AOCM

Evangelism and Mission

James Oakley, a former Chair of AOCM, introduces the theme of this year’s handbook.

Times are changing. Times are changing in Britain and abroad, in the church and outside of it. It is increasingly the case that people in Britain do not share Christian beliefs and presuppositions. The younger generation today has not been through Sunday School, as former generations had, so by and large they are ignorant of the claims of Christ. Further, Britain is an increasingly pluralist society, in the sense that there are many different faiths represented in significantly sized groups in our communities. Statistics are hard to determine consistently, but it would appear that church attendance is decreasing.

That is Britain. Things have changed abroad too. When Hudson Taylor left for China 150 years ago, China was almost entirely unreached with the gospel. Today, the Christian population in many developing countries is several times larger than that in the whole western world.

In times like these it is easy to lose one’s nerve when it comes to evangelism and mission. Why should I explain the claims of Jesus to people who don’t want to listen? If my neighbours adhere to a different faith, is it even morally appropriate to evangelise them? If the church abroad is stronger than it is here, has overseas mission had its day? What do we have to offer them? And overarching all these concerns: How can we do our bit to stem what appears to be church decline?

These are big questions. One thing is clear: If we merely put our efforts into managing our decline, so that we decline as elegantly as possible, that is all we will achieve. The world needs the Gospel as much as it ever has; all that has changed are the particular circumstances we find ourselves in, and the attendant challenges. We need to reach out to this needy world with the Gospel, and plan how to do so as effectively as possible. In short, we need to be a church that is shaped by the twin priorities of evangelism and mission.

Five articles follow that explore different facets of how those priorities might shape the ministries we are training for as ordinands.

1. Bishop Graham Cray chaired the group that wrote Mission-Shaped Church, and he provides a helpful appraisal of the advantages and limits of the parish system.
2. One church has been using their local pub as a setting for evangelism; their Rector talks about the thinking behind this, so that we might learn from their experiences.
3. Turning our attention overseas, Andy Lines, the General Secretary of the Anglican Mission Agency Crosslinks, asks whether world mission is worth bothering about any more.
4. Assuming we agree with him that it is, it is interesting to have a perspective from the Anglican Church in Kenya; David Williams is principal of Carlile College in Nairobi, and shares some lessons we can learn from the Christians in Kenya.
5. Finally, the Church Army is the part of the Church of England whose exclusive work is evangelism and mission, yet many of us no very little about their work; David Coleman tells us what their role is.

May this collection of articles stimulate us all to think about how we might keep those twin priorities - evangelism and mission - central in our future ministries.