17 January 2013 Watford, United Kingdom [Kirsten Øster-Lundqvist, BUC] “We need to mingle with people who don’t look like us”, challenged Pastor Ian Sweeney, British Union Conference President. His straight talking message reached the 800 people who had found their way to the South England Conference (SEC) Evangelism Expo at Newbold College on Sunday, 13 January 2013.
The focus of the day, and what drew leaders from the Trans-European Division (TED) office, was the launch of ‘Mission to the Cities’, an initiative originating from the General Conference. London has been chosen to be the TED city of focus for mission in October 2013.
This evangelistic programme is a combined effort of the Division, Union, and the Conference, but rooted in the local community. With plans being made for a variety of evangelism initiatives across London, Pastor 
Janos Kovacs-Biro, TED Evangelism director, presented the initiative and was thrilled to see members getting excited and their willingness to participate in Mission to the Cities. Recognising this was a launch of the initiative, and for many the first they had heard about it, Pastor Janos expressed that members would need more training. It is expected that local churches will crystallize the programme and make it practical for the local communities.
The day was packed with an impressive diversity of workshops and presentations aiming to motivate church members to become involved in evangelism and sharing God. Pastoral intern, Anthony Fuller, found it refreshing to see and learn from ministries such as the Watering Hole in the Southampton area.
Pastor Sam Ouadjo had arranged coach transportation for his churches as he recognised the importance of his members, and especially newly elected leaders in the churches, to catch the vision of taking the gospel to London.
Pastor Maureen Rock was thrilled to see her members catching the vision for Mission to the Cities. Mani Cudjoe from Reading found the expo had been an eye-opening experience; both in how passionate people were about evangelism and also about the opportunities available to share the Gospel.
Pastor Simon Martin set the bar high with his morning sermon, recognising that “God may be missing in our culture today, but we are to make Him known.” He emphasised, “We make God known when we move out of our comfort zones.” Pastor Martin really challenged the congregation with his sermon and throughout the day you could hear the challenge become a consistently repeated catchphrase, “We need to make God known.”
See video recordings of the main presentations by visiting the Mission to the Cities Vimeo page. [tedNEWS]
tedNEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
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