BUILDING UP BOURNEMOUTH
Lansdowne Baptist Church
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
‘We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.’
So said Winston Churchill defending the adversarial nature of the House of Commons debating chamber. The same could be said of our church buildings. They are monuments to the era in which they were built and reflect its values.
Capital Gains
Samaria on Thames
Graham Miller
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
The Great Commission calls us to reach out in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.
The UK’s Commonwealth heritage makes us a remarkably diverse nation with London the most globalised city in the world, and we are surrounded by ‘Samaritans’ – those who are culturally very different from ourselves.
Christian Aid?
Chris Sugden
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
Christian Aid Week in May is an established national institution. Thousands of volunteers, including me, drop red envelopes through people’s letter-boxes and collect them at the end of the week. Thousands who never attend church respond generously to appeals to help the most deprived in the world.
Christian Aid began in response to the refugee crisis at the end of the Second World War. It puts into practice the teaching of Jesus to love our neighbours and to obey him in helping the poor, the hungry and the naked. Jesus did not specify that these poor people had to be Christian.
Christ at the core
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
David Melilli, executive director of God Centered Life Ministries, interviews en columnist Josh Moody, the founder of the project
God Centered Life Ministries began last December (2014), with the vision of ‘a generation living for God.’
Location, location, location
Euan Dodds
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
Euan Dodds urges us to think carefully before we move house
Would you ever consider moving house in order to be closer to your church?
news in brief
CAR: attacks
On 17 February, more than 14 homes and churches were torched and missionary centres vandalised in the area around Kaga-Bandoro, in the north-central part of the Central African Republic.
Local Christians said that many pastors fled to the town of Kaga-Bandoro, where another church was burned.
Cuba: the gospel marches on
Carl Chambers
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
The island of Cuba has recently hit the news again, because the US has finally overturned its 50-year policy of isolation by re-establishing diplomatic relations with this state socialist country.
World politics is not the only area where fundamental changes are happening – the church in Cuba is another one.
Nigeria: missionary freed
Morning Star News
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
On 7 March the Free Methodist Church USA announced the release of its kidnapped missionary in Nigeria, Phyllis Sortor.
In a statement signed on behalf of the Board of Bishops of the church, David W. Kendall said 71-year-old Sortor was released by her captors on Friday evening, 6 March. He said armed gunmen abducted Sortor on 23 February from Hope Academy school in Emi-Oworo village in the central Nigerian state of Kogi.
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.
Iran: great encouragement as many baptised
Elam Ministries
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
In early March it was reported that, in recent
weeks, over 220 Iranians and Afghans have
been baptised
in
two cities
in
the Iran
region. Elam Ministries says: ‘Please join us
in praying for these new believers, and for
the churches as they disciple them.’
The baptisms were joyful day-long occasions, full of worship, prayer, fellowship over
meals and the sharing of testimonies. One
new believer at one of
the ceremonies recalled how finding a New Testament by
accident had started him on his journey to
Christ. Remarkable
stories of
the Lord’s
providence abounded during both days.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
