Although there may not be a great deal to show for it on our public website as yet, the summer months have been very positive ones for us all and we are making good progress in many different areas.
We do hope you have enjoyed the summer holiday months – they have been very positive ones for us, and we are humbly grateful to those of you who were able to visit us in person. This has enabled us to meet up with old colleagues in the ministry which was becoming more difficult without assistance!! We did though make one wonderful day visit down to Newham in East London (where we ministered in the 1970s when our children were of school age) where the ministry we helped establish at that time is still meeting the needs of local people there despite enormous changes.
We also had a few days away with family for Monica’s 90th birthday (though not as far as our travelling to Austria in June for Cliff’s 97th!) In between, we celebrated our 67th wedding anniversary – with the same number of years of joint ministry which we are still writing up! This little booklet below gives you some idea of the breadth of our ministry when we celebrated our 50th, but much more has been added since then!!
This month is the start of a new year on many church calendars as well as in the educational world. In the notes below we will give you more news of what we have been doing, as well as more plans for the future of the ministry.
In this Newsletter
New Resources
In the next few months running up to Christmas there will be a number of new publications in different formats becoming available.
The trustees of Issachar Ministries are reviewing their activities with the retirement of their administrator, Jacqueline Barber, at the end of the year. Those on their mailing list will hear directly from them of their plans, but this will also affect C & M Ministries as for a number of years we were linked together; and until now they have been the main Ministry Distributor of our books, but they are now running down their stock.
We too have been running down our stock and digitalising where possible, but we are looking for others to help provide this distribution service for us in the future.
This is complicated by the fact that we are still producing new books in different formats with arrangements being made for at least two of these to be available in print format before Christmas and another one early next year. Please do let us know of your interest in obtaining copies or viewing any of the publications mentioned below.
EastEnders Restoration (temp title) is the story of the restoration of a church declared to be redundant in the 1970s which paved the way not only for restored communities, but it also used an unusual God-given opportunity to give hope in the lives of rejected young people as well as buildings. Monica’s reflections on this period of ministry are already appearing in serialised format as an experimental e-book on our website, available to access by request on application to heritage@candmministries.org.uk while she brings it up to date with an additional chapter of activities seen firsthand in Newham today as the work continues.
Blessing the Church? Prophecy Today version. The update of this useful analysis of sections of the Charismatic Movement from 1995, which had been reprinted many times and translated into other languages, was serialised in 29 articles in Prophecy Today during 2017 and 2018 and is still viewable in PT archives. Breaking News – the original 1995 version of the book is still felt to be relevant today, as a church in the US is asking permission to make recordings on YouTube – so watch this space!
The Moggerhanger Chronicles Volume 1 has been long awaited and covers our joint reflections of the period of ministry in Moggerhanger Park for 11 years from 1993 until 2004, from which a number of new ministries were created which will still be remembered by many of you. This first part has already been typeset and will be a C&M Ministries publication out this Autumn. A downloadable e-book should be available shortly, together with links from our website to many other digitalised pictures, videos, audios and documents. Where it is being sold, whether as Kindle or as hard back, we are expecting it to be reasonably priced at just £10.00 plus postage and packing where applicable. Please e-mail heritage@candmministries.org.uk by the end of September to indicate your interest in any of these versions.
Today with the Prophets – 8th Century BC prophets of Amos, Hosea and Micah in one volume. Cliff has completed the text of a follow up to, and in the same format as, Ezekiel Volumes 1 and 2, which are still selling well. This is currently with a number of proofreaders for final checking and should be available through Handsel Press before the end of the year – also probably at £10.00.
‘By Faith’, which many of you have been expecting to be available soon, is now on the back burner to appear at a later date! Instead, we are working on drawing out of it a new compilation of short ministry experiences named ‘Seeing the Hand of God’. This book of inspiring stories covers many different areas of our ministry, and Wilberforce Publications have agreed to make it one of their publications in 2025.
News - Past, Present and Future
As we gradually add material to our website, we are happy to give our supporters who receive the newsletter directly a few extra private insights in advance into not-yet-published sections on the website as well as links to topical meetings taking place. Below are a handful of some of the items included there.
Exciting Zoom Meetings of Like Minds:
Our two interactive hour-long meetings online in July (open to those signed up to our mailing list) took on a new very distinctive way forward. They each attracted around 12 screens often from another continent or a remote part of the country – this was just the right number to be able to be interactive. Everyone joined in and each shared their memories and how they were putting what they had learned into place in their widely scattered areas today.
Local Community Summer Afternoon Teas
Last year we had held a popular Garden Party in our back garden for local supporters which people still talk about. We were asked to repeat it this year, especially as we have a number of supporters who are not on the internet and this is a lovely way to keep in touch with them. That, coupled with the fact that Cliff was 97 in June, and we also had our 67th wedding anniversary and my 90th birthday in August, meant that we had 3 such afternoons this year and met up with around 20 each time for some stimulating sharing afternoons. Those attending knew us from different eras and it was great to see the reunions and ‘cross fertilisation’ – and many travelled a distance to be with us – and also helped reduce our book stocks in the garage!! Meeting face-to-face gives an even greater ‘community feel’ than just meeting on-line – maybe next year we will be able to do this again!
Retracing Ministry of 50 years ago
Also in July, Jenny and Simon drove us down for a day visit to Newham – where we had ministered in the 1970s, and where they had met, and also married when Jenny was teaching there. Lots of memories; and we were able to see the changes that had taken place, meet those currently active in the ministry we had commenced, as well as some who still live in the area, and a number returned specially from as far away as Devon, Coventry and Essex, with good will messages from others who could not join us. We took copious photos, were linked up with Florida, made new friends as well as caught up with old, and the car was full of gifts and memorabilia for the return journey. More of this will be transferred to the website shortly.
Building Links
- Continuing Research A visit from Andrew Atherstone, now a Professor at Wycliffe College, interested in writing up the ‘Effect of the Vineyard Ministry on Anglican Evangelicalism’ who had been sifting through boxes of material with our notes and correspondence with church leaders, was followed by Tom Lennie’s two-day visit from the Orkney Islands with a similar interest in writing this up from a different aspect. This entailed 12 hours travel by sea and train each way, but strengthened links with our biblical teaching and research as well as with Prophecy Today. But it also brought significant links with others on those remote islands who had benefited from the ministry in the past.
- It became obvious that Sharing Memories of your own calling in general conversation can encourage others to get involved in different ways too. This was apparent during the Afternoon Teas, when some present gave additional memories of the Filling Stations, an original vision of Don Lathom in which we were involved in some of the earliest events. These events are still providing support and help for those in remote areas today. A retired secondary school teacher also shared her calling to help young men just out of prison, and is now in touch with Springs Community Centre, whose youth work in diverting youngsters from gangs and knife crime through use of their music recording studio (for which they had received a commendation from the National Crimebeat Awards) is being showcased at the moment by the LCFCPG (Lords and Commons Family and Child Protection Group) and whose leader is active in MJR (The Movement for Justice and Reconciliation).
- Julie Ann Scott’s prophetic paintings, prepared for the late Queen, have now been circulating the country accompanied by art demonstrations, and have given rise to many opportunities for presenting the Gospel. She requests prayer specifically for a two-day event at the Sky headquarters in Isleworth in Middlesex on 10th and 11th September which seats 250 and will be live-streamed. Additionally, they will be shown in the Museum of the Bible in Washington in the New Year and she has been commissioned to design the logo for the National Day of Prayer in May 2025 in Washington DC.
Why Seek the Living Among the Dead?
When Cliff shared some of our initial thinking on the above theme from Luke 24:5-7 at one of our Afternoon Teas, many wanted to be able to join in thinking through, and debating, the biblical and theological issues on why the Western Church, and Evangelicals in particular, now make more of the Crucifixion rather than the Resurrection. If you are interested in making a contribution to this on-going discussion, we can keep you updated: contact us at Heritage@candmministries.org.uk, putting ‘seeking the living’ in the email title.
And finally
We will be sending you our next quarterly update at the end of November with Christmas greetings and will be putting news items and making more pages live on the website as we go along. Please remember us in your prayers.
As always, we are so grateful for your involvement and help of any kind and are mainly dependent on the practical help of volunteers as well as financially, although the Lord has been good to us through past supporters and providing us with unsolicited gifts from donors. We thank God every day that we are still able to retain our links with you in many ways and especially through this newsletter, Zoom, our virtual office, and our website. Further involvement can be either through leaving messages on the website.
Bless you all in the days ahead,
Cliff and Monica, Angela, Jenny, Tony, Kathryn plus all those sharing in creating this changing face of C and M Ministries.