Bishop Renews Evangelism Call in Message to Over 500 Churches

The Bishop of Lichfield has called on Christians to work together to bring about the end of global people trafficking. In a taped message being played today in the 585 churches in his diocese, the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill said that Christians can be proud of "the decisive part that Christians played in the campaign to abolish slavery and do something together to stop the new people-trafficking round the globe."

In addition to the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, Bishop Gledhill reminded congregations that 2007 sees another 200th anniversary - that of the spiritual outpouring on Christians gathered at Mow Cop in Staffordshire, which resulted in the birth of the Primitive Methodist movement - now part of the Methodist denomination.

He said: "We can celebrate with our ecumenical partners this special outpouring of God's love which particularly touched the workers of Stoke and we can pray for God to revive us in our generation."

And he urged churches to take part in "Back to Church Sunday" - a national campaign taking place in September in which churches will be inviting parishioners to give church a try once again.

Bishop Gledhill said: "I thought this a gimmick when I first heard of it, but experience all over the country seems to indicate that there are lots of people out there just wanting a proper invitation and a proper welcome to a service where the love of God is offered in a way they can grasp, for them to start coming back to church regularly."

The taped message to congregations is part of a tradition within the diocese which began during the Decade of Evangelism. The diocese designates the Sunday after Epiphany as Evangelism Sunday and the bishop distributes a tape to encourage congregation members to consider the part they have to play in taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to their communities, friends and neighbours.

This year, for the first time, the bishop's message will be placed on the community video-sharing website on YouTube.

In it, Bishop Gledhill said: "A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to the turn-around in our diocesan finances. Eighteen months ago each monthly Bishop's Staff Meeting was dominated by the need to tackle the diocesan debt and to cut stipendiary clergy posts; it was bruising for the Area Teams and depressing for the parishes.

"But for the last three or four months we have sailed through the item on finance, we have almost reached the end of the planned cuts and have increased the number of ordinands. Of course the pensions' time bomb is still in front of us; if it were not for that we could be planning an increase in clergy. My prayer is still that we will be able to stabilize the numbers in 2007-8 and start a modest increase in 2008-9.

"Second, thank you to all who contributed to the latest version of Going for Growth, which was unanimously endorsed at the last Diocesan Synod. It is of course more a vision document than a detailed strategy simply so that it can be up to each parish or cluster to wait upon God for those creative ideas that will enable us to share the unsearchable riches of Christ with our neighbours.

"Our aim at all times is to know more of the riches of the love of God and to celebrate his love at work in our communities. From this we hope to help more adults become disciples of Jesus Christ, to disciple more children and young people and to enable churches to have greater impact in their communities."

He concluded, "How that happens will look different in urban and rural parishes, rich and poor - to say nothing of our particular traditions. But as we spend time together with God he will start to make plain to us what action we can take so that we can be good news people and so that our Mission Action Plans can be properly rooted."