50 years of training – and a bold new vision
Eliot Kern
Date posted: 11 May 2025
As London Seminary’s 50th anniversary approaches, it looks to the future with an ambitious aim.
The college was founded as London Theological Seminary in 1977 to train preachers and pastors, with Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones as its first chairman. From the start, the focus was on pastoral training. The requirement for entry was a genuine call to ministry, regardless of any student’s educational background, and while some went on to further study, the aim was to provide a comprehensive foundation for ministry.
UK festival proves mass evangelism can last
Luis Palau Association
Date posted: 10 May 2025
Despite the positive and Biblical intent to reach as many as possible with the gospel, mass evangelism campaigns are often criticised as ineffective - but one festival in Teesside has proven otherwise.
Large-scale evangelistic events, while often drawing crowds and delivering powerful messages, can appear to be impersonal, and reducing the introduction to faith to a one-time event rather than fostering a lasting, transformative relationship with Jesus Christ. They are also criticised for being short term in nature - after the event ends, there is little ongoing engagement or support for the new believers.
More people attending church than before pandemic
Evangelical Alliance
Date posted: 8 May 2025
Churches are seeing twice as many people commit to following Jesus than in 2021, the Evangelical Alliance's new Changing Church survey reveals.
Changing Church 2025, released this May, explores the state of the UK evangelical Church five years on from the Covid pandemic. Surveying 305 church leaders and 977 individuals, and hearing stories from evangelical churches of every size, shape and flavour, it reveals that something seemingly different is happening: people are exploring faith and finding Jesus.
Trailblazing initiative brings gospel to disadvantaged
Emily Pollok
Date posted: 5 May 2025
Four years since its inception, a pioneering initiative to bring the gospel to economically disadvantaged and ethnic minority areas is bringing transformation across the UK.
The Sychar Gospel Fund was established in 2021 with a vision to support local churches in the poorest areas of Britain – it has distributed more than £1.4 million in grants to 125 men and women from 40 different churches to date.
Gateway to the south for new church plant
en staff
Date posted: 30 Apr 2025
Balham in London was once famously described by the late comedian Peter Sellers as the “gateway to the south” in a much-loved comedy parody of American travelogues.
Now decades later those words are proving prophetic as Christ Church Balham (CCB) seeks to reach out and plant a new church some six miles to its south. CCB is part of both the Co-Mission reformed church planting movement and the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE).
Prison sees three ‘emotional’ baptisms
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 30 Apr 2025
Three prisoners have been baptised at HMP Chelmsford after attending weekly Bible studies run by Daylight Christian Prison Trust.
“It was a very emotional service, and other prisoners attending were clearly moved,” said CEO Gaius Phillingham. Alex, Douglas and Hugh shared how God had worked in their hearts and lives.
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.”
