Surge of spiritual interest among youth in Wales
Emily Pollok
Date posted: 29 Apr 2025
Through the faithful preaching of God’s word, prayer, and community outreach, several churches in Wales are seeing God “doing more… than He ever has before” and lives being transformed by the gospel.
Mount Elim Church in Pontardawe was founded in the 1980s and underwent a revitalisation project 13 years ago. Since then, the church has outgrown its current building and is now in the process of constructing a new home to accommodate their thriving ministry.
Shooting for the moon in Manchester
Ralph Cunnington
Date posted: 28 Apr 2025
In a speech delivered at Rice University on 12 September 1962, John F Kennedy famously said: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Manchester is a city of 2.8 million people where less than 1% of the population currently attends a gospel church. We would need to plant 60 new churches of 100 people just to keep up with population growth at the current rate over the next ten years. The "moon shot" of the Northern Gospel Project is to plant 30 healthy gospel churches by 2030.
Sporting boost for uni missions
Brian Glynn
Date posted: 27 Apr 2025
Christian students are sharing encouragements following on from university missions which were supported by the organisation Christians in Sport (CiS).
Grace, a student leader at Exeter, reflected on the joy of seeing her peers engage with the message of Jesus. “We’ve loved having Graham Daniels [General Director of CiS] opening up the book of Luke during our evening events,” she said. “It’s been a real encouragement seeing many students come along to hear the gospel for the first time, through an invite from Christian friends or just by picking up a flyer.”
Do we do ‘tribal’ or ‘gospel’ unity?
Milla Ling-Davies
Date posted: 25 Apr 2025
Director of evangelical umbrella group Affinity, Graham Nicholls, said recently that conservative evangelicals “can be the most difficult [evangelical group] to unite” because of their “emphasis on rigorous theology and ministry practices.”
In the statement on the Affinity website, Nicholls acknowledges that “theology matters” but suggests it’s possible to unite around things we believe are purely theological but may actually be cultural or tribal.
Banner booked out
en staff
Date posted: 25 Apr 2025
This year’s Banner of Truth conference, on the theme of “A lifetime in ministry”, was fully booked.
Experienced pastor and writer Stuart Olyott and Jeff Kingswood, senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church (ARP) in Woodstock, Ontario stepped in to speak after Mark Dever was unable to due to a family health challenge.
politics & policy
The good and evil of the Crime and Policing Bill
James Mildred
Date posted: 23 Apr 2025
In Matthew 13:36-43, Jesus explains the parable of the weeds. The basic teaching is that at the end of the age there will be a great harvest. “The weeds” will be thrown into hell, while “the wheat” will shine like stars in a new world. Until that great day, the righteous and unrighteous shall coexist in this world.
It has struck me afresh in recent weeks that this is a perfect analogy for Christian engagement in politics. At CARE (Christian Action Research and Education), we are deeply privileged to have an office at the heart of Westminster. We are just five minutes walk (three if you leg it!) from the Houses of Parliament. Our location facilitates our relational approach to political engagement.
Cerebral palsy: ‘My eyes became my voice’
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 23 Apr 2025
A non-verbal teenager who uses his eyes to write is sharing his Christian faith through poetry, seven years on from the publication of his memoir.
Jonathan Bryan, 19, has cerebral palsy, and uses an alphabet board to communicate. His book Eye Can Write came out in 2018 – when he was only 12 years old – and details the silence, loneliness and pain of not being able to speak, and the experience of becoming literate and being able to communicate with his own words.
Taking back TikTok for the gospel
Emily Pollok
Date posted: 21 Apr 2025
Church leader David Sims is taking back ground for the gospel on social media – sending Bibles to strangers and seeing people find faith.
“We’ve got to reclaim this back for the Lord,” said the Walsall minister, who hosts live TikTok church on the platform each week. “I think we should be using it and take every opportunity to give reason for the hope that we have.”
Successor to Word Alive is unveiled
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 21 Apr 2025
The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) is launching a new Eastertime gathering, after popular Christian festival Word Alive shut down last year.
Rising Lights will take place from 6–10 April 2026 in the Devon town of Torquay, and is described as a chance to “hear God’s word, to praise our risen Saviour, and to rest.”
Network celebrates 15 years
en staff
Date posted: 18 Apr 2025
The Grace Baptist Partnership, a network dedicated to planting, training and revitalisation, is celebrating 15 years of mission and outreach.
Representatives from more than 20 churches gathered at Dunstable Baptist Church for the annual Grace Baptist Partnership (GBP) Prayer and Praise gathering. The structure of the event flowed with the ministry emphases of GBP, namely growing leaders, planting and revitalising churches, and reaching nations.
Assisted suicide bill faces backlash
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 17 Apr 2025
The Assisted Dying bill and absence of safeguards continues to be fiercely criticised by MPs, medics and lawyers. Even if MPs vote in mid-May in favour of the proposals, the deadline for implementation could be up to four years away.
In the face of waning support among parliamentarians, particularly the opposition parties, the bill’s sponsor Kim Leadbeater has insisted it will be “the strongest” such legislation in the world.
CofE complementarians ‘extremely concerned’
Milla Ling-Davies
Date posted: 17 Apr 2025
Evangelicals are reacting with “extreme concern” to the launch of a new campaign aiming to eliminate the provisions included in the 2014 women bishops’ legislation – claiming it may leave complementarian Church of England evangelicals “unable to continue in ministry”.
The provisions, known as the Five Guiding Principles, accommodate those who for theological reasons cannot accept women’s ministry – allowing for pastoral and sacramental dispensation. They have been in place since the legislation was made over a decade ago. However, according to the Church Times, organisation Women and the Church (WATCH) now hopes to bring a motion to all diocesan synods, asking “whether it is right for the 2014 House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests to continue in perpetuity and, if not, to set a date for it to come to an end.”
Christian loses unfair dismissal appeal
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 16 Apr 2025
A secondary school teacher who told year 7 pupils at a Church of England school that being LGBTQ+ was a sin and is “not fine”, and that transgender people are “just confused”, has lost her appeal against dismissal.
Glawdys Leger, a Christian, lost her teaching job after 12 years at Bishop Justus Church of England School, Bromley in May 2022 after a pupil’s mother complained about “very distressing” comments she allegedly made in class. The pupil was “exploring” who she was.
Christian scientist wins tribunal over gender-critical beliefs
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 15 Apr 2025
A government scientist and father-of-four who resigned from Porton Down after expressing gender-critical views has won his employment tribunal case.
Gender critical views - the belief that sex is biological and immutable, that people cannot change their sex and sex is distinct from gender-identity - is a philosophical belief and protected under equality laws.
Christian scientist charged with breaching abortion buffer zone
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 14 Apr 2025
A pro-life campaigner’s sign offering pregnant women the chance to talk amounted to intimidation and breached an abortion buffer zone, a magistrates court has concluded.
Livia Tossici-Bolt, a retired scientist and member of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children’s Bournemouth branch was charged after holding up a ‘here to talk if you want’ sign outside an Bournemouth abortion clinic in March 2023. She told a police officer her sign offered conversation to anyone who approached her voluntarily. That officer did not witness Livia intimidating or harassing anyone but asked her to leave the zone and she refused.
Buses to display John 3:16 to thousands
Milla Ling-Davies
Date posted: 13 Apr 2025
As part of a new gospel project, a bus with God's Word plastered across the back will soon be operating in the city of Glasgow.
This project will be the first of its kind in the city, the Christian Institute report. The bus will operate from Glasgow city centre, and travel across the greater Glasgow area, displaying John 3:16.
MPs demand action on escalating violence against Christians
Open Doors
Date posted: 12 Apr 2025
Members of Parliament have voiced deep concern over the increasing persecution of Christians worldwide, urging the UK government to take decisive action to address this trend.
The debate was led by Ruth Jones, MP for Newport West and Islwyn, who highlighted the severity of the situation:
CEEC offers alternative ‘affirmation of ordination vows’ services
Helen Catt
Date posted: 9 Apr 2025
The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) is inviting clergy and licensed lay ministers and readers to attend an ‘Affirmation of Ordination Vows’ service as an alternative to the often called ‘Chrism Services’ held in dioceses on Maundy Thursday.
Revd Canon John Dunnett, National Director of the CEEC, said: “With ongoing concerns with regards to Living in Love and Faith, we know that many clergy across the country feel in good conscience unable to attend the traditional Chrism services in their diocese. So we are offering two alternative services, in keeping with the Alliance’s construction of the de facto parallel province.”
