Despite having a rich Christian heritage, the vast majority of the UK doesn’t follow Jesus. Now, the need to share the gospel message with our own neighbours and communities is as important as ever. In multi-ethnic cities around the UK, our Engage workers are doing just that – and they’re seeing God move in amazing ways.
In Glasgow, Lawrence is helping Harper Church to grow its cross-cultural gospel ministry, as the church seek to reach their community with a significant West African population. Lawrence’s work focuses on building relationships with asylum seekers, refugees, and international students, and his ministry involves street evangelism/table outreach, door-to-door ministry and hospital outreach.
Just like many countries around the world, Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter help our Engage workers to reach out to people who might not otherwise be open to conversations about Jesus. In December, Lawrence went out into his local community with gospel tracts and Christmas flyers to invite residents to Harper Church’s Christmas events.
“By the help of the Holy Spirit, the Lord led me to the home of a young man called Ben*, who was an atheist, he then became an agnostic and eventually placed his faith in Christ – but he wasn’t part of a church. He stays alone and hardly opens his front door to anyone,” shares Lawrence.
But for Lawrence, Ben not only opened the front door, but also opened up about his own faith journey.
“Ben shared about his past life of fear and uncertainty and how he was struggling in his faith, even as a young believer. After much Bible-based discussion, he was quite strengthened in his newfound faith and was willing to start discipleship classes with me.”
Since the beginning of this year, Lawrence has been able to meet up with Ben to disciple him using Christianity Explored. “These meetings have strongly deepened Ben’s faith. Praise God for how he stirs his heart,” recalls Lawrence.
*Name changed to protect identity
In Greater Manchester, Ram pastors a local church, and serves the community through running a book table in the market, alongside street evangelism.
“We have many opportunities to pray for people on the street, and praise God, some of them have come to know the Lord through our evangelism,” says Ram.
Living in a diverse part of the UK brings many challenges, but also many opportunities, for Ram and his wife Keshari. “We are blessed to serve in the UK – it’s amazing to serve somewhere where it’s free to evangelise, and so many resources are available. However, it’s difficult too when people don’t have an interest in hearing about Jesus,” shares Ram.
Haroon and Mariam, serving in northwest England, face similar opportunities and challenges to Ram. They’re part of a group of churches that reach out to a South Asian community through evangelism, teaching and discipleship.
They reach out to non-Christians by taking opportunities in everyday life in the streets, among neighbours, and developing relationships with those they meet.
“Recently, we had some people from the Middle East come to church, and we ran Farsi courses for them. One accepted Christ and was baptised a few months back. Now, another who attended that course is asking to be baptised,” Haroon shares.
Another way Haroon and Mariam have been able to connect with people is through the charity shop they both volunteer at.
“The charity shop has many volunteers, but none are Christians. Developing loving relationships with them has opened the doors to share the gospel.
“We arranged a lunch on Maundy Thursday to share with the volunteers the sacrifice Jesus made, and all attended happily and were given gospel material to read,” reflects Haroon.
“The UK needs the gospel as much as any other place. Many churches are struggling with a dwindling older population, and non-Christians are lacking examples of good Christian lives in their everyday. But God has provided many Christians from countries around the world, who are keeping the Christian testimony alive in our town.”
Talk to us
Visit our Engage webpage or email [email protected] if you’d like to find out more about serving with Engage, or you’re part of a church interested in partnering with us.
Please pray
- for all our Engage workers, as they seek to reach more people with the message of the hope found in Jesus;
- for new people in the process of finding churches to host them in the UK: that they will know the guiding hand of God during this time;
- for those that the Engage workers meet, like Ben – that they will know the love of Christ increasingly each day.