out widely, and down deeply, across the continents, in major and ‘minor’ languages.
Knowing God Better
Longing for blessing
Jonathan Lamb
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
It spans 140 years and crosses cultures and continents.
It’s a remarkable story. It has revolutionised hundreds of thousands of lives. It has had a radical impact on churches and communities. It has launched new mission movements and pushed forward the frontiers of the gospel. And it continues to expand, not through formal organisation or slick marketing but, we believe, as a movement of the Spirit.
Serving as a single woman
Rebecca and Eleanor investigate the joys and challenges of the unmarried Christian worker
Biblical Christianity values singleness like no other world religion.
Tanzania: 100 trained
Church Mission Society
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
In a country that is beginning to see stirrings of opposition to the Christian message, a new initiative to inspire people to evangelise resulted in more than 100 Tanzanian Christians being trained to share the gospel, it was reported in December.
Hundreds of people from the local community attended a two-day open air mission of prayer, healing and preaching.
‘What is the Gospel?’ conference
Victoria Vinet
Date posted: 1 Mar 2016
On 29 January, Christian Concern hosted a
conference – ‘What is the Gospel?’ – at the
Emmanuel Centre in London. The speakers
addressed some of the sociocultural issues
faced by the Church.
Christian Concern is a non-profit organisation campaigning for a nation once defined by
the Christian faith. The UK is now largely a
secular, humanistic, morally relativistic nation,
the fruits of which can be seen in widespread
immorality and social disintegration.
Evangelism in our DNA
Peter Baker
Date posted: 1 Mar 2016
What began as a pastor’s hunch about the
lack of conversion growth in the local church,
turned
into
a
full-blown
24
hour
Consultation on Evangelism in late 2015.
Evangelists and
leaders partnered with
Lansdowne Church Bournemouth to organise an event which brought together local,
regional and national leaders of churches,
theological colleges and Christian agencies.
When pastors play power games
Marl Meynell
Date posted: 1 Mar 2016
Mark Meynell says there is an urgency for the church to reflect on its use of power as much as on its teaching of truth.
You can’t see or even detect them… but that is precisely why riptides are so lethal.
Jerry Bridges 1929–2016
Jerry Bridges, who died on 6 March in Colorado Springs, was a leading light in the work of the Navigators and the author of over 20 popular Christian books on discipleship.
Gerald Dean Bridges was born on 4 December, 1929 in a cotton-farming home in Tyler, Texas to Christian parents, six weeks after the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.
Using ‘Risen’ over Easter
Epic Biblical stories often become blockbuster movies. In 1956 it was The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston and in 2004 it was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
18 March saw the UK release date of a film based on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Starring Joseph Fiennes, Cliff Curtis and Tom Felton, Risen is a fictional story about a powerful Roman Military Tribune tasked with discovering what happened to Jesus after the crucifixion (see review in March en).
Legal eagles
Gemma Adam
Date posted: 1 Apr 2016
Gemma Adam of FIEC Practical Services helps churches embrace legal responsibilities for the sake of the gospel
The legal system and the Word of God can sometimes seem entirely contrary.
Nigel Sylvester 1929 –2015
Julia Cameron
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
Ghana’s First Lady, Ernestina Mills, described Nigel Sylvester as ‘Ghana’s Wesley’. His influence was to spread across English-speaking Africa and then across the world.
Nigel Sylvester professed faith in Christ as a fresher in the Cambridge 1949 Barnhouse mission; shortly afterwards he lost both his parents in an aircrash. As a very young Christian, Nigel followed Mike Griffiths as CICCU President. With a First in Maths, he entered Ridley Hall with Mike Griffiths (later General Director of OMF) and Michael Allison (later PPS to Margaret Thatcher). Breaking with precedent, none was ordained.
The Third Degree
CU Spring missions
Kate Duncan
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
‘For the first time, I have begun to understand Christianity.’
So said a student at a London university following an evening of Sixties’ style festival fun and a talk on ‘The God who Loves us’. She had joined hundreds of other students for one of the joint London Christian Unions’ (CU) city-wide events during their mission week in January. It was a week of creative and persuasive evangelism with lunchbars, Text-a-Toasties, question boards, free cafés, photo booths, questionnaires, Grill-a-Christian, Meals with a Message, art exhibitions, musical performances, testimonies and dramas.
