Evangelical Alliance on Faith in Action Among Young Adults

In early 2026, the Evangelical Alliance UK surveyed just over 600 Christians aged between 18 and 34 on their experience of faith and evangelism in the UK.

They wanted to find out:

• How do young Christians practise their faith today?

• What do they encounter on social media?

• How do they see evangelism?

The short report ‘Faith in Action’ summarises their findings and serves as ‘an encouraging snapshot of how Christian young adults are engaging with church and society today’.

The report is available as a pdf here.

Kirsten Birkett on Class and Evangelicalism in Britain

Cambridge Papers are published once a quarter (or thereabouts) and address a wide range of topics, offering ‘Christian reflection on contemporary issues’.

The latest paper is available online here (from where a pdf can be downloaded here):

Kirsten Birkett, ‘Class and evangelicalism in Britain’, Cambridge Papers 35, 1 (March 2026).

Here is the summary:

‘Class in Britain is easy to understand in broad outline but very complicated in practice. This paper surveys ways in which class can be understood in twenty-first-century Britain, and some of the biblical material concerning class and wealth. It identifies a problem for British evangelicals: their evangelism is not reaching the working classes. It is suggested that there is a need to challenge existing evangelical church culture as well as making a concerted effort to plant more churches for working-class people.’

EAUK on Five Missional Trends for 2026

Phil Knox of the Evangelical Alliance UK shares five key missional trends churches should expect to see in 2026:

1. Look out for the spiritually open: 2026 will be the most spiritually open year in living memory.

2. Look out for the unexplained: 2026 will see spiritual experiences, dreams and unexplained events drawing thousands to church.

3. Look out for the gospel opportunities: 2026 will see the church needing to better join the dots between compassion ministry and faith sharing.

4. Look out for booming Bible engagement: 2026 will see Bible sales continue to soar with seekers turning up to church having done their theological research.

5. Look out for discipleship questions and challenges: 2026 will see more people come to faith through new pathways, so good answers about what’s next in their discipleship journey will be essential.

Those are the headlines. See here for slightly fuller reflections.

Dan Strange on Making Faith Magnetic

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (October 2024) it’s Making Faith Magnetic: Five Hidden Themes Our Culture Can't Stop Talking About… And How to Connect Them to Christ, by Dan Strange, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

9Marks Journal (February 2024) on Evangelism

The latest issue of the 9Marks Journal, available from here, looks at the topic of ‘Evangelism: Sharing the Good News’.

In the Editor’s Note, Jonathan Leeman writes:

‘Lots of Christians these days are talking about politics, culture war, and the state of our nations. Those are important matters to discuss. Christ is Lord over everything, and he calls Christians to love their neighbors, in part, by seeking justice.

‘You also might have noticed that many of these same Christians will quickly concede, “Yes, yes, of course, the only thing that will really redeem a nation is evangelism and healthy churches.” Yet then they never seem to get around to talking about evangelism and healthy churches…

‘Christ has given us earthly citizenships to steward in love and obedience. Yet our heavenly citizenships must remain the priority, meaning the former shapes and determines the latter. To reverse the order is idolatry and makes Jesus a tool of the world…

‘We’re not saying you should adopt an either/or posture, as in, “Only this world or the next world matters.” Rather, we’re talking about priorities. What serves what?…

‘So… let’s talk about evangelism. How’s your personal evangelism going? Is your church engaged? Are your elders strategizing together?

‘We’ve compiled a host of articles to help you practically, but also to remind you that, even when the devil offers us all the kingdoms of this world, something else remains far more important.’

Tim Keller on Christian Public Engagement

Tim Keller has written a helpful article – ‘How Should Christians Speak in Public’ – using an interview with a pastor on Australian TV as a prompt.

Keller points out what is now largely evident that, in many places in the west, culture has ‘moved from a Positive view of Christianity to a Neutral view and now to a Negative view of it’.

In this context some are arguing that Christians should abandon the ‘nice’ tone that so often accompanied a so-called ‘seeker-sensitive’ approach, that ‘the age of conciliatory cultural engagement is over’.

However, Keller offers a proposal ‘for a way to do public engagement now which differs not only from the seeker-sensitive approach but also from the new (and admittedly under-developed) “just tell the truth” approach’.

Taking his cue from 1 Corinthians 2:1–5, he suggests that  Paul calls Christians to:

1. A spirit of humility and love – ‘Affection’.

2. Culturally compelling arguments – ‘Persuasion’.

3. A quiet, courageous confidence in the truth of God’s Word – ‘Resolution’.

Keller concludes:

‘I know that we are very early in this conversation in the evangelical world, but I propose that, using Paul’s exhortation, we can find ways of combining the three elements of Affection, Resolution, and Persuasion in our public discourse in a way that many secular people will find moving and some secular people will find convincing. That will grow the church, slowly but steadily, in our society.’

Talking Jesus Report 2022

The ‘Talking Jesus’ report for 2022 has recently been published.

Borne out of a partnership between Alpha, the Evangelical Alliance, HOPE Together, the Luis Palau Association, and Kingsgate Community Church, it seeks to show ‘the state of faith in the UK, how people come to faith in Jesus and how we, as the church, can talk about Jesus more effectively with our friends and in our community’.

Further information is available from here, the report is available to download from here, and a video of the launch is available here.

Rico Tice and Carl Laferton on Evangelism

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (June 2021) it’s Honest Evangelism, by Rico Tice with Carl Laferton, available in exchange for an email address here.

Evangelical Review of Theology 44, 4 (October 2020)

The latest Evangelical Review of Theology, published by The World Evangelical Alliance, is now online and available in its entirety as a pdf here.

Editor’s Introduction:

Is Our Quality Higher Than That of the US Presidential Campaign?

Efraim Tendero

Evangelicals and Elections

Thomas K. Johnson

The Protester, the Dissident and the Christian

When and why should Christians protest? How can we turn the hearts of other protesters towards the hope offered by the Christian gospel? This article, revised from a sermon originally preached during the Arab Spring uprisings, answers those timely questions as we experience another year of widespread protests.

Ebenezer Yaw Blasu

The Invisible Global War: An African ‘Theocological’ Assessment of Responses to COVID-19

How should the experience of COVID-19 shape future human behaviour? This article examines responses by both Christians and practitioners of primal (traditional) African religions, from a perspective that combines theology and ecology. Drawing on scientific and spiritual principles, it argues that COVID-19 may be calling us to avoid forms of resource exploitation that disturb the sensitive balance between human activity and nature.

Andrea L. Robinson

Reflecting the Image of God through Speech: Genesis 1–3 in James 3:1–12

This article shows how James 3:1–12 echoes the creation account, using imagery from Genesis 1–3 to correlate purity of speech with bearing the image of God. Accordingly, the untamed tongue is regarded as a central characteristic of fallenness and a distortion of God’s image – emphasizing that our failure to tame the tongue separates individuals from God, creates division in the community of faith, and has a severely destructive impact on the world. Applications and a sample sermon outline are provided.

C. Ryan Fields

Evangelical Engagement with Barth: A Modest Proposal

Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century, is too important for evangelicals to ignore but not easy to evaluate. Barth reacted against liberalizing tendencies with a strong emphasis on the centrality of Christ and the power of Scripture, but his theology also contained some innovations that deviate from evangelical tradition. This article surveys evaluations of Barth by English-speaking evangelicals and offers well-informed suggestions on how to appropriate Barth’s work.

Jana Holiday and Linda Cannell with James D. McLennan

The Puzzle of Institutional Inertia in Theological Education

Theological institutions must sustain their core values while not resisting necessary change. The authors draw on their extensive experience in theological education and board governance to address how four groups of stakeholders– administrators, faculty, students and boards – can resist institutional inertia.

Chris Gousmett

What Are the ‘Gates of Hades’ in Matthew 16:18?

Matthew 16:18 contains one of Jesus’ most obscure remarks, as he assures Peter (and us) that the ‘gates of Hades’ will not overcome the church. But gates are stationary objects that don’t normally overcome anything. What was Jesus promising? This article shows the weakness of prevailing interpretations and argues for an expansive metaphorical alternative.

Thomas Schirrmacher

Observations on Apologetics and Its Relation to Contemporary Christian Mission

Christians often think of apologetics as something that only academics do, but actually it has been an essential part of Christian mission ever since the book of Acts. This article offers penetrating reflections on the meaning of apologetics today and how all Christians should equip themselves to do it.

Elmer Thiessen

The Reconstruction of Evangelism by Liberal Protestants: An Evangelical Response

Many voices – both secular and religious – argue that it is inappropriate in a religiously pluralistic world for evangelicals to call all people to repentance and faith in Christ. This article, by a leading evangelical expert on the ethics of evangelism, uses a recently published book critical of traditional evangelism as a starting point to explore how evangelicals should respond to such objections.

Book Reviews

Knowing and Doing (Winter 2019)

The Winter 2019 edition of Knowing & Doing – ‘A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind’ – from the C.S. Lewis Institute is now available online (from here), and contains the following articles:

Joel Woodruff

Is It True That “God’s Work, Done God’s Way, Will Never Lack God’s Supply?” The Test Case of Mary and Joseph

In this issue’s President’s letter, Joel Woodruff looks at the Christmas story as told in the Gospels and wonders how Joseph and Mary’s experience fits with the often-quoted maxim, “God’s work done God’s way will never lack God’s resources.” He suggests that things may be a bit more complicated than that.

Bill Kynes

How to Read the Bible, Part 3: The Bible’s Center is Jesus Christ

Bill Kynes continues his series on how to read the Bible by zeroing in on the task of interpretation. He rightly reminds us that Jesus is the center of all of Scripture and any effort to interpret a part of the Bible without remembering that bigger picture is doomed to failure.

Jana Harmon

Surprised by God: Reaching the Resistant

Jana Harmon interviewed fifty former atheists who had come to saving faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. She tells us what she learned in the process, both from what her conversations partners said and how they told their remarkable stories.

Dan Osborn

Thoughts on Why People Drift from the Faith

Dan Osborn dares to wonder why some prominent Christians don’t persevere. As painful as the topic is, he rightly warns us not to ignore it. He also shares biblical insights as to how we can avoid the same tragic mistakes.

Randy Newman

A Multifaceted Gospel for Multifaceted People

Randy Newman shares an excerpt from his recent book Unlikely Converts: Improbable Stories of Faith and What They Teach Us About Evangelism that emphasizes the many ways Scripture talks about the Gospel. It’s not just about forgiveness (although that certainly is central and non-negotiable).

Thomas A. Tarrants

Biblical Meditation

Tom Tarrants considers how three influential leaders from Church history taught about biblical meditation. He challenges us to slow down in our busy world and allow God’s Word to penetrate our entire beings with its powerful, transforming truths.

Stuart McAlpine

Poem: To Joseph

C.S. Lewis loved poetry and wished he could be remembered most for his poems. They grab us in different ways than stories or prose. In each issue we feature a poem. We have selected one from Stuart McAlpine’s The Advent Overture: Meditations and Poems for the Christmas Season.

C.H. Spurgeon

Sermon – Songs in the Night

An inspiring classic sermon from the pulpit of C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) that we hope will be a blessing to you.

Elliott Clark on Evangelism as Exiles

I wrote the following mini review for November 2019’s edition of Highlights, produced by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Elliott Clark, Evangelism as Exiles: Life on Mission as Strangers in Our Own Land (The Gospel Coalition, 2019).

Drawing on his own experience of living in a majority-Muslim country and through reflections on 1 Peter, Elliott Clark explores what evangelism looks like when we see ourselves as ‘exiles’ in the world. A proper sense of our identity is crucial to being faithful witnesses to Jesus, where evangelism involves bold proclamation, holy living, genuine respect, and loving hospitality.

Knowing and Doing (Fall 2019)

The Fall 2019 edition of Knowing & Doing – ‘A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind’ – from the C.S. Lewis Institute is now available online (from here), and contains the following articles:

Joel Woodruff

Discipleship is Messy Business

In this issue’s President’s letter, Joel Woodruff reminds us that discipleship would be easy if we just didn’t have to deal with people. But the reality is that, just as Jesus had to deal with his disciples’s humanity, so do we. Discipleship can be messy. But it’s also glorious.

Thomas A. Tarrants III

Is Spiritual Transformation Really Possible?

Tom Tarrants shares his dramatic story of coming to saving faith out of a life of prejudice, hatred, and self-righteousness. In fact, those adjectives don’t paint the picture as bad as it really was. Tom’s story is inspiring as well as challenging. And it illustrates just how powerful and transformational the gospel can be.

Bill Smith

C.S. Lewis on Miracles: Why They are Possible and Significant

Bill Smith examines C.S. Lewis’s writing about miracles and helps us see how we can weave those insights into conversations we might have today with people who deny the possibility of miracles. This article weaves together Lewis’s thought with Biblical teaching in ways that help us understand a difficult topic in anti-supernatural times.

Andy Bannister

Beast or Masterpiece: What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Andy Bannister challenges the prevailing naturalistic worldview around us that insists that people are merely animals. The wide gap between our Biblical perspective – that people are unique, eternally valuable, and created in the image of God – and the dehumanizing trends in our world today are shown to be as dramatic as can be.

Tom Schwanda

Knowing God with Head and Heart: The Dynamics of Christian Experience

Tom Schwanda completes his three part series on “Growing in Intimacy with God” by digging into the role that experience plays in that process. The tension between knowing and doing, sometimes polarized to unhealthy extremes, is examined with an appreciation for both head and heart, doctrine and experience, thought and emotion.

Randy Newman

Having a Conversation about the Conversation: A Strategy for Pre-Evangelism in an Antagonistic Age

Randy Newman proposes the notion that we may need some pre-evangelistic conversations before we have evangelistic presentations. In a time when many people start from a hostile attitude toward Christians, God, and the gospel, we may need to pave the way for defused discussions with a “conversation about the conversation.”

Ruth Lovejoy

Challenging the Gospel of Efficiency

Ruth Lovejoy, a Fellow in our C.S. Lewis Institute Fellows program, shares how seeing the gospel and the goodness of God more worshipfully can set us free from our love for and idolatry of efficiency. With one eye on the scripture’s story about Mary and Martha and another eye on her to-do list, Ruth helps liberate us from the tyranny of the urgent.

John Donne

Poem: O Death

C.S. Lewis loved poetry and wished he could be remembered most for his poems. They grab us in different ways than stories or prose. In each issue we feature a poem. John Donne’s offering tilts our hearts toward obedience and joy.

Dwight L. Moody

Sermon – What Think Ye of Christ? An Excerpt from The Gospel Awakening

An inspiring classic sermon from the pulpit of one of the great evangelists and preachers, D.L. Moody, that we hope will be a blessing to you.

Mission Frontiers 40, 4 (July-August 2018)

The July-August 2018 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles devoted to the topic of ‘Finding “Fourth-Soil” People: A Field Strategy for Movements’. The entire theme section has been given over to a single author, Kevin Greeson, exploring Jesus’ parable of the wower and its implications for fostering movements.

The editor, Rick Wood, Writes:

‘As we remain in Jesus and His love by obeying all that He has commanded then we will aid the growth and flourishing of the organic nature of God’s kingdom. We can either act like the seed that fell on rocky ground and produce little or be like the seed that fell on the fourth soil, the good soil, and produce a 30, 60 or 100-fold crop. The unmistakable message of this and other parables like it is that Jesus expects his friends to be faithful and fruitful in carrying out the work of the kingdom that He has entrusted to us until He returns—and this involved fostering movements of multiplying disciples within all peoples.’

Individual articles can be accessed from here, and the whole issue can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Word and World 4 (2017)

‘You Will Be My Witnesses’ is the theme of the latest issue of Word and World, published by IFES, exploring how ‘students – along with everyone who has heard that Jesus has defeated death – might be witnesses to Jesus Christ in our time’. The issue contains the below pieces, and is available as a pdf here.

Vinoth Ramachandra

Christian Witness in the University

Vinoth Ramachandra ‘encourages students and faculty to join in conversations that are already going on and take them in a different direction’.

Cathy Ross

Sharing the Joy of the Gospel

Cathy Ross writes about ‘joining in God’s mission and being with others, recognizing that coming to faith is a process’.

Benno van den Toren

Why Inter-Religious Dialogue Needs Apologetics

Benno van den Toren writes that ‘dialogue between religions requires exchanging reasons, even if reason is rarely the primary factor in bringing people to faith’.

Fernando Abilio Mosquera Brand

Creation, Mission and Christ’s witnesses

For Fernando Mosquera, ‘the whole creation bears witness to God, and human witness fits within the mission of God as king, who involves his servants in going about his business in society and politics’.

Further Reading

Knowing and Doing (Fall 2017)

The Fall 2017 edition of Knowing & Doing – ‘A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind’ – from the C.S. Lewis Institute is now available online (from here), and contains the following articles:

Joel Woodruff

President’s Letter – From Black and White to the Wonderful World of Color

In this President’s Letter, C.S. Lewis Institute President Joel S. Woodruff shares highlights of the new features and layout of our quarterly Knowing & Doing publication.

David George Moore

Where’s Waldo?

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a gifted nineteenth century American writer who helped launch a movement of sorts called transcendentalism, in which the individual supplanted religious traditions and institutions. David George Moore argues that while Emerson’s work isn’t well known among Americans, his influence on our lives is incalculable. In this article, he offers suggestions for how Christians can address the ongoing challenges posed by Emersonian philosophy.

Michael Ward

The Good Serves the Better and Both the Best: C.S. Lewis on Imagination and Reason in Christian Apologetics Part 2 of 3

In Part 2 of this article, Michael Ward continues his examination of some of the groundwork to the thinking of C.S. Lewis that enabled him to become so effective an apologist.

Gregory Ganssle

The Christian Story and Our Longing for Relationship

According to Gregory Ganssle, the Christian story makes sense of our deepest longings. That is, the story that Christianity sets forth fits well with the things we value most and with the kinds of people we want to be. In this article, he develops one aspect of this fittingness, the centrality of relationships to our well-being.

Robert Saucy

Born to Grow: Moving Beyond Forgiveness to an Abundant Life

Robert Saucy observes that the message of Scripture is that our life in Christ is more than the forgiveness of sins, more than the escape from God’s condemnation, but a new way to live, a new source of zest that thirsts and hungers for more. In this article, he explains that spiritual growth is a process, and Scripture gives light to the means of growth and the dynamic operations of these means.

Randy Newman

Introducing: “A Book Observed: An Online ‘Old Book’ Club” (An Interactive Feature from Knowing & Doing)

In this article, Randy Newman introduces a new, regular interactive feature from Knowing & Doing to help readers benefit from reading the great “old books.” The feature is called “A Book Observed: An Online ‘Old Book’ Club”. He also offers some thoughts on the question: Why read the great old books?

Randy Newman

An Encouragement to Read Jonathan Edwards’s The Religious Affections: How Sweet It Is!

In a culture where Christians are affected by fragmentation and compartmentalization, Randy Newman argues that getting “back to the Bible” means pursuing a holistic vision for what it means to be human and what that looks like in every way. Then, we will love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. To help us do this, he recommends reading Jonathan Edwards’s classic The Religious Affections (1746). Edwards wanted his hearers and readers to know that just having an opinion about God or believing the right propositions about God doesn’t make one a Christian. Saving faith must be felt as well as understood.

John Chrysostom (350 – 407 AD)

The Importance of Daily Scripture Reading From the Sermon, “On Lazarus”

An inspiring classic sermon from the pulpit of John Chrysostom that we hope will be a blessing to you.

Richard Baxter (1615 – 1691)

Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care

In each issue of Knowing & Doing we include a poem as part of our desire to promote discipleship of the heart and mind. Poems stir affection, inspire devotion and stimulate emotions. No wonder the Scriptures contains so many of them! And by the way, C.S. Lewis loved poetry.

Lausanne Global Analysis 6, 3 (May 2017)

The latest issue of Lausanne Global Analysis, from The Lausanne Movement, is available online from here. This issue ‘has a strong theme of engaging with and reaching out to Muslims’.

In the issue overview, editor David Taylor says:

‘We look at how refugees in Europe are turning to Christ and in turn reviving the church there; we assess Disciple-Making Movements as a Biblical solution for the remaining task of reaching least-evangelised peoples; we consider how we should view Islam and the importance of developing a biblical worldview that gives a framework for relating to Muslims; and finally we ask what the Caliphate means and how we should respond to many Muslims’ aspiration for it.’

Jonathan Leeman on How Churches Should Engage Culture

There’s a helpful, brief post here, by Jonathan Leeman, with six points on engaging with culture:

1. Start with faithfulness amidst the everyday.

2. Be, then do.

3. Being a God-imager or transformed humanity requires a church.

4. Take care of your citizenship by checking passports.

5. Seek the good of your neighbors for the sake of love and justice.

6. Realize that churches cannot ‘transform’ or ‘redeem’ anything.

‘To engage the culture is to be a Christian and a church member, living in but not of the world. It involves finding points of commonality with our non-Christian neighbors, particularly where common grace shines like the sun. It also involves cultivating a holy and distinct culture among ourselves. We are to be a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people belonging to God (1 Peter 2:9). Such engagement is both humane and heaven-directing.’

Speak Up

The Speak Up resource, produced jointly by the Evangelical Alliance and the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, ‘seeks to help Christians understand the broad freedoms that we currently have under the law to share our faith in different contexts’.

A short and long version of the resource are available to download here, via The Great Commission, a new project from the Evangelical Alliance.

The short 16-page booklet (available as a pdf here) ‘outlines the key aspects of the full report, setting out the freedoms we have in different parts of our lives, from talking about Jesus in our homes, to street evangelism, to sharing our faith at work or online’.

The full report is available as a pdf here.

Life on Mission

This article was first published in the September 2016 edition of EG, the quarterly magazine of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

As a young Christian lad, it was easy to be inspired by stories of William Carey, one of the first western missionaries to India, often seen as a pioneer of the modern Christian missionary movement. It wasn’t just his desire to bring the good news about Jesus to people who might otherwise not hear it. I was also struck by his work as a translator and publisher – of the Bible, yes, but of Indian literature, grammars, and dictionaries too. He also campaigned for agriculture reform, introduced savings banks to tackle the lending of money at excessive interest, founded dozens of schools for boys and girls of all castes, started a newspaper, pioneered lending libraries, and more besides. All of these activities I could see as flowing out of his faith in Christ.

But it was all something that happened ‘over there’, not ‘over here’. And it was about what someone else was called to do, not what I might be able to do. It has taken some shifts in my own understanding to see mission as being ‘from everywhere to everywhere’ and as involving every one of God’s people, in every situation of life.

Where do we start? Right where we are.

Our Missional Context

In their book, Everyday Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis invite us to imagine that we wake up one day to discover we’re missionaries in a foreign land, where the language, culture, worldview, and values are unfamiliar to us. In such circumstances, we’d have to get to know the people and their customs. More than just learning a new language in order to communicate, we’d want to be able to connect with people at a relational level. We’d need to explore how the Bible and its message of good news interacts with the outlook and way of life of our friends and neighbours.

But here’s the thing: this is the context in which we find ourselves! We are in a ‘missionary’ situation, with the need to take on the posture and practices of missionaries in order to engage others with the good news about Jesus.

In part, then, being a missionary follower of Jesus involves understanding the context in which we live. This includes the macro context in which the church no longer has a privileged place in society, where religion has been reduced to the private realm, where God is viewed as a personal lifestyle choice. But it also includes any number of micro contexts, the places we find ourselves every day – this workplace, this family, this street, this neighbourhood, this town. And we get to know the people in those places – their stories, their values, their worldview, the things they hold dear. For it’s only as we do so that we’ll be able to use the language and categories of our culture in a way that presents Christ as the one who subverts but also supremely fulfils the fundamental commitments and aspirations of the culture.

We do this not by cutting ourselves off from our neighbours or colleagues, but by living out something of our missional identity as those sent by God himself.

The Missional God

For yes, we are sent. Except that it’s all too easy to focus on the ‘command’ element of the commission passages in the gospels without noticing the promises which accompany them, promises which reflect God’s amazing plan for the world.

Mission doesn’t start with Christ’s commission to ‘make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28:19). It has always been God’s mission to bless all nations. We see it in his original design for creation, in his promises to Abraham, and his calling of Israel – later reiterated through the servant figure in Isaiah who is chosen to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 43:10; 49:5-6). So it is that Jesus tells his disciples after his resurrection that the Scriptures promise not only that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise again, but that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all nations (Luke 24:45-48). The biblical story both points to Christ as the one who stands at the centre of it and nurtures the missional identity of the disciples as they take their place ‘as witnesses of these things’ in the forward movement of that story, God’s ongoing plan for the world.

This is the unfinished story Luke starts to tell in Acts, which begins with a restatement of the disciples as Jesus’ witnesses. Here too, Acts 1:8 – ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ – is not a command so much as a declaration, a promise even. In line with Isaiah’s prophecy, they are God’s ‘witnesses’, the servant community who will bring the message of salvation not just to Israel but to the ‘ends of the earth’.

For us too, our mission is an extension of God’s mission, and being witnesses is less an assignment and more an identity – the overflow of the gift of grace to us and, amazingly, the means by which God reaches others.

A Missional People

All of this suggests that mission is not an optional activity we do, or that some of us do, but an integral part of what it means to belong to the body of Christ, a people who exist for the sake of the world.

It’s in this light that we best understand how the life and ministry of the local church fit into God’s mission. Like the rhythm of breathing in and out, our ‘gathering’ and ‘scattering’ go together. One of the outcomes of our participation in the practices of the gathered church – in worship and fellowship, in prayer and preaching, in bread and wine – is to be formed and equipped to be God’s scattered people on our everyday frontlines, the multiple spheres and arenas in which we live and work.

It’s precisely in those sorts of places that Christians through the centuries have evangelised others, in a way that’s organic and relational, which extends over time, which may nudge someone towards Christ through any number of mini-decisions. But the mandate to make disciples means not only bringing people to faith but nurturing their growth in relationship with God and others, and teaching them obedience to Jesus in every area of life. And this is exactly as it should be, for the gospel is the announcement of God’s kingly rule over all things. ‘Your God reigns’, declares the herald of Isaiah (52:7), redeeming men and women, yes, but also restoring all creation.

Seen this way, evangelism is not a ‘bolt on’ Christian activity, but is organically connected to the whole of life – a fusion of presence and proclamation, the message of our lips matching the message of our lives – the outflowing of who we are in Christ, equipped and sent by him as witnesses in his ongoing mission to the world.

Going Further

Mission Matters: Love Says Go

Tim Chester (IVP, 2015)

With a focus on world mission, the book unfolds in four parts, looking at the God of mission, the story of mission, the scope of mission, and the challenges of mission.

Introducing Christian Mission Today: Scripture, History and Issues

Michael W. Goheen (IVP, 2014)

A large but accessible textbook, which provides a great introduction to key concepts and conversations in mission.

The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission

Christopher J.H. Wright (Zondervan, 2010)

Sees mission as the all-encompassing purpose of God to restore creation – which embraces all that his people are called to be and do in the world.

The Whole of Life for Christ: Enriching Everyday Discipleship

Antony Billington & Mark Greene (IVP, 2015)

‘Life on Mission’ is one of several themes explored in this book. Produced in partnership with Keswick Ministries, the seven Bible studies offer individuals and groups the opportunity to explore whole-life discipleship more deeply.