Benjamin Mitchell, Development Officer, Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary, writes:
Mortality in the UK stands at 100%; how are we helping friends, family and neighbours prepare for the one certainty of their lives? Few will enter a church; many will only hear Jesus’ name as a swear word. Introducing a vibrant talk on personal evangelism, church-planting pastor Andy Young summed up the crisis we face: ‘Europe is the only continent in the world where the church is receding’.
This is the crisis that prompted Westminster Presbyterian Seminary, Newcastle, to host a conference on evangelism, which was viewed by hundreds online.
Welcoming delegates, Director Jonathan Winch said: ‘Westminster’s motto is Head-Heart-Hands: knowledge should set our hearts aflame with love for Christ and make us live differently.’
Speaking of the miraculous catch of fish (Luke 5) Geoff Thomas, former pastor of Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, reminded delegates that Christ challenged seasoned fishermen who had caught nothing all night to ‘launch out into the deep’. To be successful fishers of men nothing more is needed than to take Christ at his word.
Topics included prayerful dependence on God, preaching, personal evangelism and youth work. David Strain’s insightful ‘Today’s False Gospels’ – therapeutic, reactionary, and social – left delegates thankful for Christ’s work on the cross, which deals with the heart of the problem: the human heart.
Jonathan Winch concluded: ‘The cross of Christ is the only answer to the crisis of our time.’
Westminster Presbyterian Seminary ‘equips men to hold fast to God’s faithful word, with a particular focus on preparation for planting churches in the UK and continental Europe.’
