Reaching the UnreachedAn annual conference for churches trying to reach out in the hard places of our land

‘Going Viral’

‘How can the gospel go viral on estates and schemes in the UK?’

Friday 17th May, 4pm-9.15pm and Saturday 18th May, 9.30am-4.30pm

This year’s conference looks at how the gospel can go viral on housing estates and schemes in the UK. It’s a look at the new strategy of RTU for the gospel going viral in the UK.

Main Speakers

Andy Mason
Efrem Buckle
Duncan Forbes
Mez McConnell
Neil Robbie

There are a limited number of spaces so book your place!

This year the conference is held in Derby at:

St Giles Church
Village Street
Normanton
Derby
DE23 8DE

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

A full programme will be sent out after booking.

Seminar from this last year’s Reaching the Unreached conference, “Getting started and keeping going”.

Seminar from this last year’s Reaching the Unreached conference, “Getting started and keeping going”.

Seminar from this last year’s Reaching the Unreached conference, “Getting started and keeping going”.

The second session from this last year’s Reaching the Unreached conference, “Getting started and keeping going”. Andy Mason looks at Titus 1:5-16.

The first session from this last year’s Reaching the Unreached conference, “Getting started and keeping going”. Duncan Forbes looks at Titus 1:1-4.

In this week’s quote from Urban Harvest Roy Joslin offers ten ‘tests’ of gospel ministry.

In order to help us apply the appropriate ‘tests’ to the gospel work in which we are engaged a number of probing questions need to be asked.
1. Are we placing the responsibility on the believers to evangelise or on the unbelievers to come and be evangelised?
2. Do our church members in their daily witness see themselves as the principal agents in evangelism, seven days a week and all hours of the day, or do they think that the chief responsibility lies with the preacher in his ‘one-hour-a-week’ gospel service and sermon?
3. Are all our church members capable of giving a ‘reason for the hope’ that is in them? Can they with simplicity and accuracy articulate their faith? If not, why not? Where does the fault lie? We have seen that John Bunyan, shortly before he became a Christian, was greatly impressed by the ‘three or four poor women sitting at a door in the sun…talking about the things of God’. Are we to regard these women as peculiar and exceptional, in view of what the scripture requires of us? How can we ‘loose our stammering tongues to tell his love immense, unsearchable?’
4. Are our church membership and congregation socially representative of the community in which it is located? If not, why not?
5. How far has our gospel outreach become ‘introverted’ evangelism?
6. Are our methods of evangelism unfairly selective? Have we been guilt of a form of favouritism without realizing it? Apply this question to your own work among adults and also among young people.
7. In our evangelism generally do we make it our policy, as far as possible, to introduce people to the gospel first before we seek to introduce them to the church? Is it spiritually realistic to expect an unbeliever who is without spiritual life and understanding to share meaningfully in the worship aspects of an evangelistic service in order to hear the gospel?
8. If our church is located in a community which is partly or predominately working class, do any aspects of our evangelism take into account the phenomenon of ‘solidarity’ which is an important feature of working-class culture?
9. Do the methods of evangelism we currently employ reflect an awareness of the need to have a careful balance between ‘instruction’ and ‘persuasion’? Ideally we need to explore or create opportunities for ‘feed-back’ following our preaching or witness. We need to be able to gauge whether or not we have carried our hearers with us in an understanding of the gospel …
10. … Do we in our local churches have any policy for regularly reviewing the opportunities that we have and thought we ought to use? Are we able to make a calculated and spiritual assessment of the opportunities presented by a number of forms of evangelism? (149-151)

Urban Harvest is available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. In October IVP are publishing my latest book, Unreached: Growing Churches in Working-Class and Deprived Areas, was written with the Reaching the Unreached network.

This article was originally published on Tim Chester’s blog.

More quotes from Roy Joslin’s Urban Harvest to mark the thirtieth anniversary of its publication …

A striking feature of Urban Harvest is Joslin’s emphasis on the doctrine of creation and the importance of general revelation as a prelude to gospel proclamation.

Tower block estates are not really concrete jungles; they are grey deserts. The homes of the people have no character or individuality about them. They are like a mound of boxes piled high in the sky. Slabs of dull grey concrete reach high and heavenwards. Down at ground level people scuttle to and fro as though surrounded by some ‘technological Stonehenge’. But the visible symbols of the ‘concrete age’ kindle no spark within the soul. They crowd the skyline and hem us in. They restrict our ration of God’s blue sky. (39)

Regrettably, the resident in the big city is still more aware of what man has manufactured than of what God has created. Urban dwellers on post-war high-rise estates are, so it seems, surrounded by monotonous mountains of greyness. This matter exposes a major factor of spiritual deprivation as well. The scriptures teach that before a person acquainted with the truth revealed in God’s Word he has to rely on God’s general revelation in creation for his inner awareness of the Maker to whom he is accountable. (144-145)

We tend to associate the presence and power of God with the glory of the heavens and the beauty of the countryside. But God’s highest creation is more in evidence in the bustling din of a city rush-hour than in the relaxing peace of a rural landscape. ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him’ (Gen. 1:27). This is the summit of God’s creative achievements. This is God’s marvel of miniaturization. (225)

Urban Harvest is available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. In October IVP are publishing my latest book, Unreached: Growing Churches in Working-Class and Deprived Areas, was written with the Reaching the Unreached network.

This article was originally published on Tim Chester’s blog.

2012 year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of Urban Harvest, Roy Joslin’s call for evangelical involvement in our largely unreached working-class communities. I was a teenager when it first came out, but I well remember the stir it caused in Reformed circles in the UK. It was perhaps the most significant book on the subject since William Booth’s In Darkest England in 1890.

Roy Joslin was a pastor in Walworth in London so wrote from his own experience. (He also went to Bible college with my father.)

Sadly, even as he was writing Urban Harvest, he was beginning what would be 33-year struggle with Parkinson’s Disease.

Britain has changed radically in the intervening years and Joslin’s analysis of social class feels dated. But there is still much of great value in the book so over the coming weeks I’m going to post some quotes from the book.

In October IVP are publishing my latest book, Unreached: Growing Churches in Working-Class and Deprived Areas. It comes out of a working group conveyed by the Reaching the Unreached network. We hope it will encourage people to get involved in reaching our estates and cities as well as giving people a sense of how they can go about this work. It might not prove to be the last word on the subject, but it will fill the 30-year silence since Urban Harvest.

Urban Harvest is available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

The story of Roy Joslin’s struggle with Parkinson’s Disease is told by his wife, Valerie, in Rediscovering Roy which is available here from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

This article was originally published on Tim Chester’s blog.

Guest post by Nathan Davies, CAP Centre Manager in Torfaen, South Wales.

Almost every day a fire bell rings at the headquarters of Christians Against Poverty in Bradford.

It’s not an emergency, but a celebration of salvation.

“God has forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” Col 2:13-14

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) UK are seeing many people come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour through their witness. They have over 200 centres in the UK that help nearly 20,000 people each year pay off their financial debts. And their workers also seek to tell those people about the God-man named Jesus who came to settle their spiritual debts.

The clients CAP work with faced a terrible time with debt before finding help. 6% attempted suicide with a further 34% seriously considering it. A scary 78% of clients faced health issues due to debts and 42% were prescribed medication! CAP is literally seeing lives saved physically and spiritually as God guides them to the most vulnerable people in society.

Almost every day across the UK someone comes to know Christ through their work, and when they do, the fire bell is rung at Jubilee Mill, the CAP headquarters in Bradford, and all the staff stop to pray and thank God! CAP works for local Churches to provide this service, and all of their centres are opened and run by local Churches and for the growth of local Churches.

This ministry is seeing thousands of Christians from local Churches enter unbelievers homes to show and share the love of Christ in word and deed. It is reaching the unreached people of the UK. The service is completely free for clients of any background, gender, race or religion. The Churches help pay all the costs to run the service locally.

Christians Against Poverty aims to open 300 more centres in the UK over the next few years to attain national coverage. Why not check out the website on Church partnerships to enquire about getting involved?

There are thousands of people in the UK in need of debt counselling and are currently going to good quality secular advice… CAP is the same quality as all the other secular organisations but unashamedly Christ-centred and helping build the Church while maintaining world class debt help.

If you know anyone in debt and there is a CAP centre by you get them to call 0800 328 0006 to find out if CAP can help them!

Let’s keep that fire bell ringing!

“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Matt 25:40