wfn.org | Spouses' Programme speakers share tales of evangelism efforts

["Lambeth98" <storm@indigo.ie>]

August 6, 1998

Spouses' Programme speakers share tales of evangelism efforts

Press Release #96
by Roland Ashby

Spouses' Program Communications

"At the turn of the century, over half of all English children
attended Sunday School. Today in Britain's Housing Developments
only one young person in every 1,000 attends an Anglican Church,"
the Rev. Wallace Brown told the Spouses' Programme at the Lambeth
Conference this week.

One of several speakers in a presentation on mission and
evangelism in specific cultural situations, he made the comments
as part of a video about a new ministry to Britain's housing
developments. "Housing Development Churches across the
denominations are tragically infamous as small, inactive
congregations," he said.

Problems, he said, included "predominantly aged congregations,
very few children and overwhelmed clergy." The younger
generation, he warned, "is slipping further and further away from
the Church, even though many of them have profound questions and
are searching for authentic answers."

There are signs of hope, however. Fr. Brown said his congregation
at a housing development in Birmingham, England, had grown "from
a small group of elderly ladies to an all-age community of about
250 people." 

He attributed this growth to the transforming power of prayer,
along with "admitting there really was a problem-and learning to
talk about it with others." It also helped to recognize that
people on the developments live in a "non-book" culture. "Many
churches still thrust three different books at people every time
they come to Church." 

More than numbers

But growth is more than about numbers, said Jumoke Fashola
representing the Church Missionary Society. It can also be about
"developing creativity, enduring pain, stretching our
understanding . . . trying new things and persistence even when
the going is tough."

It is also, she said, about signs of hope. This was evident in an
interview she conducted with Victoria Helstrip of the Delhi
Brotherhood in India, an organisation offering basic education to
abandoned and homeless children. 

Ms. Helstrip said, "Amidst the sadness and deprivation there are
signs of growth. It's wonderful to discover a child's creativity
and imagination is still there when given a chance to flower."

The conference also heard stories about the "true signs of
mission" - suffering and reconciliation. Madeleine Kayumba,
wife of the Bishop of Kigeme in Rwanda, told the conference
that "the people of my country have suffered and we must seek
an end to our suffering together. Even today killings continue
in some places and people are suspicious and frightened.
We women have a vital job to do rebuilding one another and
our country in love."

Dancing a story of reconciliation

A group of bishops' wives representing different ethnic groups
from Rwanda and Burundi also depicted their story of suffering
and reconciliation in song and dance, in which cries of fear were
eventually replaced by loving embraces. 

Thelma Mehaffy described the work of Women in Faith to bring
about reconciliation in Northern Ireland. "Women from the
Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches have formed joint groups
in which they have openly discussed their differences and engaged
in a variety of social activities," she said.

The Rev. David Bookless of 'A Rocha,' a Christian international
conservation organisation, told the spouses that Christian
mission must also grapple with the world's growing environmental
problems. 

"Christians are called to be stewards of the earth," he said. The
high levels of consumption of resources in the West coupled with
increases in population make this more urgent than ever, he
warned. "One million new people are added to the world's
population every four days. By the year 2030 the world's
population has been estimated to be 10 billion."

Jumoke Fashola also challenged the Church to seize the
opportunities presented by the communications revolution. "The
new marketplace is the Internet," she said. "We must as a Church
begin to explore the possibilities of this new medium, or we may
find ourselves with nothing to say to a whole new generation."

For further information, contact:

   Lambeth Conference Communications
   Canterbury Business School
   University of Kent at Canterbury
   Telephone: 01227 827348/9
   Fax: 01227 828085
   Mobile: 0374 800212

   http://www.lambethconference.org