For as long as I can remember, I’ve associated the summer with Christian ministry. As a child, I loved Holiday Bible Clubs, before graduating to camps as a teenager. Since then I’ve been privileged to be able to continue attending both camps and summer conferences as a leader or team member. I’ve clocked up twenty-five camps, twenty-five Aber conferences, and I also love attending Word Alive, the Keswick Convention, the Bala Conference and others. Sadly, there’s not enough time to go to them all every year!
All that has taught me that summer is a great time for ministry and evangelism, and that’s the focus of this issue of the Evangelical Magazine. If you’ve never been involved in a summer camp before, it can feel a little bit like getting dropped in at the deep end, as Lewis Morgans testifies. But don’t think summer evangelism is just about children and teenagers – Phil Raine explains how his church use the summer to give a ‘holiday at home’ to those who are retired. We hear from plenty of others too, from Ally Hodgkiss doing overseas mission in Uganda, to Paul Davies doing beach mission in Swansea!
Evangelism doesn’t have to be organised though. Rebecca Whittaker reminds us of the importance of women evangelising women, Mark Pickett talks about witnessing to our Hindu neighbours, and John Lennox reminds us of the power of simply talking about Jesus.
There’s plenty more inside, of course. Mark Thomas reminds us that it’s good to draw near to God. Dorin Dumitrascu tells us what it was like to grow up as a Christian behind the iron curtain – and how things have changed. Clare Heath-Whyte tells us how important Mary Müller’s ministry was to the orphans of Bristol. John Funnell asks ‘What is truth?’, while Paul O’Brien tells us how it feels to be spared by God. And we go on a little trip to the often-forgotten city of Shechem to discover more about conflict, covenant and choice.