The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is chairing the first meeting of the Archbishops’ Evangelism Task Group at Lambeth Palace today.
The group, which comprises about a dozen experts and practitioners in evangelism, has been set up following a debate on intentional evangelism at the General Synod in November. It intends to encourage and equip every church and Christian proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.
During its inaugural meeting, the group will consider how it can bring influence to bear on the church in the short, medium and long term. It will also discuss the group’s future structure and work. It is expected that the group will meet five times during its first 12 months.
A handful of intercessors and I have started a [url=https://msdeltaprayer.wordpress.com]prayer blog[/url] for the Mississippi Delta. It is a useful tool to increase prayer, even if there are only a few readers. For example, if twenty people sign up to have the prayers delivered to their e-mail, that represents a twentyfold multiplication of prayer.
Our readers, who have a heart for the Delta and are busy people, have given us positive feedback. They like the fact that the prayers come regularly and that the prayers are brief. Yes, there are other forms of prayer, like travailing prayer and fasting, to be recommended, but this is definitely worthwhile.
Wonderful, Jill. Keep up the good work.
Perhaps you, and other T19 readers, aren’t aware of a similar promising development that has taken place in the last couple of years here in the Mid-Atlantic region. The (ACNA) Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, under +John Guernsey, has made great strides in increasing the number of new churches planted. We’ve started at least 13 of them in the last two years, and these new churches are the driving force behind the evangelistic success and the growth of the diocese in this part of the country.
A major contributor to that remarkable increase in the number of new churches started has been an intercessory prayer initiative that we call L10-2 (from Luke 10:2). The Rev. Clancy Nixon and the Rev. Tim Howe head up that coalition that currently includes some 200 of us who have committed to praying daily for the Lord to raise up harvesters and church planters for our diocese.
For example, we just heard that our prayers have been answered (at last!) for Richmond, where I live. The Falls Church announced yesterday that it has selected a young seminarian in Denver to be the next Timothy Fellow in its apprenticeship program to train and send out church planters. The young man in question, due to graduate this spring, will work on the Falls Church staff for a year or so, and then move to Richmond to start a new ACNA church here. Very exciting.
We actually have so many people that have committed to this intercessory prayer effort that we are now divided into three groups (A, B, and C) that take turns praying for specific places and new churches on a rotating basis, thus widening our coverage of both time and space.
Check out our website, http://www.L10-2.org.
If we’re serious about evangelism, as ++Welby encourages us to be, then we have to devote lots of time, money, and not least prayer, to the thrilling challenge of church planting. For the historical record in abundantly clear: new churches are by far the most effective at reaching new generations and new social groups with the gospel and bringing them to saving faith in Christ.
David Handy+
David+ Wow, that’s great to hear! Praise God for those dioceses and churches, bishops and clergy, that are continuing to focus on seeking the lost and planting new churches, not just survival and maintenance.
Getting back to Jill’s comment and part of your response to her, I’ve been so encouraged to see the emphasis in the Dio. of Mid-Atlantic on prayer. I know they’ve led several workshops on prayer. It helps of course that Bp. Guernsey is an enthusiastic promoter of prayer ministry in the diocese. He sets a great example! (If you search on “Guernsey” at Lent & Beyond, you’ll see several of his teachings on prayer which we’ve posted.)
I know this comment is somewhat off-topic to the thread (sorry elves!) but to be honest, prayer & evangelism need to go hand in hand. Evangelism without prayer too quickly becomes about human strategies and efforts. And time in prayer, and communion with the Father, should result in our heart becoming more like His, thus us going out to find the lost sheep who are on His heart and whom He desires to rescue.
May it be so more and more. And yes, I’m preaching to myself. Just because I help run a prayer blog does NOT make me a strong intercessor or one who truly devotes myself to prayer. God in fact has been convicting me of this quite a bit lately…
More pertinent to the article…, let me just add a comment that it is encouraging to read of this meeting, and to see the example Abp. Justin is setting in this. Was glad to read of +York’s involvement and support too. If ++Welby truly does make “intentional evangelism” a top-three priority of his tenure as Abp. of Canterbury, that will be a very good thing for the CoE. I hope and pray that somehow this task force will quickly connect with many on the grassroots levels who are out doing the work of evangelism – that this won’t just produce a report on good methods but instead that it will facilitate the linking up, encouraging and equipping of those who have a passion to share Jesus and are out in the fields doing the work.