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Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Covid-19 is an opportunity for European mission agencies to reflect deeply once again on the meaning of mission in today’s world.

One of the key questions it raises is whether it has made sense to have invested so heavily in huge buildings, since social distancing restrictions have forced many churches to think about how to make small gatherings work, not just big ones.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Four years ago, the Bullock family left the familiarity and security of the UK to serve God cross-culturally in Zambia with Operation Mobilisation. Dan is Field Leader, responsible for all OM’s missionaries in Zambia, as well as its local workers. Ruth is a physiotherapist working to train people with disabilities.

Writer Ivy Chiu spoke to Dan and Ruth about why they took such a bold step.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Oct 2021

Evangelical Christians and the Vietnamese Government appear to have learnt from past mistakes – and their joint response to a recent coronavirus outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City has highlighted the benefits of prompt co-operation.

After some students at the Evangelical Church of Vietnam South’s Institute of Bible and Theology developed coughs and fevers last summer, church authorities immediately called the government health department. Tests revealed that 290 of the 306 students and staff on the campus had Covid-19. The authorities immediately quarantined the campus and sent in a medical team. Two Christian doctors and five volunteers of a Christian student fellowship also entered the campus to serve the sick. The 15 who needed hospital treatment included the Dean of Students, pastor Nguyen An Thai, and his wife.

Iain Taylor

Date posted: 1 Sep 2021

Two new developments in the past few days appear to hasten the final demise of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).

Firstly, a number of donors in the USA have filed a complaint in a Georgia federal court, claiming that the organisation covered up its founder’s abusive conduct. They allege they were misled to believe that their donations were being used to promote ‘Christian evangelism, apologetic defence of Christianity, and humanitarian efforts.’ However, the donors claim they were misinformed as they were told there was no evidence of abuse; instead ‘Zacharias was a prolific sexual predator who used his ministry and RZIM funds to perpetrate sexual and spiritual abuse against women’.

Global health charity Mercy Ships has taken possession of its brand-new vessel at an event at the Tianjin Xingang shipyard, China. The Global Mercy, which is 174 metres long and displaces 37,000 tonnes, is the world’s largest civilian hospital ship.

Mercy Ships has been working on this new project for more than eight years. Contracts were signed in 2013, and the keel laid in 2015. Sea trials were successfully completed in late April this year. The Global Mercy will now sail to Antwerp where it will be fitted out with IT and medical equipment. The ship’s volunteer crew will also start to arrive then, before it will be presented to sponsors, future volunteers and the media in early 2022.

The human cost of the violence in northern Mozambique is laid bare in a number of eyewitness accounts of the fighting, and its aftermath, that Evangelicals Now has obtained from local Christians.

Several atrocities have recently taken place, with dozens of civilians being killed and at least 11,000 displaced after militants invaded Palma, Cabo Delgado on 24 March.

More than 100 people were killed after a massive explosion in Equatorial Guinea (central West Africa) in March, with 600 injured and almost 300 in hospital. More than 60 people were rescued from under the rubble by the civil protection corps and the fire service.

Local Christians and churches were badly affected too, with a Baptist pastor (as yet unnamed) killed and several members of the Baptist Church of Bata killed or injured.

New official data reveals that almost 2% of the Spanish population now identifies as Protestant or evangelical.

In the 20 years to 2018, this group multiplied eightfold, to become the fastest-growing denomination in the country. And those evangelicals are now worshipping in well over 4,200 churches across Spain, opening on average 16 new churches a month.

Departing President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), J.D. Greear, has used his final message to the Executive Committee to demand that the church engages constructively with Critical Race Theory (CRT).

The talk coincided with the much-publicised decision of leading Bible teacher Beth Moore – a longstanding critic of Donald Trump – to quit the SBC, saying ‘I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists.’

Stephen Lungu, one of the great evangelists of recent times and revered as the ‘Billy Graham of Africa’, has died of coronavirus, aged 78.

Stephen grew up in pre-independence Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and was the product of a dysfunctional family, living on the streets and getting involved with street gangs.