The Engage programme aims to place cross-cultural gospel workers with UK receiving churches, to help the church to reach out into their community with the love and truth of the gospel. There are opportunities for ministry and outreach to significant diaspora communities, through activities or groups like sports, language teaching, music or discussion.
Our current Engage workers’ areas of ministry include London, Glasgow, North West England and Greater Manchester, and we are excited to see God work in other regions across the UK as we expand.
At the heart of Engage is the desire to see a valuable partnership between worker and receiving church, and a desire to serve God that will enable the church to better reach out cross-culturally.
Get to know our Engage Workers
Ram and Keshari
“It’s a very humbling experience to be used by God in a hard place with lots of opposition and rejection,” shares gifted missiologist Ram, serving as the pastor of a new Antioch Network church plant in Greater Manchester.
“There are many things I’m thankful to God for, including opening the town’s first multicultural bookshop that serves as a community venue and where we can meet new people through the free English classes we run here.”
Ram, who speaks Urdu and Hindi, also connects with the local community through various activities – from street evangelism and a book stall outreach, to sports activities and family fun days. He’s also built a network among local Pakistani, Bhutanese, and Indian Christian leaders.
Haroon and Mariam
Haroon left his fruitful medical ministry to join Engage, whose life work was establishing a rural hospital in South Asia as a platform for the gospel.
But after 35 years, he sensed his time at the hospital was complete and felt God’s calling to take the gospel to a new place where the majority population isn’t Christian.
Haroon is now helping to reach a local South Asian community in North West England through teaching and personal evangelism. He also partners with multiple churches and church leaders that belong to the North West Gospel Partnership.
“I’m so happy to be here and for people to use me as a ‘resource’ person so they can expand their gospel ministries,” he says.
Mary
Mary serves through opportunities among English learners, low-income families and outreach ministries to local residents. Based at Inspire Saint James in central London, she leads ministries teaching English to asylum-seekers and running life-skills courses for low-income families.
Sent by Eastridge Church, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mary says God has used her ministry in powerful ways, as the free classes are held in the church building and openly include the gospel.
She’s also grateful that her African roots give her an inroad into the community and opportunities to meet people from diverse backgrounds:
“I come from a culture where I’ve learned how to make deep connections fast and I really love meeting people from other nations. And although London is different, the Engage programme is designed to provide me with mentors to guide me along the way.”
Lawrence and Elizabeth
Lawrence is helping a church in Glasgow grow its cross-cultural gospel ministry.
Sent by Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in The Gambia, he has more than 20 years’ experience in evangelism and discipleship. Lawrence stepped away from his role as a pastor to help Harper Church grow its cross-cultural gospel ministry in Glasgow, where there’s a significant West African population.
Soon after arriving in the city, Lawrence set up a Harper Africa Church fellowship, where services are conducted in a non-English language and African forms of Christian worship and prayer are practised. He runs activities to help the church family stay connected and firmly rooted in their faith, and he ministers to refugees and asylum-seekers from other faith backgrounds through hospitality and street evangelism.
Host an Engage Worker
Are you part of church that is interested in supporting and facilitating an Engage worker to reach out and engage with your local community? Through our placement process, we can present the potential worker to the receiving church with confidence knowing they are SIM members and have been screened and their motivation for serving cross culturally is God pleasing.
Find out how churches benefit from our Engage workers.
If you would like to find out more, please get in touch with our Engage Coordinator Tim Barrow: [email protected].
Tim Barrow
Tim is our Engage Coordinator and he works with the Engage team to receive gospel workers into the UK and place them with a carefully selected receiving church.
We continue to see God work in remarkable ways at every level of the programme, whether it be for a one-to-two-year placement for a single, or a longer term placement for a couple of family.
Read more about Tim in his Staff Spotlight.
