Be: Celebrating 100 years of sharing the gospel

Barking Elim is among a group of churches birthed 100 years ago from an amazing revival. And now they are celebrating their centenary with a year of imaginative evangelism, Adriana Saldana tells Direction.

When brothers Stephen and George Jeffreys came to Barking, revival was sparked through their 1925 crusade. Many were healed, many found faith, and from it Barking Elim, East Ham Elim, Canning Town Elim and City Gates in Ilford were born.

That’s why, a century later, the churches are celebrating their centenaries together.

To honour this foundational revival, Barking Elim planned a year of local evangelism, packed with creative ideas to engage its east London community. Here’s how they’ve been celebrating.

1. A year of evangelism
To prepare for their outreach, the Barking and East Ham churches began with training from Gary Gibbs, London City Mission (who specifically helped on reaching Muslims) and Jesus at the Door.

From there they’ve been hitting the streets every month, worshipping outside the train station and evangelising using Jesus at the Door’s resources. They’ve spoken to many young adults in particular.

“We have a strong community of young adults, and two are particularly good at connecting with others and bringing them to church,” says Adriana.

2. Christmas community fun
Festive outreach included Christmas carols in the town square and a Christmas play explaining who Jesus is. “A lady who’s well connected to the Indian community ran it and got Indian children to do the play. Through that we got to evangelise to their parents and friends. We had eight people give their lives to Jesus that day,” Adriana says.

3. Happy 100th Barking Elim!
On the actual date in January that the church was birthed, Barking Elim met for a big celebration. An exhibition showcased newspaper articles about the 1925 revival and many testimonies of healings, while VIP guests included the church’s former pastors. An evening service drew a large crowd to celebrate, and among the highlights was a story shared of a man so impacted by the revival that he became a missionary to Australia.

4. Tough Talk
Spring was an action-packed season with Tough Talk invited to perform at East Ham Elim in a bid to reach young people and men. Meanwhile, via flowers and flyers, women were invited to Barking Elim’s Mothers’ Day service.

5. Interactive Easter
Such a success was the Christmas play that Barking Elim organised an Easter one too. “It was interactive and held in various places around the town hall, the idea being that people followed Jesus through different parts of his life up to his death,” says Adriana.

6. Autumn outreach
In September (12th–14th), Barking plans to join forces with the East Ham and Dagenham churches to host and invite their communities to a big tent outreach. We’ll be back later in the year to share how it went!

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.