evangelical 360°

Ep. 37 / A Surprising Revival: How Young Britons Are Rediscovering Faith ► Gavin Calver

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 37

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Is the United Kingdom truly a spiritual graveyard, or are we witnessing the first signs of an unexpected revival? Gavin Calver, CEO of the Evangelical Alliance UK, reveals compelling evidence that challenges the narrative of Britain's religious decline.

While headlines focus on empty pews, something remarkable is stirring beneath the surface. Gen Z is twice as likely to believe in God as their Gen X parents. Bible sales have surged 87% in five years. Two million more people attend church now than five years ago. These aren't just anecdotes—major media outlets like The Times are reporting on this shift, confirming what Calver describes as "an openness to the gospel that hasn't existed in my lifetime."

What's driving this spiritual renaissance? Calver points to several factors: "reverse missionaries" from Africa, Asia and beyond bringing faith back to Britain; the unifying effect of secular pressure forcing churches to collaborate; and a renewed focus on equipping everyday Christians to share their faith. Most surprising is research showing one in three non-Christians actively want conversations with Christian friends about faith.

The Evangelical Alliance itself presents a fascinating case study in navigating complex cultural waters while maintaining theological clarity. Founded in 1846 (predating even the World Evangelical Alliance), the Alliance has consistently focused on two missions: uniting evangelicals to share the gospel and providing a voice for believers in the corridors of power. Today, it represents 3,000 churches, 500 organizations and 27,000 individual members across the UK's four nations.

Multicultural Christianity has transformed British evangelicalism, with 25-33% of UK evangelicals now from global majority backgrounds. This diversity has strengthened prayer culture, evangelistic effectiveness, and the church's ability to transcend social divides. As Calver notes, "The church can do something no one else in London can do – get every tribe, every tongue, every age group around the table together."

You can learn more with Gavin Calver through the Evangelical Alliance UK website , his literature, and you can find him on Facebook and Instagram. 

And you can share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller, and I'm pleased to share with you another conversation with leaders, changemakers and influencers impacting Christian life around the world. My guest today is Gavin Calvert, CEO of the Evangelical Alliance in the UK. The story of Christianity in the United Kingdom is often told as a slow decline, a nation drifting away from the faith, with increasingly empty pews and secular headlines. But is that the whole story? Are evangelicals in England fading out or is there something stirring beneath the surface, a sort of resurgence or renewal? Well, Gavin Calver is here to help us look beyond the headlines and tell us if there are in fact, signs of new life breaking through across the UK. So listen in and join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below, and be sure to subscribe and share this episode using hashtag Evangelical360. Gavin Calvert, so good to have you here on Evangelical360.

Gavin Calver:

It's brilliant to be with you.

Brian Stiller:

Gavin, it's amazing to me to watch what's going on in the UK. I mean your country. The UK has the reputation of being a graveyard of churches and yet over the last few years there's emerged out of your country a ministry for evangelism that I've never seen in my lifetime. It's something to watch. And for you, as director of the Alliance in the UK, what are you observing that would produce this kind of initiative for evangelism?

Gavin Calver:

Well, I think the culture's changed, I think the temperature's changed and I think it's even more rapid. I mean, things like Alpha and other stuff have been around a long time that have impacted globally, but in the last two years I would say there's been a temperature change in the UK. We're not living in revival, we're maybe not even quite in awakening, but there's an openness in the UK culture to the gospel that there's not been in my lifetime and I'm 45. So for the best part of half a century we've not had the openness we have now, and that's quite remarkable. But it's also quite new and it's very exciting. What has produced that.

Gavin Calver:

A work of the Holy Spirit is obviously the answer. But let me be honest with you on one thing, brian. I'm an optimistic, hope-filled evangelistic type. So if I go into a room and tell people God's moving, everyone says well, that's what you would say. However, in the last nine months I've seen the Lord do stuff I've not seen in a long time. I've seen ridiculous responses to talks. I've seen engagement on the public transport around the gospel. We've seen all kinds of fruitfulness.

Gavin Calver:

But then our newspapers have started reporting it in the last few months. So the Times newspaper, which is probably the most reputable newspaper in the UK, reported that Gen Z forgive me, I can't do the Z thing Gen Z are twice as likely to not be atheists as their parents Gen X. So my kids twice as likely to not be atheists as their parents Gen X, so my kids twice as likely to not be atheists as me. Then three weeks later, they reported an 87% increase in sales of the Bible in the UK in the last five years, predominantly amongst young people. Now, the Bible wasn't struggling in the UK, it was already the best-selling book by a long way. But for its 87% increase, the facts wasn't struggling in the UK, it was already the best-selling book by a long way, but for its 87% increase.

Brian Stiller:

The facts are matching the anecdotes that the Lord's moving in a new way. Gavin, I want to come back to that, but let's go back historically. The World Evangelical Alliance was formed in the UK in 1846. You hold the records of that remarkable beginning and the history. Give us your accounting of how that came about and then how that has moved down to the Alliance as it's manifest today under your leadership.

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, I mean. The reason the UK Evangelical Alliance is the oldest in the world is because way back in 1846, and forgive me, I love my American brothers and sisters, so don't hear this wrong me now but the Brits wouldn't unite with the Americans initially over the issue of slavery, because the Brits didn't own slaves and many of the Americans still did, and that was too big an issue for the Brits to unite. So from the very beginning for the Evangelical Alliance, full stop. For the very beginning it wasn't unity at any cost. There were always boundaries to that and I think that's important to remember. There's a justice bent to what we do. But then that obviously led to further conversations and the World Evangelical Alliance was born and that's been an amazing ministry globally. That's made a difference.

Gavin Calver:

I think Evangelical Alliance now in the UK, as we head to 180 years old next year, we still really exist for the two things we were started for to unite evangelicals in sharing the gospel in every corner of the United Kingdom and secondly, to give a clear, effective, confident, united voice within the corridors of power. And so we change our posture. So I think there's lots of different postures we have at the moment. We change our posture. But the substance of the EA, in the UK at least, has remained largely the same over 180 years, with peaks and troughs in the effectiveness of the ministry. But it's quite something that the focus of the ministry remains the same nearly 200 years on.

Brian Stiller:

But you are a collection of so many cultures and languages and peoples. Your cultural landscape has been manifestly changed. How does that reflect itself in the worshipping and the witnessing aspect of the evangelical community?

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, I think for a start I mean way back in 1997, a gentleman called Joel Edwards was appointed into my role and he's passed away now sadly. But Joel was of Caribbean heritage and it was said at that point that you had a black leader for the white churches. That's not the case now in the UK. It's not that we don't have I'm obviously a white leader but the bottom line is about a quarter to a third of UK evangelicals are of global majority heritage. Now that's had a really significant impact. But what's interesting is the style changes like the wind but the substance isn't compromised on and actually issues like immigration have led to all kinds of church growth.

Gavin Calver:

Reverse mission has transformed the prayer culture of my nation. You know there's so many benefits of it too. But the landscape in the UK is remarkable and I live in London as I would need to for my job. London is probably the most diverse and yet relatively united city in the world. It's quite an amazing place and the church can do something no one else in London can do. And the church can do something no one else in London can do. We can get every tribe, every tongue, every age group, every gender around the table together, fellowshipping and worshipping together, we can do a unity that nothing else in this culture can do, and I think that's the kind of unity Jesus prayed for himself in John 17 that the world would notice. The world notices the unity of the church because it's powerful and it goes beyond the divides that otherwise people build walls around.

Brian Stiller:

Being part of the British Commonwealth, I'm familiar with the power of the UK in our history and there's a certain kind of arrogance with that cultural power. So I think about that as part of our history. And yet to hear you talk about those who have migrated into the UK creating a kind of a unity within the church in England, but that seems to be in distinction to the arrogance that I have felt from the church of England of the past centuries.

Gavin Calver:

Let's talk about the Church in England. Well, in the UK, actually, because it's four nations, but the Church in the UK, not the Church of England, because we'll confuse ourselves as to what we're talking about. We're not talking about denomination, but the Church in the United Kingdom is not in any position to be arrogant. We're in a position to be desperate, and that desperation has led to a unity that I don't think places like the United States wouldn't have the kind of unity we've got in various places, because it doesn't need it yet.

Gavin Calver:

Still there's more of a church-going culture, still there's people turning up. When you have a secular nation, you're forced to either run together or just it's over. So we're running together with people, but then also people are coming to this nation, bringing the gospel back to this nation after it was sent from this nation to all kinds of places, and coming in and helping us out. So actually in this season, I think the posture of the uk church is one lord, please move. We're desperate, but also please send us people to change the landscape, because we need help.

Brian Stiller:

So there's a humility in the church that seems uncommon to its history.

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, there's a desperation. There's a desperation. It's been some of the recent good news, like we shared earlier and we might come back to again in a bit. The Bible Society have just done some research called the Quiet Revival I think the name's slightly unhelpful, but it basically shows that 2 million more people go to church than five years ago in the UK. Those are significant numbers for here. We've just done some changing church research showing what's different in the church from 2021 until now. Twice as many people are becoming Christians through local churches now as in 2021. Things are changing. Things are moving. It feels like the recovery started. The Lord's moving in power and that's amazing.

Gavin Calver:

But we got to a fairly low ebb, from which the cry of our hearts was a desperate one, and the Lord has sent us people from all over the world and is changing our church. I mean, for example, I have a friend who came here as a reverse missionary from Uganda never been on an aeroplane before comes as a missionary, gets to Heathrow Airport, gets his bags, he's got a decision to make. He's never made in his life something to declare or nothing to declare. So he goes through something to declare and he says to the guy at customs I declare that Jesus Christ is the son of God and by believing you'll have life in his name. The guy in customs looks at him like what's wrong with you. So he says I declare Jesus died for you and they let him in, which is good. But we've had people come to this nation to remind us that we have something to declare, that we can't live on a history, we've got to live in a current, that in this nation you've got a strange mix-up.

Gavin Calver:

In the UK Anyone older than me is kind of in a post-Christian country. Anyone younger than me is kind of in a pre-Christian country and we've got to do all we can to communicate good news in the right way and we're taking all the help we can. But this is an amazing time to be part of the UK church, one of the most dynamic multicultural. I'm translated at least once every six weeks, most recently into Punjabi for the first time, preaching at a church full of Asian folks who've all come to faith from other faiths Six baptisms that morning. God's moving powerfully. But the UK church does not look like the one people think they see through Downton Abbey.

Brian Stiller:

You talk about the reverse missionary plan. So someone's come from Africa really as a missionary to the UK. Describe for us how that works.

Gavin Calver:

It works the same as it's worked throughout history. Someone gets the call of God to go to a nation that in their mind is not reached enough and they go and bring good news. Now it's really hard at first. When this was first breaking through 20, 30, 40, 40 years ago, it was a lot harder than now. We're used to receiving missionaries now in a different way.

Gavin Calver:

But what you'll often get as well as you'll get a people group moving here, and at first they will meet in a church that's largely around their own demographic. Then by the second or third generation they have to say how do we reach the community here? And so we've got individuals coming, but we've also got communities coming. So what? The Nigerian church who've come here quite significantly, what they've done for the prayer life of the evangelical church in the UK is second to none. What some of the Iranian church have taught us about person-to-person evangelism is like nothing you'd experience, what some of the recent Ukrainian church coming in have taught us about hospitality. So it's mixed between individuals coming as missionaries and people groups coming and then saying we live here, this is our mission field.

Gavin Calver:

But both of those have had quite an impact. We live here, this is our mission field, but both of those have had quite an impact and what it's done, I think, is, in some ways, the I don't really like this term, but, if you like, the indigenous host community has been woken up to the fact that we've got a mission field on our doorstep too. You know, we, when there was a danger, would be like jonah in jonah one, with the sailors having to wake us up and say how can we be saved? Actually, we've be woken up to the fact that actually we need to pray for the lost and we need to open our mouths about the hope we have in Jesus. And off the back of that, I think we're seeing the situation change in this nation and I'm very hopeful about the generation after me and what comes next.

Brian Stiller:

Our history as evangelicals tends to gravitate towards personal spirituality. To what degree does the Alliance in the UK operate within the public policy issues of your day?

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, hugely.

Gavin Calver:

I mean this is the.

Gavin Calver:

I wish more people are joining the Evangelical Alliance in the moment than any time for 25 years. I wish that was for the mission and evangelism work, but actually it's for the advocacy work we do in the public square. Access within the corridors of power is better than it's been certainly this millennium. Our ability to speak truth into the House of Commons, the House of Lords, scotland Yard, the Senate in Wales, stormont in Northern Ireland, holyrood in Scotland or 10 Downing Street, wherever we're in those places, and what we do is we have a membership model whereby we take the voice of the members into those places.

Gavin Calver:

At the moment there's an awful lot being done around assisted dying, although we challenge that and say actually we already have assisted dying in the UK it's called palliative care. What you're talking about is assisted suicide. In the last nine months alone we've met with hundreds of members of parliament across the four nations of the uk on that issue. We speak up. We take the voice of the church into the corridors of power. We the one issue throughout our 180 years we've always spoken on is freedom of religion and belief. Without fail, that's been the the most important things religious liberty issues. But every day has its different issues of that moment, and so if you'd asked me a year ago, I wouldn't have mentioned assisted dying, because that came about quite quickly after our election last summer. Who knows what it might be in a year's time, but there are certain issues on which we speak, and my staff team have a full time presence across all four parliaments of the UK.

Brian Stiller:

What outcomes have you seen from that engagement?

Gavin Calver:

Many, but my favourite one in my time. I've been at EA for a decade. My favourite one in my time was the UK government said they wanted to inspect all youth work and Sunday schools in churches. So you know, like you do with schools, they inspect schools. They want to do that in churches. Public regulation of private religion at what point had I moved to north korea? I mean that, what a religious liberty problem that is. So we went in and we spoke on behalf of all our membership, which is 3 000 churches, 500 organizations, 27 000 individuals, and we said there's no way you can do this. This is an absolute overstep into religious liberty. There's no way this is even possible. It's not feasible, it's not plausible. And because we spoke with one voice, at least for then, for the time being has been kicked into the long grass because we were able to explain the problems.

Gavin Calver:

My approach to public policy issues is let's assume they're not against us, because a lot of people assume the government are against you. Most of the time. It's faith and literacy that's the problem. Government are against you Most of the time. It's faith and literacy that's the problem, not an attack on the church. So we go into these spaces and point out unintended consequences and then allow the government to see that and adapt policies. To say, because this is not, however much I want it to be, this is not a Christian country anymore. This is a country with a Christian heritage. It operates the faith. Literacy in the corridors of power is limited.

Brian Stiller:

However, the opportunities for the Evangelical Alliance to engage are unlimited. Transgender, lgbtq+, identity and rights. How has the Alliance in the UK navigated those waters? Sensitive to the issues but at the same time maintaining a classic evangelical orthodoxy?

Gavin Calver:

My leadership of the Evangelical Alliance. When I was preparing for this role, the Lord said to me two things we need to be braver in the years ahead than we've been, and we need to be kinder than we've been. The world makes those two things exclusive. They go together, and so we're trying to be brave and kind on every issue, particularly this one Do. I wish this wasn't the issue of our day, probably, but it is, so you deal with it. Our position has always been that we don't think the theology is all that complicated. It's absolutely clear that marriage is between a man and a woman and there's no room within evangelical Christianity for anything beyond that. However, the pastoral implications are incredibly complicated. So we have sought to gather leaders to share experience. We have sought to resource people. It was six years ago we first put out our resource Transformed, which is about how churches can approach the issue of transgenderism. We've just redone it again. The government have really reversed on that in about the last six months and they've actually agreed, largely without realising it, with what we wrote five or six years ago.

Gavin Calver:

On the same-sex marriage and LGBTQ relationships. We have done something called Relationships Matter, which is a seven-week small group resource for churches to work through on how to help people be orthodox on the issue, but kind. We've got 10 affirmations churches use about human flourishing. We have resourced significantly in this area and thousands of churches have used what we've produced in this area and thousands of churches have used what we've produced.

Gavin Calver:

We've also tried to frame it in a wider conversation, because in some ways, the least exciting or interesting thing about a person is their sexuality. So we've tried to frame it in a wider conversation what it means to be human and I've done a whole set of resources on that and what does it mean to be human in the world of AI? And what does it mean to be human and flourish in our sexual relationships. What does it mean to be human in community? So we've done an awful lot, we've navigated it, but what we haven't done is slip in any way into a liberal position on this Because, to be honest, it's like we're playing a big game of Kaplunk I don't know if you have that game in Canada, a big game of Kaplunk and if you pull this out, the marbles fall down and the game is over. You know there is no room in Scripture for an affirming position in our view, and therefore we can't move. We're just seeking to be kind.

Brian Stiller:

Gavin, you have such a wide variety of religious traditions within the evangelical community. How do you build those varying theological distinctives and the style of ministry? How do you bring them together in an evangelical alliance so that there is cooperation and unity?

Gavin Calver:

So it's hard work because we've got over 80 streams, denominations or networks represented within our membership. That means that Sunday mornings can be fun, because I go to church with my family on a Sunday night. Most Sunday mornings I'm out somewhere. You work out in the first worship song where you are Not the name of the church, nothing else. The first worship song tells you is it hands in the air or hands in the pockets? Do I fully release my inner charismatic self or do I retain it a little?

Gavin Calver:

My wife will say what time are you home? I'll say 1.46pm, because that church has never gone over an hour in 140 years. Somewhere else, I'll say hopefully today. You know, it's the diversity that we celebrate, but I think one of the key things to us is we keep the main things, the main thing. So we have a statement of faith that people have to gather around to be part of the alliance. That is largely unchanged in 180 years the statement of faith. There are issues we work off on the sides, but the statement of faith holds together. We always are clear that we will gather around the primary and we will disagree on the secondary, and that's okay, but we can stand together. But it's really important that we keep the main things, the main things, and we know where we're going. So it means within our alliance, our alliance.

Gavin Calver:

I mean, yeah, you do have the greatest difference of expression on the sunday morning you can imagine, but you have the same theological convictions and the same desire to see the nation, one for jesus, that drives us forward together. And we find that. We find that things like the aforementioned sexuality, things like our resources on freedom of religion and belief and what your freedoms are to share the gospel and things like our stuff on racism or our stuff on public engagement, public policy. Those unite because actually people want to come together on those things. So we find the things that unite, we drive forward together.

Gavin Calver:

And the only thing the Evangelical Alliance does liberally in the UK is make friends. So we make friends, we humanize what it is. Once you've had a meal together it's a lot easier to talk about other things. We don't hide away in an office and tell everyone what to do. We get out and about face to face. I've met with over a thousand of our church leaders in the last two years and I want to get around the other 2000 in the next year or so.

Brian Stiller:

Gavin, the Alliance in the UK was formed just following the spectacular and remarkable leadership of Wilberforce on the slavery issue. Bringing that down to today, how does the alliance operate in terms of the issues of justice, of immigration and other justice related issues that surface within the body politic in the UK?

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, I mean, let me just say on the Wilberforce one, we're always very clear that Wilberforce did that alongside many, including Oladu Equiano. So it wasn't because one of the challenges in the UK at times is UK evangelicals have talked about, say, the abolition of the slave trade as if that was just done by white evangelicals, when actually there was a partnership all the way along which is quite significant to us. We speak into the hard issues today. There's interesting at the moment the government are trying to bring in a definition of Islamophobia. Now that's quite an interesting piece of work. So we've met with government officials in the last couple of weeks on that and talked about actually what does it mean for us to be a coherent society and to work together with other people we might disagree with? We've done a resource called Visions of Justice and Hope to help people, help those from other ethnicities, because tragically a number of people in churches in the UK have experienced forms of racism and we think that's absolutely wrong. So we're calling that out and saying how do we work together?

Gavin Calver:

Issues of immigration obviously define and divide politics like almost nothing else. So on those issues we make sure we're speaking up for the least, the last and the lost, but we're also speaking into a society about the fact we need to have sensible conversations about a number of these things. So I think our proximity certainly the way it works here in the UK is our proximity to the political world allows us to be in conversations around these things, but we have to be careful how loud we are about them outside of the room as well, because my job is to lead the unity body that brings together the UK's evangelicals, not constantly speak out on really hard issues that divide us. So we have a number of these conversations behind closed doors. On some of them we have policy. On some of them we don't. But what we will not stop doing is fighting for the least of the last of the last, caring for the poor, speaking up for justice and sharing hope.

Brian Stiller:

Gavin, in North America, primarily the US, you've got an interesting model that's been emerging over the last few years of a Christian community that wants to engage in the public policy issues in a way that would insist that public policy adhere to their Christian views or their sense of what a Christian nation should be like. As you look at that as a particular model that's manifest today, how are you leading the alliance in the UK as it relates to the relationship of the church towards governance and to the body politic?

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think it's slightly different here and it's very different. I mean, I don't know if you want to talk about this in a bit, but being an evangelical here means something quite distinct, I think, to what it means in the US. It is different, but I think for us what it means in this space is actually we want our voice to be heard.

Gavin Calver:

So so often in politics in the UK the loudest boos come from the cheapest seats, people that actually haven't got that much of a hold within the culture. No one provides more common good for the UK for free than the church. No one does. Everything else has to be helped by the taxpayer. We do so much to help this society.

Gavin Calver:

So we want our voice to be heard. We want to be seen, we want to be in the conversation. We want the Christian voice to be understood. We want our politicians to understand how many of us there are, but we're not fighting so that everyone's forced into a form of Christendom. We want our voice to be heard and us to be seen On things like abortion or assisted dying.

Gavin Calver:

We want people to realize that actually the giver and taker of life is the Lord and we want them to hear that, and we want that voice to be heard alongside the other voices. And so what we are trying to do is make sure that we have a reasonable, theological, clear, compassionate, godly voice and that we're around as many tables as possible. What we're not doing is saying this is a Christian country. Therefore, boom, boom, boom, because I'm not really sure that's the right reading of the UK in this moment. We're a country with a wonderful Christian heritage. Let's not forget those Christian moments, but let's also look into the future and what we want to see for our children and our children's children.

Brian Stiller:

You spent years as Director of Youth for Christ in the UK, which is an evangelistic outreach to young people. How has evangelism emerged within the UK over the last few years and what changes the migration of people from other countries? What changes does that social demographic bring to how the gospel is presented?

Gavin Calver:

Interesting. I think the fundamental shift taking place is from large gatherings to everyone being involved in witnessing. I think that's going to take time, but I think that's part of the shift. We've done some research as the Evangelical Alliance with some others called Talking Jesus, which found that one in three non-Christians want a conversation with a Christian friend about their faith. That's remarkable, isn't it? One in three non-Christians want to hear from a Christian friend about their faith.

Gavin Calver:

We thought for years they wanted to go on a course or they wanted to hear a sermon or they wanted to hear a wonderful apologetic. Actually, they want to chat to their friend and see we're facing the same things in life. What's different when you face them with Jesus? And so I think one of the big changes in evangelism in the UK is big events will always work to some level. But actually, how do we empower everyone who loves jesus and has a pulse to be a witness in their day? How do we move away from just making decisions to seeing disciples as well, and how do we see everyone playing their part in this? And how do we engage people where they are? You know, I'll never forget how impactful it was to me when I first really realized that when j meets the woman at the well, the first question is can I have a drink? He leads her and then a whole village to himself and he never gets his drink.

Gavin Calver:

It took me a few years to realize that he doesn't actually get his drink, the very thing he starts the conversation on, but he starts with the drink. In order to find common ground, they can have a conversation. We want to see that shift continue where all people are playing their part in witnessing. So we still do the big events, you still do the courses, you still do the programs, but we also have a full workforce doing their best to make Jesus known. I think one of the biggest differences that's come from immigration on this is, goodness me, the way that some parts of the church and other parts of the world pray is like something I've never encountered. Parts of the church and other parts of the world pray is like something I've never encountered, and a lot of british evangelicals overestimate their activities and underestimate their preface and yet the way that we've started praying for the lost, the coordinated prayer, in recent years, it's no surprise, is it, that we're seeing shoots of life now in the church, with so much praying for the lost taking place. In fact, I was at a church just the other week preaching Two huge digital boards on the wall, digital notice boards. One was a few names and one was loads of names During the notices. They pressed a button and a few names went from the long list to the shorter one. They sang a song. They all started dancing, having a party.

Gavin Calver:

I'm like what's going on? I said to the associate pastor what's happening here. He said we have that list of people we're praying for every day to come to jesus, and when any do we move them to the other board and we have a little party here in church, because what else would we be celebrating other than salvation locally? It's an amazing thing and we're making our witnessing a team game, not an individual pursuit, and I just it's that kind of stuff. We're seeing change around the prayer. We're seeing change around everyone being involved and we are really winter's over here. We're seeing the signs of spring spiritually.

Brian Stiller:

I'm interested in knowing how the Pentecostal emphasis, which has seemed to be such a powerful movement in the UK, how that is changing the landscape of faith and the practice of worship and evangelism.

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, it would depend which part of Pentecostalism we're speaking about, but the fastest growing Pentecostal network in the UK would be the Redeemed Christian Church of God. When they plant a church, they hire a flat in a community and just pray for three months, 24-7, so that the ground is softened for what they're then going to do. Now I don't think that if the Baptist Union were planning a church, I'm not sure that would be the way they did it. So you know, we're seeing different encounters, different experiences. I think what you're also finding in Pentecostalism is an awful lot of younger people are desperate for the spiritual and some of the encounter they'll have in those settings, some of the work of the spirit in those settings, some of the work of the Spirit in those settings, is something they're really drawn to.

Gavin Calver:

I also think that some other parts of the church are not so good at some discipleship stuff that Pentecostals are good at, from giving to praying, to other things. So it's changing stuff for lots of us. But I think we're only at the start of the change. I think we're going to start. We're hearing the sound of rain. There's a lot more to come.

Brian Stiller:

The UK is comprised of four countries. How does the alliance operate, given that you've got Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English expressions of the UK?

Gavin Calver:

For a country that voted to leave the European Union for a moment. We're incredibly good at working across different nations. There's an irony to that. We're quite good at doing four nations in one. So I am the CEO of the UK Evangelical Alliance, but there are national leaders in Scotland, wales, wales and northern ireland. So I was in scotland just last week. I'm there ministering, but the leader in scotland is not me.

Gavin Calver:

I'm the overarching leader, but we have a scottish team leading in scotland, we have a welsh team leading in wales and northern irish team leading in northern ireland, because most of us would agree that indigenous mission remains the most effective way. However, what we do is we are united across those four nations. So we have the same macro plan. We represent in a similar way, and it's interesting in the UK too, because some powers are devolved to those nations and some remain in Westminster in London. So there's a dance then around some of the public policy stuff, because some is done centrally for all four nations, some is devolvedolved, and what we seek to do in this land is just make sure that we understand some of the cultural differences.

Gavin Calver:

So northern ireland's political situation is very different to the rest of the uk. So, as an englishman, when I preach in northern ireland, I don't mention politics. It's best to stay away from that. I don't fully understand it. In a way I could. So you need to know what those triggers are as well. But we have an overarching team, but also within England, because 84% of the population of the UK is in England. However, england's very different, so the danger would be you'd have something really specific for Wales but you'd ignore the fact that Northern England's very different to Southern England. So we did open an office in the north of England near Manchester, so we've got some of our work out of there. So we understand those issues being different and you can, in the UK, be in danger of being London centric. So we've only got the people working in and out of London that need to be in London. We've got offices in each of the other three nations and the north of England.

Brian Stiller:

In working with a variety of groups. It seems to me that you have really majored on collaboration. What is your biblical model of collaboration and how has that been working in the Alliance in the UK?

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, I mean the biblical model for the unity we do comes back to Jesus' prayer in John 17, that we would be one, and out of that it's with legs. It's not just that we would be one, so that's good for us, it's that the world might know. So our whole aim is let's unite for the sake of the lost. It's unity with legs, and I think that really matters to us. It's tangible. John Stott wrote about John 17, that the unity Jesus talks about must be tangible and outward, and those are two things that we are really keen to make sure we're doing.

Gavin Calver:

I think the other thing as well, though, is it's quite interesting the Evangelical Alliance, because we say to people go deep locally, love your place, love your space.

Gavin Calver:

We won't get in your way in your zip code locally, go deep, but be connected nationally. So a lot of what we do also is about the macro, and then we pray for, cheer on and support the church in doing the micro in each community too, so there's a level of trust relationship that makes it possible. One of the beautiful things about this land is it's big enough to be significant, but it's small enough for you to know most of the people you need to know. So if, if something major was happening in a week's time and I had to ring 25 people to get them on a Zoom call or, even better, in a room to deal with something I know who those are, because this nation is still manageable and I think that makes the job easier than I. Don't know how people even begin to start leading something like I do in the US or somewhere else, because the scale is just another. It's just mind blowing.

Brian Stiller:

Given the dynamic change going on within the religious community in the UK, how does the Evangelical Alliance interface with the Roman Catholic, the Church of England and with other religions?

Gavin Calver:

Well, the Church of England, for a start, historically didn't join EA lots but are joining a lot more at the moment. Part of that is because of the lack of clarity within that denomination on some of the issues we talked about earlier. So they're looking to us in a new way. So the Church of England, a lot of the Church of England, would be part of us. But Catholics, greek Orthodox, all kinds of groups of the church would never join as church members of the Evangelical Alliance.

Gavin Calver:

But what I do in my role is I represent evangelicals in spaces with those kind of leaders. So Archbishop Angelos, who runs the Greek Orthodox Church here, cardinal Nichols, who runs the Catholic Church here. I'd often be at breakfast gatherings or political gatherings where it needs to be a wider Christian voice that comes together. So the relationships are there and they're strong. Everyone has each other's phone numbers on their mobile phones, sorry, their cell phones. So the relationships are strong. But we also know what we're doing. So there's a Churches Together group for England, the one for Great Britain. But that Churches Together group can't have a theological position on conversion, for example, because not everyone believes in it, can't have a theological position on marriage. So I quite like the fact that I lead the Evangelical Alliance which, by the way, that term is not redundant here but it does need redeeming a little bit.

Gavin Calver:

But I lead the Evangelical Alliance which has some boundaries to it. But then we engage in wider unity across all formations of the UK with wider parts of the church when that's helpful, needed or beneficial and that can often be in public policy settings.

Brian Stiller:

Yeah, now I want to swing back again to the evolving of the alliance in the UK from its original formation in 1846. Can you take us back to that 1846 moment and give us, in your view, a trace, the history that has led to the ministry that you're leading today? What does that look like to people who have no introduction to evangelicals and don't understand its history or its makeup today?

Gavin Calver:

Yeah, I mean 180 years in 60 seconds we could have a go, but it's way back when in 1846, like we said before, it was not unity at any cost there was a level of justice and a level of gathering together for the sake of the lost. Then, throughout our history we've been involved in basically gospel initiatives and speaking up. The UK Alliance's first thing that had to be dealt with was Darwinism. In terms of publicly, that was talked about at great length and how we navigated that. The UK Alliance spoke up really strongly against Hitler before the war even started as well as during the war. The UK Alliance I found this out recently when research for a book I've just written. The UK Alliance I found this out recently when research for a book I've just written. I didn't know this till about six months ago when Billy Graham came to the UK and did his Haringey events, which may not mean anything on your side of the pond but over here were the big stuff in the UK. Haringey in the 50s was the stuff that everyone tells their testimonies from and transformed the UK in that generation. They weren't going to be able to happen because there was no money and the UK Evangelical Alliance underwrote the whole thing spent every penny of its reserves to make Haringey happen in 1953, took 10 years to recover financially. I'm not sure you'd be allowed to do it now because we're all audited to a different level, but you'd love to think, wouldn't you, that we would take the same risk now for the sake of the gospel. It almost certainly wouldn't be stadium-type events, but the same risk now for the sake of the gospel. That would mean we gave away everything we had in order to reach the lost. That's an amazing part of our history. Then, more recently, the Evangelical Alliance started something called the Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund, which some people might know as Tear Fund, one of the largest relief and development organizations in the world that was born out of the Evangelical Alliance. We also, in more recent years, started an organization called Home for Good, which was about fostering and adoption. So we've been involved throughout our history. We've been involved in those two prongs how do we make Jesus known and how do we speak up on behalf of the church within the corridors of power? So when I then took over leading EA, it was like let's just get back to basics and make sure we do what we do. We are a unity organization, but that unity can only be defined by who's a member. If you're membership based, you can't unite those that aren't your members. So let's put a big focus on membership. We're a unity organization that wants to grow the membership. But then we do two things Gospel we're like a tour guide on the gospel. We had that talking Jesus stuff I talked to you about. We've just done finding Jesus. How are people becoming Christians in the UK so that people understand, how are they becoming Christians? Where are the opportunities and where are the opportunities and where are all the resources for reaching people From within our membership? Here's all the stuff that would really bless you to reach people. But then the voice bit. How do we make sure? In the media and with the government and with local council, we are speaking up and out on the issues that matter to the church here. So actually I think the Evangelical Alliance in the UK is quite simple. Why should every Christian in the uk join it? Who's an evangelical? Well, because if you want to have the voices the church heard, give us your voice so we can take it into the corridors of power and unite yourself with so many others so we can make jesus known. That's why I changed the mission statement of ea used to be better together. What does that mean? Sounds like a political party. It's now together, making jesus known, because that's all we're about. We're not doing it on our own, we're going to do it together. But we want to make Jesus known in the UK.

Brian Stiller:

Secularization has been the byword in many of our countries, especially in North America and through Europe and the UK. In the face of that, just listening to what you're saying, that is not intimidating you at all, is it?

Gavin Calver:

I think if we'd had this interview 18 months ago it might have been slightly different. Not that I would have been intimidated, but intimidated more than now it feels. I don't know if it's the same in your context, brian, but the secular narratives are eating one another for breakfast at the moment. They're just not working. They're incoherent, they don't work together. There was a guy in this country called Richard Dawkins, who I've debated on the radio before, who was like the king of new atheism, and he now describes himself as a cultural Christian. I'm not sure what that means, but that was unthinkable 20 years ago. You've got writers like Tom Holland. You've got Oxbridge professors evangelicals again. You've got more members of the Senate, the Welsh Parliament, who are evangelical than just about any parliament in Europe. You know you've got all kinds of. My friend, justin Briley, has done this in a podcast in a book called the Surprising Rebirth of God. You know the landscape's changed. So the secular narratives aren't working.

Gavin Calver:

The supreme court recently in the uk saying that no, to be a woman means to be a biological woman from birth. Now, that was unthinkable 12 months ago. That the culture is changing. So it's not just spiritually well, no, it's spiritually but sociologically. I think winter's over too and things are. Things are moving on and secularism offers no answers to the questions the pandemic brought up, to the questions that the economic situation brings up, to the questions that what's coming out of North America politically brings up. Secularism has no answers. Our culture feels hopeless Into that. Hope is a name. His name is Jesus. So it felt like secularism was taking over the UK. It feels like the tsunami is being pushed back a bit, but let's not be naive enough to think that it's over. But I do think that the shoots of life are not in the secular stable, they're in the church.

Brian Stiller:

Gavin, your father, Clive, Clive and I our lives parallel for a number of years. When he was heading up Youth for Christ in UK, I was heading up Youth for Christ in Canada. Then, when he was headed up the Alliance, I headed up the Canadian Alliance called the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. And so, in listening to you today, I know the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree and far from the tree, but, as you, with your vision and enthusiasm and commitment, what are you looking to, given this change that you have seen manifest over the last few months? Where's your heart today and what do you see?

Gavin Calver:

unfolding as the Spirit leads over these coming months. I think we need to make the most of the moment we've prayed for that I think we're now living in. We have prayed and prayed and prayed in this land for the ground to be more fertile to the gospel. We've prayed and prayed and prayed for people to be interested again. We've prayed and prayed and prayed for a moment where you wouldn't be hit with hostility when you told your neighbour that you followed Jesus. And I think we're in that moment and my biggest prayer for this year is let's not miss it.

Gavin Calver:

The other thing I think is witnessing is a muscle really, and when I was young I was quite a good footballer, so it was quite easy to have a six pack. Let's say there's no chance now. I'm a middle-aged man. You build muscles when it's easier, easier, and then you hope that they will serve you in the harder days. I think we need to build witnessing muscles right now, because the opportunity to reach out, to share is is really great. So that's my big hope for right now.

Gavin Calver:

I also am very hopeful that the voice of the church will continue to be united but continue to speak up, and the evangelical alliance was really clear on, really clear on LGBTQ issues 10 years ago, no, 15 years ago. Nearly Some parts of the church have only joined the reality of being clear on that in the last couple of years. But I think there's a new sense of orthodoxy without compromise. When I look, I said to my board I would stay for a decade if they let me dream for a decade. So I did a great 10-year plan for EA and it's a great bit of work and I'm quite pleased with it. But it can be summed up in one sentence this is how I see the next decade for the UK church. We need to hold our nerve theologically, without compromise, and go for it wholeheartedly in sharing the gospel, not one without the other. I know great theologians don't know non-Christian. I know people that want to share the gospel but aren't sure what it is.

Brian Stiller:

We need to hold those two things together and we can see something remarkable in our day. Gavin Calvert, thank you so much for joining us on Evangelical 360 today.

Gavin Calver:

Been a real pleasure. God bless you.

Brian Stiller:

Thank you, gavin, for joining us today and for helping us see what's going on below the surface in the UK and its evangelical movements, and thank you for being a part of the podcast. I'd be grateful if you would subscribe and share this episode using hashtag Evangelical360. If you'd like to learn more about today's guest, be sure to check the show notes or description below, and if you haven't already received my free e-book and newsletter, please go to brianstillercom. So thanks again for joining me. Until next time, don't miss the next interview. Be sure to subscribe to Evangelical 360 on YouTube.