Dear friends
This Winter Newsletter brings you Christmas greetings from C&M Ministries, together with news of some exciting new developments and an update on our plans for the New Year.
In this Newsletter
Seeing the Hand of God
On 8th October, Monica and Cliff’s book ‘Seeing the Hand of God’ was published. As you are probably aware, Monica sent this book to the publishers just three days before she died so we are thrilled that it is now available to purchase from Wilberforce Publications. It is a book of short stories about Cliff and Monica’s worldwide ministry and the amazing things that they have seen God doing in their long ministry together.
Clifford was able to talk about some of the experiences mentioned in the book in the online launch event organised by Wilberforce Publications. If you missed this event, it is still available to view - see below
Full purchase details of ‘Seeing the Hand of God’ can be found on the book's resource page.
News of other books
Cliff has now completed his latest book, ‘The Great Awakening’. This book tracks the development of the charismatic movement from its early days in the 1950s through to the Toronto Blessing in the mid-1990s; looking at what can be learnt from the past and hope for the future. We have a number of publication options and hope to be able to give further details in our next newsletter, please pray for our discussions.
Cliff is already working on his next book – one that he has been contemplating writing for many years. Entitled ‘Why seek the Living Among the Dead?’ this book is essentially a theological analysis of the early church, looking at its emphasis upon the resurrection and new life in Christ and the central concept of the community of believers as the body of Christ under the headship of Jesus. The book seeks ways in which this concept can be recovered in the church today.
New website section: Understanding Church Growth and Decline
We have been working hard to expand the material available on our website. To date we have concentrated on adding books and magazines to the resources section by digitalising many past copies of Prophecy Today and Church Growth Digests, as well as publishing Monica’s online book, The Harold Road Story.
We are now starting to develop the ministry pages of the website by digitalising some of the many archives from Monica and Clifford’s past ministry. This was something that Monica was working on just before she died so we are thrilled to start by expanding the Church Growth section, giving many more details of Monica’s ground breaking work in this field. You can read more about Monica’s work here:
Using Monica’s Legacy Fund
In previous newsletters we reported that we were using the money donated in memory of Monica to digitalise much of her teaching material and make it available as a resource to future generations via our website. Ben Robinson has now scanned many of the ‘Natural Church Development’ course notes and OHPs produced by Monica in the 1990s, together with other Church Growth research and teaching material.
You can read more about this aspect of Monica’s Church Growth work by clicking here: Natural Church Development (NCD)
We still have some money left in Monica’s Legacy Fund, so Ben will continue to digitalise our archives; he is now working on the ‘Prophecy and The Prophets’ teaching material and is also planning to scan more past copies of PT. These will all be added to the website in due course.
Archive News
Our plans to find a permanent home for our archives are progressing well and we are thrilled to be able to announce that the Evangelical Archive of Christianity in Britain and Ireland is very interested in including our archives in their collection.
This new archive is being established in partnership with Manchester University and aims to create a wide ranging archive of church history in the University’s John Rylands Library. This Library already holds the archives from many organisations including the Methodist Church, Christian Brethren and the Dr Williams’s Congregational Library. They are now looking to expand their collection and are in discussions with many other groups such as the Evangelical Alliance, London City Mission, and Faith and Roger Forster, as well as one of Monica’s close associates, Peter Brierley.
The establishment of an Evangelical Archive at the University of Manchester represents an extraordinary opportunity, one that we are very excited to be involved in. We hope to be able to bring you more news on this project in future newsletters.
And finally …
We pray God’s blessing for you all as we look to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Please continue to hold the ministry in your prayers, and we will be in touch with you again in the Spring with more news of our on-going work and future plans.
Clifford, Jenny, Alison, Stephen, Angela, Neil, and the rest of the team.