“Your hour has come to share the good news of the gospel” - Bishop says

On July 13th at Sheffield Cathedral the Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill, Bishop of Lichfield , admitted eleven graduates of Church Army’s Wilson Carlile College of evangelism to the office of evangelist within the Anglican Church.

In a cathedral packed with over 400 people, Bishop Jonathan performed his formal duties on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and encouraged the newly commissioned evangelists to “be filled with the vision of Christ’s strange glory, to follow the Lord on the way of the cross, to die to some of our own individual plans and desires, so that much fruit will result. “

In opening his sermon, Bishop Jonathan referred to the tragedy of the London bombings that had taken place less than a week earlier and exhorted the evangelists to fix their eyes on God with the words: “Your hour has come to share the good news of the gospel in a world reeling with chaos and bad news.”

At the commissioning service attended by the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Church Army Chief Secretary Philip Johanson added: “The task ahead of you is not necessarily going to be easy - that is not what Jesus promised. It is going to be challenging and it is going to be exciting. At times it will no doubt be demanding and even frustrating. Life for all of us can be so unpredictable and so uncertain. It doesn’t always work out the way we plan, the way we want, or even the way we expect. My hope and my prayer is that you will be people who want to make a difference because Christ and knowing him has made a difference to you.”

For the full text of Bishop Jonathan’s sermon,  click here

For the full text of Philip Johanson’s sermon, click here