The Third Degree
Peter May
Date posted: 1 Aug 2007
We should all be deeply grateful to Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harrris and now Christopher Hitchens for putting the existence of God at the centre of public debate.
According to the Guardian, Hitchens’s new book, God is not great sold 4,000 hardback copies in its first week, while Dawkins’s The God delusion sold 300,000 copies in the UK. Hitchens’s sales director is quoted as saying, ‘People find it increasingly hard to marry organised religion with their own view of the world and want a more intellectual, contemporary take on the subject.’
Postcode apartheid
Ray Pountney
Date posted: 1 Aug 2007
Ray Pountney of West Hill Baptist Church in Wandsworth knows about SW London’s emerging gang culture.
Youth churches?
Jonathan Carswell
Date posted: 1 May 2007
‘The best of times and the worst of times’: most of us can associate with Dickens’ words at some period.
For me it was my three years at Durham University. The amazing highs of new experiences, friends, and opportunities all sadly twinned with lows of wasted time, missed chances and wrong decisions. Without a doubt they proved vital in my Christian discipleship. I owe a huge debt to those of an earlier generation who decided CUs should be student-led.
An alternative training model
In an era when full-time ministry training will set you back £75,000, taking you out of circulation for at least three years to boot, an institute in the north of England is quietly running an alternative model.
According to Tim Chester, its director, the Northern Training Institute (NTI) is designed for ‘graduates or those who have significant ministry experience’ and offers a model of training that takes into account the changing face of evangelical ministry and the changing face of secular Britain.
The Third Degree
Word Alive: the old has gone, the new has come
Pod Bhogal
Date posted: 1 May 2007
From March 31 to April 5 around 1,800 students attended Word Alive, making it the biggest student conference in Europe. For over 15 years Word Alive has been bringing ‘Rolls-Royce’ Bible expositions, seminar tracks and workshops to build up the people of God and resource them for mission.
With over 130 Christian Unions represented at this year’s conference, Word Alive continues to be a major event in the CU calendar and is a massive opportunity to equip Christian students for mission on campus. The Chronological Bible Overview, Understanding and Communicating the Bible and Using the Bible in Evangelism were among the most popular seminar tracks this year.
The Third Degree
Dan Hames
Date posted: 1 Jul 2007
Relay is UCCF’s training and discipleship programme for new graduates. Each year, around 60 students leave university and begin the ten-month scheme, centred on serving Christian Unions and growing in their knowledge and love of God.
I am writing on the penultimate day of the third Relay Training conference of this academic year. 63 of us have gathered at the Quinta for the final week together — partly a debrief and partly a commissioning for whatever lies ahead. This week much of our time has been devoted to reviewing our year on Relay. We have honestly laid out the struggles, celebrated the joys and rejoiced together in God’s grace to us in the gospel.
Pluralism, inclusivism and the gospel
Bruce Ware
Date posted: 1 Jul 2007
The ‘tacit atheism’ of our age believes that there is no revelation from heaven, no word from Almighty God and all religions are therefore just matters of opinion, equally valid.
Many faiths and sects abound today. In Athens Paul found all kinds of ‘gods’ worshipped in the city. In that sense, since early times the world has been ‘pluralist’, with many rather than just one faith.
Letter from America
Vote for Jesus
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jul 2007
On Sunday June 3, eight of the Presidential hopefuls for the Democratic Party lined up for a publicly televised debate on CNN out of Manchester, New Hampshire.
On Monday June 4, the three ‘first tier’ candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) lined up for a publicly televised event broadcast by CNN out of George Washington University in Washington DC. This time they talked about their faith.
The Third Degree
Dan Hames
Date posted: 1 Apr 2007
In 1919 a student called Norman Grubb began the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union in response to a theologically-weakened Student Christian Movement. Within the space of a few years, new Christian Unions sprang up around the UK and, in 1928, Grubb established Inter-Varsity Fellowship with a vision to see ‘an evangelical witnessing community on every university campus’.
79 years later, nothing has changed except the name. UCCF: The Christian Unions is still focused on making disciples of Jesus Christ in the student world and, just as Grubb had hoped, the gospel is proclaimed by witnessing communities on more than 300 university campuses across the country. This original vision is being powerfully worked out in 2007 as 92 Christian Unions (CUs) have held missions: weeks of intensive evangelism and gospel proclamation on their campuses.
Stopping slavery at source
David Rushworth-Smith
Date posted: 1 Apr 2007
It can be unmercifully hot near the coast in West Africa, and especially when humidity levels are high.
It was like this when Thomas walked down the gangplank from the deck of the sailing ship which had brought him from Gravesend, and stepped carefully into one of the rowing boats which took the passengers to the shore. He sat down next to his wife, and gazed at the exotic landscape before him.
Step of faith
Chris Gadd
Date posted: 1 May 2007
The Lord used a simple gospel tract to save me back in the early 1980s. Shortly after my conversion, my wife Linda also came to trust in Christ as her Saviour.
As time went by the Lord began to give me a real burden for the souls of people that lived around me — people who were not hearing the gospel and who needed to be saved. I remember praying, ‘Lord, if it’s your will, send me to them’. I started a prayer meeting with a brother from our church who felt the same — to seek the Lord in this matter.
Word Alive is alive!
Wallace Benn
Date posted: 1 Jun 2007
Word Alive is alive and well and planning for the New Word Alive event on April 7-11 2008 at Pwhelli in North Wales.
It was sad when Spring Harvest, for their own reasons, ended the partnership this year after 14 years, but we are so grateful to them for their fellowship and help over the years and continue to wish them well for the future.
The Third Degree
Dan Hames
Date posted: 1 Jun 2007
Each summer, UCCF CUs (Christian Unions) send students out around the UK and the world on Summer Teams.
This year, 16 Summer Teams are planned the world over along with four International Student Outreach Teams which will take place around the UK, reaching out to international students who come to study English. Each team and country visited is unique, but activities may include leading Bible studies for Christians and non-Christians, English lessons, running sports camps, doing practical work, carrying out surveys, or even running campus missions. A key element is meeting with local student groups and encouraging them in their evangelism. Below is a taster of this year’s trips.
Heavy-handed?
John Steley
Date posted: 1 Jun 2007
I feel sorry for parents today. So many people tell them not to smack their children. They are told that smacking only modifies behaviour in the short-term. They are told that it models violent behaviour and can therefore teach the child to be violent towards others.
If a child’s behaviour must be changed then they are told that it can be done more effectively by other non-violent means. The logic of these arguments, based as they are on the social psychology of aggression and the behaviourist theory of reinforcement, seems to be irrefutable.
Secular Shelf Life
Shelf life: Looking at secular books
Sarah Allen
Date posted: 1 Apr 2007
Ali writes well, her opening is striking as she describes her mother’s and grandmother’s upbringing in nomadic clans in Somalia. Life is harsh and honour-based, Islam a mere veneer on ancient animistic culture.
50 years ahead
Timothy Reynolds
Date posted: 1 May 2007
Book Review
MOUNTAIN RAIN
The biography of James O. Fraser
Read review
Too premature
Alan Black
Date posted: 1 Feb 2007
Book Review
SIZZLING FAITH
The dream that got the church on the move!
Read review
Stakes high on campus
Julia Cameron
Date posted: 1 Jan 2007
The national press has never paid much attention to Christian Unions, but things are changing.
The Times gave a front page in November to four well-regarded universities where Christian Unions face discrimination. Rightly so, for religious issues on campus are not local difficulties (November 18 and letters following).