In a conversation at church one Sunday, a pastor told a friend of mine, “Your friend should quit trying to plant churches in the inner city. It doesn’t happen because it can’t happen.”
I was visiting this friend just before COVID-19 hit, speaking at a separate church about our ministry, New England Urban Church Planting. Our organization was new, and my sinful inclination was to think, Oh, you just wait and see! My friend was equally defensive. Yet this pastor was onto something: It rarely happens, and it is indeed hard.
Why is church planting in our nation’s neglected inner cities so rare? Why are underserved urban communities overlooked by gospel-preaching churches? Stakeholders in our ministry have discussed these questions since 2009, leading to the organization’s founding in 2020. We’ve learned a lot in these years of full-time work as we’re growing this network of inner-city planters.
The work is hard for two key reasons. Yet it’s possible. And it’s crucial. Christ has commanded us to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19)—this includes in our own nation’s inner cities. To plant churches in these spaces, we need to think like missionaries.
Unless you grew up in the inner city, serving there is a cross-cultural experience. This is the first reason church planting hard. Ruby Payne asks her readers if they can survive in poverty: Do you know how to keep your clothes from being stolen from a laundromat? Do you know how to move in half a day? Do you know how to keep your car from getting repossessed if you fall behind on payments?
Discipling men and women in the inner city can be exasperating when they have a new burner phone frequently. Inner-city pastors need to know how to preach and how to administer Narcan. And behind all that is the sound of gunshots, fights, loud TVs, and the quiet exit of well-meaning suburban Christians who came to help but didn’t last long.
]]>How should Christians deal with recurring doubt? This question was addressed by Bobby Conway, Christian apologist and founder of the Christianity Still Makes Sense website and One Minute Apologist YouTube channel. Conway spoke at the Southern Evangelical Seminary apologetics conference in Rock Hill, S.C. on October 10. He is also pastor of Image Church near Charlotte, North Carolina and co-author (with Sean McDowell) of Doubting to Faith and (with J. Warner Wallace) of Does Christianity Still Make Sense?
Conway recounted highlights from his life to discuss how Christians should deal honestly with doubt. His personal story has been something of a roller-coaster of faith and doubt. After a severe alcohol and drug problem as a teenager, Conway had a conversion experience after hearing evangelist Greg Lourie at age 19. He went on to become a passionate pastor and evangelist sharing the gospel with many and earning degrees in apologetics and philosophy of religion. This was followed by periods of intense doubt, as he learned more of the intellectual challenges to Christianity and even suffered a relapse into alcoholism. His passion today is to tell people to trust Jesus with their doubts as they continue to seek answers to make sense of faith and life.
Conway said that “doubt is not simply a Christian problem, it’s a human problem.” Where there is no certainty “there’s always room for doubt.” He said that “to walk away from Christianity is only to walk into another set of unforeseen questions and doubts.” He observed that “in the Book of Jude, we read ‘be merciful to those who doubt.’” (Jude 1:22)
]]>As titles go, ‘Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church’ is a bit of a cracker. That’s the heading two retired academics have given their 79-page thesis on the Church of England. For what could be a fairly dry and technical document, filled with citations and data, the title grabs the attention.
Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church is the work of Robin Gill and John Craven. Gill is a theologian and former vicar, who served as a theological advisor to the C of E in the 1990s (although his expertise was in medical ethics, not ecclesiology). Craven is a retired economist, who also sat on the Archbishops’ Council (the church’s executive committee) about 20 years ago.
The central argument of the report is that the church is in a ‘cycle of decline’, a vicious cycle in which congregations decline and so parish giving drops, which means there is less money for dioceses to hire clergy, fewer people feel called to the priesthood anyway, and those who do get burned out by the overwhelming demands, and so on and so on.
Their solution is thus:
‘The Church of England must reduce the numbers of dioceses, bishops, archdeacons and diocesan administrators, improve the morale of parish priests and the many retired clergy whose input is ever more vital, and take action to enhance parish ministry.’
Few could argue with the second half of that title: the C of E is objectively diminishing and Gill and Craven lay out the evidence of that in their introduction fairly comprehensively. Church attendance has been in decline since it hit a peak in the mid-Victorian era (which prompted a flurry of church-building and a doubling of the number of dioceses and bishops). However, by the end of the 19th century churchgoing was already dropping and this continued steadily across the 20th century too (as did attendance, to be fair, in pretty much every other major denomination). Into the 21st century, this decline continued, but diocesan administration boomed, with hundreds of new non-clergy staff hired even as the numbers of vicars plummeted. Vocations to the priesthood have dropped, and so parishes are increasingly lumped together under one overworked vicar. Churches and especially cathedrals are hitting a financial crisis, as their local donations are no longer sufficient to cover their often extensive building costs.
]]>Birmingham was turned into a no-go zone for Jews, with the connivance of the British authorities.
One recent date in particular should be seared into the minds of future historians. That date is 6 November 2025, the moment that the UK completed its slow mutation from a tolerant democracy into an ugly patchwork of sectarian fiefdoms. It was the day that Birmingham hosted a football match from which Jewish Israelis were explicitly banned because the city’s Muslim population demanded it.
Twelve months on, the prohibition of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending their team’s Europa League fixture against Aston Villa has only grown in significance. It shattered any lingering faith in the impartiality and competence of the police. It confirmed the supremacy of Islamic mob rule in the UK’s second-biggest city. And it was an admission that Jews cannot be kept safe on the streets of Britain.
The campaign against Maccabi travelling supporters began at least a month before kick-off at Villa Park. Ayoub Khan, a Birmingham MP elected as a ‘Gaza Independent’ in 2024, said that admitting the fans would damage ‘community harmony’ in a ‘predominantly Muslim’ district. Muslim representatives on the Birmingham City Council – led by Mumtaz Hussain and Waseem Zaffar – demanded a boycott or complete cancellation. Israr Rashid, a prominent Islamic cleric in Birmingham, urged worshippers to show ‘no mercy’ to Israeli fans who had the temerity to set foot in Birmingham.
]]>Gender-critical campaigners express alarm at pro-trans charity’s access to Downing Street
Stonewall has helped Labour to draw up its “chilling” new conversion therapy law, The Telegraph can disclose.
The Government is relying on research produced by the controversial pro-trans charity to justify the introduction of the new criminal offence.
Stonewall’s head of policy was also invited to a meeting in No 10 to discuss the law, and made recommendations to MPs investigating the draft legislation.
On Thursday night, gender-critical groups expressed alarm that Stonewall was being given high-profile access to Downing Street, when that was denied to them.
Under the Government’s draft Conversion Practices Bill, people face up to five years in prison for using physical or psychological abuse to pressure someone to change their sexuality or gender identity.
The Telegraph has launched a campaign for the bill to be scrapped.
Critics have described the new law as “chilling” and fear it will criminalise doctors, teachers and parents who are trying to have honest conversations with children about whether they really wish to change gender. Bosses could also risk jail if their staff use the wrong pronouns, campaigners have claimed.
Opponents said it was “extraordinary” that Stonewall had been allowed such high-level access, given its controversial role in the trans debate.
]]>Labour’s ban on conversion therapy could cost businesses and taxpayers as much as £100million over a decade, according to the Government’s own figures.
An official report admits the new legislation – which outlaws abusive attempts to change people’s sexuality or gender identity – will have a ‘negative’ impact on private firms and public sector bodies who will have to train staff on its workings.
The price tag will rise still further as the costs to the police, courts and prisons of implementing the Conversion Practices Bill have not yet been calculated.
But the Impact Assessment also claims the law will be worth a massive £783m to society over 10 years, on the grounds that it will mean fewer transgender and gay people suffer from depression.
Last night critics – who fear the ban will risk parents being jailed for trying to persuade their children not to transition – cast doubt on the figures.
Maya Forstater, Chief Executive of women’s rights charity Sex Matters, said: ‘The idea that the conversion practices bill could contribute nearly £800m to the economy is pure fantasy based on shaky evidence, while the cost of the bill has been grossly underestimated.
‘The largest costs such as the cost of police and court time, social workers and children being taken into care and the impact on families have not been counted.
‘Both the projected benefit and cost are unserious figures that are not fit to be anywhere near such a substantively dangerous bill.’
]]>London’s mayor is promoting Islamophobia Awareness Month despite it being co-founded by group cited in Parliament for extremist orientation
You may not have noticed, but it’s Islamophobia Awareness Month. Sadiq Khan knows, though.
“This Islamophobia Awareness Month, we must shine a light on the abhorrent hatred and discrimination Muslims continue to face,” said Khan on X. For anyone unaware of this campaign, one of the founders of the “month” was the Muslim Engagement and Development Group (Mend).
I have recently written about Mend in The Telegraph. Its history even led to it to being mentioned by now-Lord Gove in Parliament in 2024. Gove mentioned Mend because of their “Islamist orientation and views”.
Why would the Mayor of London uncritically endorse an initiative where Mend has been a prime architect and driving force from the outset? Surely he would want to keep away from anything that could be controversial to his political legacy and future?
We might also take note of the British Muslim Trust. Incorporated in 2018, it had remained dormant at Companies House for years before being activated in 2025, when it signed a grant funding agreement with this Labour Government in September 2025, under which it will receive £2.65m of taxpayers’ money over three years to monitor anti-Muslim hatred.
In a post that it put out on X, the trust stated: “This November, join British Muslim Trust for Islamophobia Awareness Month as we shine a light on anti-Muslim hate.”
Why would the Mayor of London and a taxpayer funded NGO want to promote a campaign where one of the main founders has been cited in Parliament because of their “Islamist orientation and views”?
]]>The former Archbishop’s attack on group punishment as a moral evil contradicts the £100m Project Spire initiative he once endorsed
For those who grumble that the Church of England is too mealy-mouthed to give a robust lead on the moral challenges of the day, it is time to think again.
The prophetic voice crying in the wilderness comes from Justin Welby, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who has unexpectedly issued a stinging jeremiad to condemn the idea that Britain should pay reparations for slavery.
“Group punishment is a moral evil,” he declared. “It mixes up the guilty and the innocent even when it is about contemporary times, let alone two centuries past.” Reparations “would be addressing one injustice by creating another”.
It is difficult to disagree with Welby’s forensic critique, grounded in Christian morality and a nuanced understanding of history’s complexity.
Yet, his intervention has left many churchgoers perplexed. When he was Archbishop, he himself was the motive force behind the Church’s own reparations scheme, Project Spire: an initiative for the Church Commissioners (the Church’s investment arm) to give £100m to a new fund that would invest in black-led enterprises in the UK and abroad to atone for the Church’s alleged involvement in the 18th-century slave trade.
The problem for the Church Commissioners, and the current Archbishop, Sarah Mullally (who started her tenure at Canterbury with a full-throated defence of Project Spire) is that Welby’s attack on reparations methodically destroys the justifications for the Project.
]]>The Church of England has relaunched its website, and it looks good (fortunately with a bit less of that wishy-washy purple). But one thing has not changed: a phrase sitting just under the logo: A Christian presence in every community (or a slight variation of it). It appears in Church Commissioners’ reports, in Synod papers, in press releases, and in almost every argument currently being had about the future of the parish. It sounds unarguable. Who could be against Christian presence?
But the phrase is doing a great deal of work, and it is worth asking a few questions of it. Where did it come from? What has it been taken to mean? Does it have any theological content at all—and if so, does that content cohere with what the Church of England actually says about itself in its formularies and its ordinal? And, most importantly, does it point us towards a strategy that might reverse decline—or one that might manage it gracefully?
(The comedian David Mitchell once said, rather sceptically, that when a politician says something that no-one could disagree with, then you can be sure they are using it to smuggle in something that people will definitely disagree with! I am not quite so sceptical—but I like the question!)
My contention is that the phrase is a good one, but only if we recover the New Testament answer to the question: what is the presence of God in a community? The answer is not, in the first place, a building, or a PCC (!) or a vicar. It is a people.
]]>One Islamic organisation says it is “Creating A Prophetic Community”
It’s not long to go until the next BBC Children in Need, which takes place on Friday 13th November 2026. Already, Brits are being encouraged to open their hearts and wallets to the vulnerable. Case in point: last week I watched The One Show (yes really) and it had an emotional segment about a young boy helped by a brain tumour charity. I mention this to emphasise that I am not anti BBC Children in Need. It has done fantastic work over the years, pouring lots of money into groups and organisations doing the world of good. I say the same thing about charities, generally. The problem is ideological capture.
Children in Need is certainly not immune from this issue. I have been very alarmed by multiple examples of what it’s funding, including groups that are very identity-focussed (based on race or another characteristic that further splinters British society) or are deeply ideological (for example, one LGBT+ group I explore – Cumbria Pride – has a page about pronouns on its website). In this piece I will give you five examples of exactly what Children in Need has been funding, in addition to its good work, to show you Pudsey’s downfall:
£45,000 to the Bahja Initiative
The Bahja Initiative describes itself as an “islamic organisation aiming to bring about positive change in the community by reviving the Sunnah and upholding islamic principles.”