The Ecumenical Significance of the King James Bible

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The Society for Ecumenical Studies

‘Towards the Unity of Christians through dialogue, study and mutual understanding’

 

The Ecumenical Significance of the King James Bible

A lecture to be given by

Professor Pauline Croft MA (Oxon) DPhil. FSA FRHistS

Professor of Early Modern History, Royal Holloway, University of London

in

The Chapel of

Methodist Central Hall

Westminster

On

Monday 26^th September 2011

6.30 p.m.- 8.00 p.m.

(Refreshments from 6 p.m.)

Invitation is by free ticket, please apply to ecumenical@urc.org.uk

This lecture is part of the ongoing programme of the society, membership of which is open to all.

For details of membership and activities please go to the website at www.ecumenicalstudies.org.uk

A Statement from the Churches Group for Evangelisation

Image by Catholic Church (England and Wales) via Flickr

Churches Together in England have issued a press release, dated 23 September 2010, from the Churches Group for Evangelisation meeting at High Leigh on 21 and 22 September. 

Local Churches and Biblefresh, More than Gold, Hope Together 2011-2014

As members of the Churches Group for Evangelisation, we encourage churches in England to engage in the home mission opportunities afforded by the national initiatives Biblefresh, More than Gold and Hope Together, as they feed into national, regional and local churches programmes.

These three major initiatives complement each other, and provide significant resources for mission for the next four years. Each home mission initiative will provide a positive legacy for the future in terms of deepening discipleship, church growth, community transformation and people finding faith in Christ.

We encourage local groups of churches to:

1. research the potential of each initiative
2. pray and discern a vision
3. strategically plan together in your own local context
4. work in close collaboration

… celebrating the various diverse gifts and strengths in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ together.

Information
The Churches Group for Evangelisation is a Coordinating Group of Churches Together in England, with representatives of member churches and associated home mission agencies.

Websites:
http://www.cte.org.uk/
http://www.biblefresh.com/
http://www.morethangold.org.uk/
http://www.hopetogether.org.uk/

Further information:
Captain Jim Currin, CA.
Secretary for Evangelisation
Churches Together in England, 27 Tavistock Sq WC1H 9HH
020 7529 8135
Jim.currin@cte.org.uk

Related articles

• Biblefresh (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• 2012 Olympics: More Than Gold (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Hope Together Launched in July (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)

Biblefresh

Biblefresh is a new initiative from a number of churches and Christian organisations, including the Methodist Church of Great Britain.  It's worth visiting their website for more information.  Below is an excerpt, about their purpose. 

Why does the Church need another new initiative? Surely Christians know and understand the Bible? These questions might easily be asked by many in the Church today. So why are we launching this new initiative?

In early 2006 some research was conducted by the Evangelical Alliance which revealed that low levels of biblical knowledge and understanding was becoming a significant and worrying issue in the Church.

Anecdotally, we had received evidence from some of the Bible colleges and theological institutions that new students were increasingly bible illiterate. More time needed to be spent giving students a basic grounding before they could tackle other subjects.

In March 2007 the Evangelical Alliance Council meeting approved the concept of a ‘biblicising the church’ campaign. Following this, various consultations were held with some of our current partner organisations and the outline of the Biblefresh initiative was formed.

Bible Society along with the Evangelical Alliance commissioned some research to explore levels of biblical literacy in the UK Church. 1731 church leaders and 1929 church attendees were surveyed. The findings underlined the anecdotal evidence: that the church as well as our culture has very low levels of biblical understanding and it is not only church members that struggle to read the Bible but church leaders also. In short, many are not familiar with the Bible; find it difficult to engage with it regularly and there is a real need for training and encouragement in how to do this. For the detailed summary report of the ‘Taking the Pulse’ survey, you can access it here.

It was decided that the Biblefresh initiative, as it was styled, would be focussed on the year 2011, which was also the 400th anniversary since the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. We would ask churches to join the movement by agreeing to increase their church’s level of biblical engagement in four ways: reading, training, translation and experience. Centrally we would encourage our partner organisations to respond to the need by providing access to relevant reading, audio, video, and training resources.

By asking churches to re-focus on the Bible for the year, we hoped that the fruit in the UK Church would be an increased hunger and desire for the Word of God which would result in more lives saved and transformed. That we would become ‘with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord… transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ (2 Cor. 3.18 NKJV)