Eleanor is an actress and a theatre maker living in North London, trained in both musical theatre and pure acting. She has spent 2 years with a theatre company doing everything from acting training to devising and directing pieces. She has been a part of Euston church since it was planted from St Helen’s Bishopsgate 5 years ago, and one day she would like to create her own theatre company.

What does being an ambassador for Christ mean to you?

In the house I used to live in with my aunt and uncle I remember seeing a postcard from their church, and it said: If Jesus were born in your place, in your time, with your job and your circumstances, how would he live? That’s always stuck with me as a challenge to be as Christ-like as I can in every situation I’m in. I need to use my personality and my specific skills to attract people to him.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will spend Holy Week visiting community projects, groups, schools and Christians in Canterbury diocese.

The Archbishop will be assisting the Sittingbourne deanery in its outreach, mission and evangelism from 20”“26 March, encouraging Christians in sharing faith through worship, service and evangelism.

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…we are “To Make Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age.”’

That was the T-shirt version, and it has stuck! I am more convinced now than ever, however inadequately we have received, embodied and conveyed it, that this was a vision from the Lord. I have also come to accept that what takes a year or two for a new rector to establish in a parish takes five years for a bishop to achieve in a diocese. It is only in recent years have I noticed rectors reciting this statement in a way that rolls naturally off of their tongues.

Now in this ninth year as your bishop I remain unswervingly committed to our calling. I see also the need to doggedly keep it before us. Frankly, this vision is like a railroad track””that is, it has two rails. One rail is a local focus and the other is more global.

So let me elaborate afresh: To Make Biblical Anglicans will mean two things:

Ӣ To help every congregation to engage every generation with the Good News of Jesus Christ

Ӣ To help shape emerging Anglicanism in the 21st Century

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The 225th Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, hosted by the Church of the Cross in Bluffton, SC, March 11-12, 2016 highlighted progress the Diocese made in recent years toward “Making Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age,” the vision cast by Bishop Mark Lawrence in 2009 during the first Convention after his election.

“I thought convention was fantastic,” said the Rev. Shay Gaillard, Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Charleston. “We had such a sense of unity and excitement. Bishop Lawrence’s address really helped us see what we have accomplished and the things going on in the parishes were an incredible encouragement.”

Over 400 clergy, lay delegates and guests from 53 churches, representing 23,000 members across the southern and coastal part of the state came together for the Bluffton event.

In his address Bishop Mark Lawrence thanked the number of churches that have pursued active ministry relationships with provinces and dioceses that have stood with the Diocese. In the past year churches have strengthened ties with clergy and parishioners in the Diocese of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa; Northern Uganda; Marsabit in Kenya; Kilmore, Elfin and Ardagh in Ireland; Dar es Salaam in Tanzania among many others.

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With 140,000 people working and 40,000 living in London’s Canary Wharf, how are they going to hear the gospel?

..As the mission was launched with Christians in January, Rico challenged those gathered on the Barge to truly believe the gospel of Jesus saves people from hell for heaven through the cross. He quoted Lindsay Brown from IFES saying that Christians would only be motivated in evangelism if they believed the gospel was both true and wonderful.

Rico said: ”˜If I open the Bible and teach it, God will speak through it. The power is in the Bible as the Spirit takes the word of God and transforms people’s hearts’. He highlighted that fear of being marginalised and rejected or being so busy at work and not having time to talk to others were some of the key reasons why Christians fail to share their faith
…..
Using statistics from the website www.TakingJesus.org, Rico said that 67% of non-Christians said they liked their Christian friends and of these 20% would describe themselves as being spiritually hungry. Finishing off, he said that Christians do not often pass on the message of the gospel because ”˜good things become god things’. He said God sent his Son into the world that people might come to know him and so God sends his people out for the same reason. He encouraged Christians to get involved in these events and pray that their non-Christian friends come and hear the good news.

Read it all and you can listen to Rico Tice’s talk here

When Craig Ellis was growing up, he picked up the sort of adventure book meant for a boy looking to serve God. The book, “Shadow of the Almighty,” told the story of Jim Elliot, a young American evangelist killed while doing mission work in Ecuador.

The narrative of this Christian martyr did for Mr. Ellis what a superhero comic might have done for his peers: It got him pondering purpose, struggle and sacrifice. The book also provided a model for how a Christian should spread the news of salvation while working in treacherous territory, at great personal risk.

Very little in “Shadow of the Almighty,” however, prepared Mr. Ellis for where he stood on a recent Tuesday, in a room with industrial carpet and a dropped ceiling at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where people lined up on Sunday morning are more likely awaiting a table for brunch than taking communion.

Mr. Ellis, 39, welcomed the dozen men and women seated before him. “This is a space,” he said, “for people who consider themselves non-Christian and are coming in from the outside.”..

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..what’s to be done? In 1952 Oxford Don and Christian apologist CS Lewis wrote to the Times calling for a ‘Deep Church’ ”“ a rediscovery and return to the historic foundations laid by Christ and the Apostles, rather than the somewhat superficial religion he observed was characteristic of much modern Christianity. Two generations on, we still need to heed this prophetic call and return to the deep things of God.

We cannot soothe ourselves in misty-eyed nostalgia of former golden eras of revival and evangelical advance neither can we sit in self pity like Job scraping our wounds in the rubble of what once was, battening down the hatches and hanging on in there awaiting Jesus to rapture out the few elect that remain. There’s work to be done; we need to return to first principles. We need to remember who we are and who God is. We need to put the Lord back at the centre. We need to learn to pray again, and witness to the cross and resurrection, and love one another and imitate Christ and drink deeply of the life giving, life transforming Spirit. It is time for Christians to believe and behave Christian again.

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The Diocese of South Carolina will hold its 225th Diocesan convention at the Church of the Cross in Bluffton, March 11-12, 2016. More than 350 convention delegates and clergy members representing 23,000 baptized members from across the eastern and coastal part of the state will attend the annual gathering to be held at the historic church.

A mini-conference on Grandparenting kicks off the convention the morning of the 11th followed by a series of afternoon workshops aimed at strengthening and growing churches. All are open to the public.

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Mr. Ellis, 39, welcomed the dozen men and women seated before him. “This is a space,” he said, “for people who consider themselves non-Christian and are coming in from the outside.”

His weekly sessions, called the WS Café in a reference to the neighborhood, are at a new frontier of evangelism, one that seeks converts among a fervent and growing number of atheists in this country. The sessions started in September as a push by Redeemer Presbyterian’s prominent pastor, the Rev. Tim Keller, to preach the gospel to skeptics.

Such efforts proceed amid a rare moment in both Christian and American history. At the origin of Christianity, its apostles sought to convert adherents of other faiths, whether Judaism or Roman paganism. Missionaries of the last few centuries journeyed to China or Africa or the Americas to encounter the followers of other faiths, whether Buddhist or Yoruba or Aztec. In every case, the Christian evangelist seeking converts was at least dealing with listeners who embraced the concept of a divine being involved in the world.

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This is all happening at a time, where across the Western world we are seeing the rise of a harder left and a harder right. This comes as a shock for since the fall of the Berlin Wall, with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair moving politics into the center, it seemed that such ideology had had its day. Yet ideology is back. What I find fascinating though is behind this move to further edges of the right and left is a common thread. Both espouse a kind of anti-institutional impulse which seeks to remove the restraints on the individual will. Both seek to either return to an idealized past or a utopian future through the hand of a kind of a benevolent, paternal entity be it government, tech companies, or the global financial market. Both end up ignoring, or bypassing the mediating institutions such as family, neighborhood, community organizations or church. Thus, creating the contemporary, atomized, and commitment phobic self, dizzy with choice. There is a significant and growing missional opportunity here for the church to inhabit and rehabilitate this ignored space….

Moore: What are a few goals you would like your readers to walk away with from having read Disappearing Church?

Sayers: There is no going back. We will most likely live the entirety of our lives in an increasingly diverse, contested, globalized, and divided world. As William Davidow and Moises Naim have shown, this world will also be a fragile one. Thus such a moment will be served by a church that is relevant by being resilient. With change and chaos as the norm, a nostalgic desire to return to halcyon days is deeply tempting. Instead of wanting to return to the past, we must learn from the past. Two thousand years of Church history have shown us that again and again, even as large portions of the Church compromise with the spirit of the day. Creative minorities, who engaged new landscapes with creativity alongside biblical orthodoxy and faithfulness, flourish, bring good news and live as ambassadors of the kingdom. This can and will again happen in our day. If in some tiny way Disappearing Church can contribute to that renaissance I will be deeply grateful to Him.

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Grace Church Muswell Hill is part of a group of churches journeying together as they seek to equip and commission 100,000 ambassadors representing Jesus Christ in daily life. Philip Sudell, the Vicar of St Mary’s, writes:

“Well it all sounded so clear and coherent in church on Sunday ”“ I knew exactly why trusting in and seeking to follow Jesus was the best thing for me to be doing ”“ but when it came to telling my work colleague on Monday morning somehow the words deserted me, I couldn’t put two sentences together and to cap it all my knees were almost audibly knocking at the thought of how they might react!”

If that rings any bells with you then you are amongst friends at least here at Grace Church in Muswell Hill. When the London Diocese shared its Capital Vision 2020 of being Confident, Compassionate and Creative, the aspect of being “..more confident in speaking and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” was something that really resonated with us and tied into some thinking we had already been doing about how to better equip ourselves to share our faith with friends and family and colleagues.

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Last May, CTC embarked on a pioneering partnership with St George-in-the-East ”“ the church in whose crypt we are now based.

The parish was between priests and, owing to its declining congregation, the Bishop of Stepney decided to review its pattern and provision of ministry. St George’s shared some of our passions ”“ being a place of prayer; working with and for its neighbours, and growing numerically ”“ but the challenge of maintenance (of a Grade I listed building with a Sunday congregation sometimes under twenty) made it hard to engage in much mission.

CTC made a proposal to the parish, and to the Bishop ”“ for an experimental partnership, with a community of young people living in the Rectory helping to renew the mission of the church and the two CTC staff who are Anglican priests (The Revd Tim Clapton and me) being licensed to the parish. For the same level of resource as the diocese would usually invest in a parish (through providing a rectory and clergy stipend), St George’s would get a very different pattern of ministry.

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A former homeless addict has revealed how he would be dead if it was not for his faith in an interview to accompany the second teaser film released by the Church of England today for the justpray.uk website.

In a blog and podcast released to accompany the film, the 46-year-old admits he had to harden his heart to survive living rough and addiction before feeling resurrected through his faith and the love he found at the Saturday Gathering Place in Halifax, West Yorkshire. “If a human being can get resurrected after dying, He’s done it to me. I haven’t died but I feel like I’ve been resurrected away from a life of crime and trouble to peace, love, understanding, calmness.”

Rob’s story “I am poured out like water” is the second in a series of films based on Psalm 22 for Lent and Easter launched by the Church of England featuring men and women who all came to faith through a Homeless and Food Drop In Centre in Halifax and most have experienced crime, alcohol, drug addiction, homelessness or violence in their lives.

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“The high points of the calling to serve God in His Church are the times when he works to draw people to himself. The times when hearts begin to thaw with his love, eyes open to his light, and shoulders lift as He comes alongside to bear burdens, as those who have carried around guilt, like in the Pilgrim’s Progress, that has weighed down memory with regret and shame know a freedom and release they never dreamt possible, as those who assumed that they had no worth realise their inestimable and infinite worth to God.

“God works through his Spirit to draw people to open their hands to receive his love and transforming power – and we have the huge privilege of seeing this happen. For me some of the most memorable and grace-filled moments of the last three years have been seeing God at work in the lives of those who would not call themselves Christians, but who I have had the privilege of seeing gently and profoundly drawn to Jesus Christ.

“This is our duty, our privilege and our joy. There is nothing like it.

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Susan Howatch, whose books have sold more than 20 million copies, is financing the Starbridge Lectureship in Theology and Natural Science. She wants to ”strike a blow for theology to show that religion is not dead, but complements scientific discovery”.

Ms Howatch, 52, believes God has been guiding her. Although she made her first fortune writing blockbusters such as Penmarric, success and its trappings left her spiritually empty. She had houses in several countries, drove a Porsche and a Mercedes and after the break-up of her marriage had too many ”facile, transient liaisons”. In the early Eighties she told her editor she would be late with a novel and he said: ”What will I tell the accountants?”

”I was not interested in fame and fortune any more – I’d had it all since I was 30 and it hadn’t satisfied me. So I thought, ‘If I’m not in it for that and I’m not in it to keep my publishers in the black, what the hell am I doing it for?’

”God seized me by the scruff of the neck, slammed me against the nearest wall and shook me until my teeth rattled. I thought: ‘Okay, what does God actually require of me?'”

–The Independent, March 18, 1993, page 7 and quote in this morning’s sermon (my emphasis)

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I write this article after having completed the first week of the Institute. If possible, it has already exceeded my expectations. Several things have especially stood out to me this first week.

First, the Beauty of Christ’s Global Body. Upon meeting my fellow participants the first day, I was surprised to discover that we had many mutual friends from places like India, South Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, etc. This was especially surprising in light of the fact that as a young priest I haven’t lived very long, haven’t traveled very far, and haven’t had a whole lot of life experience. In short, this instant connectedness was not about me but was simply a beautiful testament to how Christ’s body has grown””from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth””and to how the spiritual unity we have in Christ is being made visible by advances in modern technology.
Stemming from this unity, the fellowship has been both rich and challenging. With regards to the richness, one cannot hear eyewitness stories of martyrdom and persecution without being touched in the deep places of one’s soul and inspired to follow Christ more faithfully in one’s own walk (Heb. 11). Many of the participants have tread the path of persecution, and as a Westerner, their stories put my own ministry challenges in healthy and humbling perspective.

On the other hand, the diversity of the fellowship has challenged us to wrestle honestly with the unique cultural lenses we bring to ministry. Whether we’re asking questions after a lecture, breaking down a passage of scripture in a small-group preaching exercise, or analyzing a case study from mission field, it has been eye-opening to see just how pervasively our cultures influence our perspectives. Fortunately, as we wrestle honestly with these issues, our blinders begin to fall away, and we are able to more clearly see the pure and undiluted Gospel, in all of its glory.

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Founded in 2004, in 2010 the diocese of Zonkwa had 81 congregations served by 31 priests and 12 catechists. Yesterday at Adult Sunday School I was able to ask Bishop Jacob Kwashi about the current numbers, which now are: 95 congregations served by 54 priests and 27 evangelists.

Attendance at Church of England services has plunged to its lowest level ever as the Archbishop of Canterbury warned it was battling to maintain its place in an increasingly “anti-Christian” culture.
Official figures ”“ based on an annual pew count ”“ show that only 1.4 per cent of the population of England now attend Anglican services on a typical Sunday morning.
Even the Church’s preferred “weekly” attendance figures, which include those at mid-week or extra services, has slipped below one million for the first time ever.

Overall average attendances at Sunday services across England fell by 22,000 to 764,700 in 2014 – a fall of seven per cent in just five years.

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In AA, you always introduce yourself by name and say,“… and I am an alcoholic.” Amongst other things, the Twelve Steps requires you to admit your own powerlessness and to turn your life over to the care of God. I know I am still an alcoholic ”“ my sponsor in AA has been sober for thirty years, and he is still an alcoholic too”“but I’m a grateful alcoholic, because I found Jesus.

One Sunday last Fall I came to St. John’s Parish for the first time; they were asking for help with the Feeding of the Multitude, so I signed up. I’ve been part of St. John’s ever since. Sometimes I attend services in the church, and other times I go to Walton Hall ”“ I love to sing There Is Power In The Blood ”“ but it doesn’t matter where I go, He is with me. It is phenomenal what Christ has done for me, the joy He’s given me.I regret missing it for so long.I can’t start over,but I can make a new beginning. Now I’m trying to be sensitive to see what His purpose is for the rest of my life.

Read it all (page 3).

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Millennials, like the rest of us, are human beings. I know that’s not a terribly surprising thing to say, and I haven’t actually heard anyone deny that fact. But with the coming of age of each new generation, it seems there’s always a flurry of books and articles competing both for the honor of naming that generation and of describing what’s unique about them. And of course, so long as we’re okay using sweeping generalizations, each generation does tend to exhibit characteristics setting it apart from those who came before and will come after. Usually that has to do with the historical and cultural context in which they came of age. So one generation was deeply affected by the post-World War II world, the next by the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, the next by the Cold War, and on and on.

I’ll leave it to the professionals to do the work of describing exactly what’s affected millennials and how it’s affected them. As a Christian pastor, my task is to do the even harder work of reminding people””including millennials themselves””they’re not that different from the rest of us. The world has been around for a very long time, and the deepest problems plaguing millennials today have plagued every generation throughout human history. What’s more, the greatest solution we can offer millennials is the same as it’s ever been. That doesn’t change.

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One such place was Holy Trinity Brompton whose leaders had experienced a measure of frustration in their dealings with the Kensington Area hierarchy. Alpha was beginning to develop into the global movement that it is today, and there were voices within HTB urging that a base outside the Church of England would be more conducive to growth. The local hierarchy was unwilling to see HTB as much more than a conventional parish in the Area, and in particular was keen to restrict the numbers of curates that the Church could employ, even though there was finance available to enlarge the staff. The restrictions were fuelled by a liberal distaste for charismatic evangelicalism and a conviction that the supply of curates should be evenly spread throughout the Diocese, irrespective of the capacity to pay.

There was an important principle here, also expressed in the Common Fund system. The Diocesan budget was calculated on the basis of the establishment figure for clergy numbers, together with elements for administration and national church obligations. The total sum was then divided between parishes by reference to a complex formula which relied heavily on electoral roll numbers, with the consequence that a church in decline would be more and more heavily subsidised by any that were growing. There was in effect a tax on growth and an incentive to be less than candid in declaring parochial resources. This may have been tolerable when the Diocese still enjoyed a substantial benefit from the distributions of the Church Commissioners but, as these declined in significance and pension obligations in particular mounted, the contributors to the system were increasingly restive as they saw that they were being asked to subsidize less active neighbours. It was clear that a crisis of consent could not be long delayed.

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For decades, the “gold standard” of mission discipleship has been Youth With A Mission’s (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS). The original curriculum was designed by Dave Gustaveson, pretty much universally referred to as Dave G. Now, years later, though there has been wisdom and evolution, the basic pattern continues. Three months of classroom and community building is followed by three months of deployment on overseas mission in what is called the “10-40 Window.” That is the band around the globe from 10ËšNorth to 40ËšNorth in which most of the world’s unreached people groups live. To my knowledge it was first coined by Louis Bush in 1990. Bush, a Christian mission strategist saw the need to target the area because of the religious makeup of the people who lived in that region and the lack of penetration of Christian faith.

The YWAM vision to reach the nations of the world goes back to 1956 when a 20 year old Loren Cunningham was traveling in the Bahamas over Spring Break with a Christian singing group. Here are his words on what happened:…

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An exhaustive study shows that 2 in 5 believe Jesus is a myth. Evangelical Alliance, Church of England and Hope encourage churches to “understand the landscape we are in.”
…Some of the key findings among non-Christians are:

– 61% of English adults do not believe the Bible is God’s word
– 40% think Jesus is a myth and did not actually exist
– 57% describe themselves as “Christians”
– Only 9% is an “active Christian” (reads the Bible, prays and goes to church).

MOST HAVE A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER WHO IS AN ACTIVE CHRISTIAN

Among non-Christians, 67% know someone who is a ”˜practising Christian’. 60% say they “enjoy the company of the Christians they know” and they “attribute more positive than negative qualities to the Christian they know”, the study shows. More than half of non-Christians describe their practicing Christian friends as “friendly” and “caring.”

HOW DOES SOMEONE BECOME A CHRISTIAN?

A variety of influences led practicing Christians to make their faith commitment. Growing up in a Christian family was a key factor (41%), attending church services was also important (28%), followed by reading the Bible (27%).

Conversations with a Christian they knew well (27%), an experience of the love of Jesus (24%), an unexplainable spiritual experience (17%) and a particular life event, whether positive or negative (16%), where also among the key factors of conversion.

Christians talking to non-Christians. /Barna
“85% of practising Christians feel a responsibility to evangelise”, the study shows. In fact, “7 in 10 practising Christians are comfortable sharing their faith.”

Read it all and there is also a release from Evangelical Alliance and more information on Talking Jesus