Rev. Hugh Ferrier has become the first ever minister of the High Free Church in Stornoway, after the 28-year-old accepted a unanimous call to pastor the Isle of Lewis Free Church of Scotland congregation at a meeting of the Western Isles Presbytery. The new Stornoway church was formed after a meeting in June 2013,…
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Africa Christian Textbooks (ACTS) has given thanks to God for the provision of a big sum of money to help it achieve its target for Lagos, despite a bitter disappointment. In a newsletter, ACTS said it had been touched by gifts of nearly £30,000 towards its £50,000 target to buy a property in Lagos…
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A cast of the skull of Bede — the so-called ‘father of English history’ — has been put on display at Jarrow, the home of the English monk and historian. The exhibition, called ‘The skull of Bede’, will showcase the cast of the skull, which was recently rediscovered by Professor Jo Story, from the…
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The result of the presidential election in Nigeria on 28 March sent shock waves across the world. There were mixed feelings too among Nigerians. With the conceding of defeat by Dr Good-luck Ebele Jonathan to General Muhamadu Buhari it was felt, in south Nigeria, as if someone great had died. We are waiting to…
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John Owen, perhaps the greatest of the Puritan theologians, was born sometime in 1616 — 400 years ago, next year — to a family of Puritans living in the tiny village of Stadhampton, in Oxfordshire. The family was not especially wealthy, and neither were they especially rigorous in their religious views. Owen later described…
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Rev. Nicky Gumbel, vicar of Holy Trinity, Brompton, and director of the Alpha Course since 1990, sang the praises of the Catholic Church at ‘Proclaim 15’, a major Catholic ‘evangelisation event’, held in Birmingham on Saturday 11 July. One of four keynote speakers, including Cardinal Vincent Nichols, he told his audience of 900 Catholic…
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Advocacy organisation Release International, which supports persecuted Christians worldwide, has launched a petition calling on the Egyptian government to ensure security for the Christian minority. Release’s petition, part of its #EveryRight campaign, calls on Egyptian politicians to make good their guarantee of freedom of religion for Christians, who are increasingly under attack in the…
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The induction of Rev. Thomas Yates to the pastorate at Maryport Street Baptist Chapel in Devizes was held at 3.00pm on Saturday 11April 2015. The chapel was full, as members and friends gave thanks to the Lord for his provision of a pastor after a seven-year interregnum. Church secretary Paul Mackey told those present how, just…
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A fact-finding team of human rights groups has confirmed that a Christian couple were murdered and accused of being Maoists. According to a report from Barnabas Fund, Dhubaleswar and his wife, Bhubudi Nayak, had gone up to the top of a hill in Pangalpadar village, in the Kandhamal district of Odisha (formerly Orissa) state, on…
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The Evangelical Movement of Wales (EMW) saw more than 400 children and young people attending the 11 camps that it ran over the summer. According to a statement from the EMW Camps Committee, all the children heard the good news of Jesus Christ; some have become Christians and others have been strengthened in their…
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There is an ‘alarming widening’ of the marriage gap between rich and poor, the Marriage Foundation (MF) has found, with the poorer in society more likely to be single parents. The data has found that mothers with young children are four times more likely to be married if they are wealthy than if they…
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The Department of Health (DoH) has claimed there is no need for the government to enshrine protections against sex-selective abortions, as there is little evidence to prove it is taking place. The 43-page review, called Assessment of termination of pregnancy on grounds of the sex of the foetus: response to Serious Crime Act 2015,…
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It took a few attempts before I could get the hang of pronouncing ‘Gulargambone’ correctly. The name means ‘place of Galahs’ or ‘watering place of many birds’, in the language of the local indigenous people. Gulargambone is a small community of about 400 people located more than 500km north-west of Sydney, in New South…
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Much has changed since 1953, when HM The Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne. The average house price was £2500, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing became the first people to scale the summit of Mount Everest, and there were just 2.6 billion people living on the earth. Fast-forward to 2015, and there are now…
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Outreach with Christian Answer Missions in Cambridge, Canterbury and Bournemouth over the summer brought ‘outstanding’ opportunities, Professor Andy McIntosh has said. In his latest newsletter, he said, ‘Hundreds of gospels have been given out, and many significant conversations in all the places I was at this summer’. According to Prof. McIntosh, ‘Perhaps one of…
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‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’ (Galatians 6:14). The problem with the Judaisers was that they never understood the cross. If they had, they would never have mentioned circumcision in the same breath.…
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In June 2015, Maciek and Mary Stolarski, along with Derek French, left the UK bound for Zimbabwe. For Maciek and Derek, this was their eighth visit to the country since 2008 for the primary purpose of training pastors. This year they were participating in the fifth Training of Trainers course (TOT). Mary’s presence in…
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Four out of five evangelicals think government policies to tackle extremism may make it harder for them to share their faith. According to a survey from the Evangelical Alliance (EA), two-thirds of respondents out of 1700 responding to the survey felt that the current attempt to define ‘British values’ was a reflection of the…
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The sin that has engulfed our nation, and infiltrated — sometimes deeply — into the professing church of Jesus Christ, demonstrates beyond all doubt that God’s judgements are at work in the UK (see ET comment, September 2015). Far from Britain experiencing a latter day Christian ‘revival’, as some well-meaning yet very naïve people…
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More pupils in England and Wales have taken a full course of GCSE Religious Studies (RS) this year than in 2013–2014, latest government figures have revealed. According to the Department for Education (DfE), the numbers were up 5.3 per cent against 2014, to 283,756. This echoed the increase in A Level entries, which were…
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Down through the centuries people have been fascinated by time. Can you remember seeing sundials and clock faces with the inscription ‘tempus fugit’? This Latin phrase (Virgil, 70-19 BC) means ‘time flies’,never to be recovered. Another is ‘carpe diem’ (Horace, 23 BC), often translated ‘seize the day’. These two Latin phrases encourage us to…
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Peter Hulland was preacher and pastor at Stanton Lees Chapel in the Derbyshire Dales for about 40 years. His church, greatly blessed by the Lord over these years, has long been a centre of good preaching, with special preaching services several times a year, attended by many people. From his RAF days, Peter worked…
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The weather isn’t always kind in Aberystwyth in August, but it has been the time and venue for the Evangelical Movement of Wales’ English Conference every year for 50 years. There are still some people — a declining number obviously — who have been present at every one. Around 1500 people descend on the…
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I’m a leader of a church. Last Sunday I wore a suit and tie. The Sunday before that I wore cords and cardigan. I often change what I wear, because I think the Bible teaches that Christians should dress a bit for God, but mainly out of concern for people. And having a range…
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In the laws governing American society, there are fundamental principles traceable to God’s moral law. Whatever one’s opinion about the United States being built on Christian principles or not, the law is framed so that, most of the time, most legislators, judges, lawyers and police condemn those who murder, lie and steal. And one…
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Charity Feed the Hungry has launched a campaign called ‘Every Child, Every Day’, to help raise awareness about, and meet the needs of, street children in Manila. In the slums of Tondo, many children have to rummage through garbage to find something to sell in order to raise money for their families. However, the…
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An independent evangelical church, planted in Oxford two years ago, has launched an evangelistic evening service, designed to share the gospel with students in the city. This second service at Trinity Church, which is affiliated to the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) and belongs to the South Central Gospel Partnership, will take place…
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‘My son, if you accept my words … then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God’ (Proverbs 2:1-5). My wife and I, by the grace of God alone, have raised four children. We are now convinced that the teenage years are among the most difficult ones to…
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The Lord’s Prayer or family prayer, which our Saviour taught his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, goes straight to what the heart of prayer is. Calling upon God as ‘Our Father’ shows us that prayer to the Christian is never a cold, abstract form, but an intimate encounter with our father God.…
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This coming November will see the second anniversary of Typhoon Haiyan, which left over 7000 dead and more missing in the Philippine provinces of Samar and northern Leyte. Tacloban City was particularly hit, with thousands being killed and displaced. Over the past two years, Christian Compassion Ministries (CCM), the benevolent arm of Cubao Reformed…
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The refugee crisis in the Middle East, and now Europe, has at last caught the world’s attention. How are Christians in the West to respond? When, over 70 years ago, an evil regime came to power in Germany, up to 38,000 people sought refuge across Europe. Within a few years, as German armies swept…
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One of the largest online scripture databases has been updated with its 300th full Bible — the Nepali New Revised Version. According to United Bible Societies (UBS), its Digital Bible Library (DBL) has the largest Scripture database, with nearly 1100 total Bible translation items available. It supplies Bible texts to ministries around the world.…
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In August a team from Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) visited a Christian couple in Pakistan, charged with blasphemy and imprisoned in two different jails. Shafqat Masih is at Faisalabad’s district jail and has been sentenced to death on grounds of blasphemy, under 295 C PPC, while Shagufta his wife is…
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A Kentucky County Clerk was jailed for five days after defying a federal court order to issue licences to gay couples. According to reports in the New York Times, the woman, Kim Davis, was ordered to be detained for contempt of court, and later rejected a proposal to allow her deputies to process same-sex…
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One of the highest courts in the UK has turned down an appeal against the imposition of the Named Persons regime in Scotland. The Inner House Court of Session in Edinburgh has refused to allow the ‘No to Named Persons’ (NO2NP) campaign to appeal against a ruling last year by Lord Pentland. In January…
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There were mixed emotions at the Japanese commemorations to mark the end of the Second World War with the dropping of the atomic bombs (A-bombs) on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the War in the Pacific drew to a close, US president Harold Truman approved the military use of atomic weapons — dropping first one…
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Vox Caritas, the organisation that bought the assets of Damaris Trust when it went into administration earlier this year, has pledged to carry on the charitable purposes of the firm. In a statement Vox Caritas said, ‘Initially some people were concerned that the assets of the charity would be lost. [However], they are being…
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The world has changed a lot in 20 years. No. It has changed a lot in five years. Courtesy of ‘the father of lies’, it will keep on changing too. Social media will continue to be a big part of this. And besure that the law in the UK that brought ‘gay marriage’ on…
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Robert Moffat, the pioneer missionary to Africa, was converted as a young man through the witness of a small congregation at the hamlet of High Legh in the Cheshire countryside, in the early 1800s. At the time he was working on the High Legh estates as a gardener, but, after reading an advert for…
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Advocacy group Release International is calling for a Chinese Christian lawyer to be set free, having expressed fears that he may be tortured into a false confession. Release has warned that Beijing lawyer Zhang Kai, who was defending churches against moves to tear down their crosses, was seized by officials and, according to partners…
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Barrister James Ewins is described by his Twitter feed as a: ‘Faith-filled lover of God, justice, the poor, my wife, my children, the church, the voiceless, friends, anti-slavery and sailing’. A specialist in family law, James’ passion for justice has led him to work with bonded labourers in India for the International Justice Mission…
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On Wednesday 7 October the UK division of IVP announced that it was becoming part of a joint operation with SPCK (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge). Staff at the Nottingham office of IVP were also told of this decision the same day. On Friday 16 October staff were told that the Nottingham…
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Africa Christian Textbooks (ACTS) has given thanks to God for the provision of a big sum of money to help it achieve its target for Lagos, despite a bitter disappointment. In a newsletter, ACTS said it had been touched by gifts of nearly £30,000 towards its £50,000 target to buy a property in Lagos…
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My dear dad died on 12 December 2014. He was 84 years and 6 days old. He had been suffering from dementia for a few years, so wasn’t quite the father I had known. We enjoyed a warm friendship right up to his last day. I would be lying if I said that I…
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Next (see ET, September 2015), we visited Capernaum, the strategic centre of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (Matthew 4:13), and hometown of James, John and Matthew. Here Jesus healed a man of an unclean devil, Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, the Roman centurion’s servant, and the lame man let down through the roof. We visited…
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All Souls Church, in Langham Place, London, has established a small, informal group for women who are suffering with issues around eating and self-image. According to members of the group, the Christ-centred meetings have helped to give them ‘hope again’, with another stating, ‘It is one of the highlights of my week’. The group,…
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Christian and charity campaign groups have given thanks for the resounding defeat of Rob Marris’ assisted suicide bill. The Bill, which was hotly debated through Parliament and looked dangerously close to becoming an Act, has been quashed by a vote of 330 against, with just 118 in favour. It was the first…
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The Zimbabwe Partnership Trust was formed in July 2011 as a result of visits to the country by Derek French, Maciek and Mary Stolarski, Chris Boyes, and Roger and Gill Prime. While in Zimbabwe, we saw the desperate needs among many of the Lord’s people caused by the economic crisis the country has faced…
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Nearly one-third of pastors find their personal prayer life a disappointment, while half claim to have no close friend to whom they can be accountable, research has found. Last summer, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) surveyed pastors and wives across the family of FIEC churches. The survey aimed to help pastors to…
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Allowing same-sex marriages is a way for the state to expand its power over the lives of citizens, Brendan O’Neill has warned. In a guest blog on website ‘The Catallaxy Files’, an Australian libertarian and centre-right blog,the journalist and editor of web newspaper Spiked online, said his beef with gay marriage was that the…
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The Palestinian Bible Society (PBS) has been encouraging and equipping churches to reach out with love to their communities. Throughout Ramadan earlier this year, PBS urged Christians to engage with two new initiatives to help them serve their neighbours in this 99 per cent Muslim territory, in a practical way. Every evening during Ramadan,…
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The Bible speaks clearly of the Christian’s responsibility to care for widows and orphans. Many churches may already have a heart for reaching out to these vulnerable groups, but the subject covered in this book is one for every Christian and needs to be read. The authors, who have vast experience working with international…
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One of the criticisms of the way history is taught in schools is that pupils come away knowing a bit about Henry VIII and his six wives, some details of the horrors of the slave trade and something about Hitler, but nothing to set it all in context. Some even struggle to put all…
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Chris Woodall, of North-West University in South Africa, has produced a book adding to the growing list of publications on the doctrine of atonement. It comes as third in a series, following Covenant and Kingdom. I have not read the previous volumes and it was difficult to place Atonement’s perspectives in a broader context.…
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Don’t read this book if you want a comfortable, easy-going Christian life! It is aimed particularly at preachers, but its message applies to all of us acting on Jesus’ words: ‘You shall be my witnesses’ (Acts 1:8). The introduction, ‘The need for evangelistic preaching’, points out how our lives can be so full of…
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With the Bishop of London giving approval to the ecumenical movement and rejoicing in closer ties with the Roman Catholic Church, this book is a must. Not only does the said bishop give an unclear sound, but even some of a Reformed evangelical outlook paint a confused picture. A recently appointed moderator of…
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This book is a profound and thoughtful meditation on the love of God, by an author clearly moved by his subject. Each of the chapters consists of three sections: an explanation followed by an applicatory meditation and a prayer. The author’s main concern is that the statement in the apostle John’s first letter that…
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Mark Boda is professor of Old Testament at McMaster Divinity College. Return to Me is volume 35 in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. D. A. Carson is the editor of this series addressing key issues in biblical theology. The introduction outlines the author’s convictions concerning the Scriptures and biblical theology. It also…
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Having paid good money for a 300-page tome, you might feel cheated when you discover that one third of the pages are taken up with acknowledgments, an appendix and 68 pages of end notes! But you could do with an extra bookmark to guide you through the end notes since they are worth reading!…
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