The fastest-growing church? Maybe not what you think
Milla Ling-Davies
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
A new report from the Bible Society has
revealed that the fastest-growing church in
the UK is the Chinese Church.
In just the last two years, there has been
29% growth in the Chinese Church in the
UK – a large jump from the 7% growth they’d seen in the previous ten years. This is
largely due to people emigrating from Hong
Kong to Britain.
Climate hope – if promises are kept, say evangelicals
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Even as it opened, the UN Climate Change Conference COP 28 was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The BBC revealed claims that hosts, the United Arab Emirates, were planning to make oil and gas deals with 15 other countries at the event. Despite that, many Christian groups were represented there, some as part of the Christian Climate Observers Program, a non-denominational Christian presence advocating for God’s creation. All are, perhaps, encouraged by the fact that COP28 for the first time featured a ‘faith pavilion’. Evangelicals Now spoke to four leading Christian environmental organisations about their hopes and fears for the conference.
Punched leader prays for attackers
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
London City Mission’s chief executive Graham Miller and his wife Alison are recovering after an assault in Earlsfield. Their daughter witnessed the attack.
Miller said they were assaulted after he ‘challenged some kids for abusing a cafe manager next to the station’. He tweeted: ‘We were both punched repeatedly in the head from behind and Alison was knocked down. Kids were still hitting her whilst on the floor and passers-by had to tear them off.’
Chris Wigram
Luke Randall
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Chris Wigram has been announced by trustees as the Interim Chief Executive Officer of Global Connections (GC). He started in the post in late November, having previously served as GC’s Chair of Global Conventions between 2006 and 2008, and also as a board member. Chris has also served in leadership positions with OMF and ECM.
Global Connections is made up of several organisations and individuals including churches and charities, as well as others. It exists to support the UK church’s mission community at home and abroad.
Moscow via the US to Wales...
Dave Gobbett
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Dave Gobbett, Lead Pastor, Highfields Church Cardiff, writes: It is a great thrill to report the launch of a new gospel congregation in South Wales.
November 5th will be the date to remember as the first meeting of Penarth Evangelical Church (penarthchurch.org.uk), planted by Highfields Church, Cardiff. With a core team of around 30 led by three elders, between 70 and 80 people, young and old, mature believers and interested enquirers, are now gathering together each week, committed to Bible-believing, cross-preaching, soul-reaching, and community-creating life together.
Stay, says bishop
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
Jill Duff, Bishop of Lancaster, who is orthodox on issues of sex and sexuality, and has been a leading voice opposing change, spoke to en.
She said: ‘Why should we leave? One of my heroes of church planting in the Polynesian islands was George Selwyn, an architect of the Anglican Communion. He had a compellingly pragmatic response to error: “But how, you will ask, shall the truth of doctrine be maintained if we tolerate in the mission field every form of error, and provide no safeguard for the purity of the faith? I answer that, as running water purifies itself, so Christian work is seen to correct its own mistakes.” I urge evangelicals to resist any intimidation, but instead to stay and contend for the gospel through the Church of England.’
Baby-boomers to Generation Z?
Charlotte Mayhew
Date posted: 1 Jan 2024
How do we bridge generational divides to make Jesus known together?
The recent London City Mission ‘Diaspora Conference’ was an opportunity to bring Christians together from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere, to explore this vital question. With no easy answers to the complex tensions that often exist between generations in our church communities, we focused on listening and learning from each other’s experiences.
West Kilburn
Elizabeth Sims writes: On 16 September about 150 people met to give God praise and thanks for a new season in the life of West Kilburn Baptist Church (WKBC); the induction of Steve Palframan as the new pastor and the commissioning of our church revitalisation.
During the service, we recalled how over the past 2 years God had led us to this day. We gave God thanks for His gracious hand upon us whilst we were without a pastor and praised Him for the help and guidance of Johnny Prime and Trevor Archer from the FIEC.
YWAM founder Cunningham dies
en staff
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Loren Cunningham, the founder of international mission agency YWAM (Youth With A Mission), has died.
US magazine Christianity Today described him as a ‘charismatic visionary’ who ‘mobilized millions of young people for short-term trips’. He was 88.
Crisis crystallises new seriousness of purpose
James Ballinger
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
In 1560 Oda Nobunaga, known as the Great Unifier of Japan, fought a crucial battle in Owari Province that was to change the course of Japanese history. Some four and a half centuries later, over 1,000 evangelical church and ministry leaders of the church in Japan gathered in the same area, longing for a similar turning of the tide in the history of the church in Japan.
The theme of JCE7 (Japan Congress on Evangelism), which took place from 19-22 September in Gifu, was ‘Beginning from the End’ – Working together in the Mission of the Church. Aside from the pun (‘Owari’ is a homonym which can also mean ‘the End’) this title was an expression of the way that the current culture of the church is at something of a dead-end.* With the average age of a Japanese pastor close to 70, and with many churches facing closure before the next Congress planned in seven years’ time, this was a remarkably courageous acknowledgement of the dangers facing the church. But it was also a rallying cry to return to the Bible: ‘We want to examine the customs and cultures that have become embedded in the Japanese church. We want to take this as an opportunity to begin to sift these through the filter of the Bible, discarding what should be thrown away, and begin a movement to put an end to the customs and practices that don’t ‘make the cut.’
Huge statue’s mission story
Mike Beresford
Date posted: 1 Nov 2022
A new statue called ‘Antelope’ has been unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in London.
The artwork depicts Malawian pastor John Chilembwe standing next to a white pastor, John Chorley (see photo below, bottom left). Chilembwe came to faith in Christ in 1893 and was baptised on 17 July that year after getting to know Joseph Booth of the Zambesi Industrial Mission (now Zambesi Mission).
CofE bishops ‘openly commending’ unscriptural prayers
en staff
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Dismay, anger and outrage from across the Church of England evangelical spectrum are greeting fresh proposals by bishops in relation to sexuality.
A majority of the C of E’s House of Bishops says it will commend its divisive ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ for use with same-sex couples ‘in public worship’ such as Sunday services – while 11 have publicly dissented.
FIEC focuses on shepherding
Joel Murray
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Nearly 90 church leaders from across London arrived at Stockwell Baptist Church on for the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Church’s (FIEC) latest regular London Gathering.
The event is organised three times a year for church leaders (pastors, elders, women’s workers, and others) who are serving in FIEC churches and in other evangelical churches, groups and missions across London.
Scripture Union aims for ‘at least’ 3,500 groups in five year programme
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Scripture Union is aiming for ‘at least’ 3,500 groups in just three to five years time as it embarks on a new nationwide initiative.
SU – a Christian charity for children and young people aiming to share the gospel – is beginning its new ‘Mission Possible’ nationwide tour.
‘This will sear Jews and Arabs for years to come...’
Joseph Steinberg
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Isaiah 40:1 ‘Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.’
When I was eight years old, I remember sitting in front of my family’s black and white television while watching the Yom Kippur war unfolding in front of my eyes. It was exactly 50 years ago and, as a Jewish boy growing up in the USA, it was my first realisation that there was a country named Israel that Jewish people call home.
Even in Malaysia, antisemitism is rife
Peter Riddell
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
The Gaza War, triggered by the murderous Hamas attacks on Israelis on 7 October, has polarised communities and nations. However, Malaysia, a multi-religious nation with a 65% Muslim majority, provides a unique example of how the narrative can be shaped by mainstream media, activists, governments and their agencies.
Two days after the Hamas attacks, the mainstream broadsheet New Straits Times, in an article by Luqman Hakim, summarised a ‘complex attack’ by the Hamas military wing on Israeli settlements which were taken over. The ‘Israeli Occupation Army’ then launched an operation against the Hamas groups. No mention was made of the massacres of Israeli civilians by the Hamas attackers. Attention was, however, directed to a mosque funded by Malaysian sources that was destroyed by Israeli bombing. The article concludes with the declaration that: ‘Despite the destruction, the jihadist spirit of Muslims will never fade.’
Antisemitism condemned
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
Evangelical churches in the UK have started to experience the impact of the significant increase in antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on 7 October.
A church in Bridgend recently received a lengthy message through its online contact form saying: ‘It has become apparent that you fall into the category of dangerous Christians on account of your attitude to the Jewish people who are the biggest usurpers in the history of mankind … And yet the evangelical Christian world idolises them as though it was a duty to do so …’
‘I was born into a family of Jewish atheists in Ukraine’
International Mission to Jewish People
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
Misha’s story in his own words: I was born into a family of Jewish atheists in Ukraine. My parents and my grandparents were all Jewish atheists. As a result, I grew up embracing atheism, following Communist ideology and believing that there was no God.
Being Jewish, I thought that any Jewish person who believed in Jesus was a traitor to our people, even though I hadn’t explicitly been taught this. Our family didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays, but we held to a strong Jewish identity based on intellectual and moral pride. If I had to describe myself back then, I would say I was ‘a Communist Pharisee’.
1,000 church leaders consider: ‘What is justice?’
Joel Murray
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
Nearly 1,000 church leaders from more than 500 churches across Britain have met at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool for FIEC’s annual Leaders’ Conference.
The theme for the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches’ 2023 conference was the justice of God: what it means to follow and love the God of justice as He ultimately brings all things under Christ, the just and righteous ruler.
Bibles opened in Bulgaria
Thomas McBride
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Students from the UK have formed a mission team with UCCF to Bulgaria for the first time in eight years.
A team of students from university CUs across the Midlands, led by two staff from UCCF (the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship), spent a fortnight teaching local students English while providing an opportunity to study God’s word with them.
2,957 patients... 17,520 animals... 1,520 filmgoers –
and 800 people finding solace and hope in Christ
Gary Clayton
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
In the West, it’s fairly easy to see a doctor,
dentist or vet. In a remote, drought-stricken
area of Kenya, however, the inhabitants are
not so fortunate, Gary Clayton writes.
Earlier
this
year, Mission
Aviation
Fellowship partnered with
friends
from
Christ Is The Answer Ministries (CITAM) to
fly a team of doctors, dentists, veterinarians
and missionaries
to Olturot
in northern
Kenya.
Irish mission’s big reach
What's The Story
Date posted: 1 Dec 2022
Around 15% of the entire population of Ireland – if not more – may have engaged with the What’s The Story? mission held across the island.
Statistics released by the organisation behind the initiative state that out of a total population of 5.1million, of which only around 1% are currently evangelical believers:
Portugal: rapid evangelical growth
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
UK mission agencies Crosslinks and European Mission Fellowship are hailing the astonishing growth of evangelical churches across Portugal over the last few years, driven mainly by highly intentional church planting.
Data recently published by the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance shows a remarkable increase in church plants by evangelical churches. Fully 44% of the evangelical churches in the country were started after 2001 and over 60% have ‘defined plans and locations to plant new churches in the next five years’. A large majority say their church is growing. These churches range in size from less than ten members to congregations of over 300.
Pain after report on Mike Pilavachi
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Churches and Christian organisations have spoken of their sadness and pain as the official report into well-known charismatic leader Mike Pilavachi said he displayed coercive and controlling behaviour at the church and had inappropriate relationships.
His actions included massaging young male interns and wrestling young men as he used his ‘spiritual authority to control people’.