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WELCOME from Editor Dave Littlewood

BRINGING LIGHT TO ‘DARKEST CONGO’ 100-year legacy of an unlikely pair of missionaries

REVIVALS THAT CHANGED BRITAIN Fasten your seat belt, for a whistle-stop tour of the moves of God that have shaped the face of the nation

THE FATHER OF MODERN MISSIONS William Carey boldly went where no one had gone before, but he had to overcome major discouragement

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TIME TRAVEL Astonishing healing testimonies from six decades ago

BIG BIBLE CROSSWORD Test your knowledge

THE BIG PICTURE Billy Sunday preaches to some 6,000 attendees at a revival meeting in Bloomington, Illinois

THE PASTOR FROM THE PRUDENTIAL Of all the pioneers of the early Pentecostal movement, none was more revered by his contemporaries than Frederick Watson from Blackburn

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GOD’S GIFT OF WOMEN We celebrate some of the fiery females who certainly never believed they were part of the weaker sex!

GET YOUR SPIRIT HAPPY IN THE LORD There’s something we must learn to attend to before we can pray, writes George Müller

WEDDING BAND THAT LIVES ON Leading UK evangelist J.John is learning lessons from the life of William & Catherine Booth

ABIDE WITH ME Story behind one of the world’s best-loved hymns

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The weaker sex?

Recently, while preparing a series of Bible studies on the book of Romans, I noticed the number of women Paul mentions in chapter 16. In fact, out of 26 people mentioned in the chapter, no less than ten are women, all of whom were involved in some kind of ministry. And the fact they are listed in Romans 16 means they were not just there to make the tea! For someone who is reputed to have taught the subjugation and silence of women, the Apostle Paul certainly had a great deal of fellow ministers among the so-called ‘weaker sex’.

It is tragic that, over the years, a misinterpretation of Paul’s teaching has kept women out of ministry and has deprived the Church of an abundant resource for the expansion of the kingdom of God. It has always seemed to me a nonsequitur that the Church could send women to the mission field where they would preach and teach and even pioneer churches; but then when those same women came home, they were not allowed to preach as women were supposed to be silent in churches!

The article on women in ministry in this edition of Heroes of the Faith shows the folly of excluding anointed women from ministry. One woman who particularly struck me was Anna Ziese, who lived as one with the Chinese in Taiyuan. When, following the takeover by the Communists in 1948, all other missionaries left, Anna refused to go, ministering in China until her death in 1969. Her final years remain mostly shrouded in silence, since government censorship precluded her from offering details about the work. Still her enduring legacy is revealed in these words written about her by a Chinese believer: “We Chinese will gratefully remember forever those missionaries who left their homelands and came to China to preach the gospel.”

In this edition of Heroes of the Faith we also carry an article on William Carey, the man who described himself as ‘only a plodder’ but who became the father of modern missions. Another remarkable man who acted as a father figure to many young ministers in the early days of the Pentecostal movement in the UK was Fred Watson. A great man of prayer, ‘Daddy’ Watson pioneered a church in Blackburn that grew to over 400 people. Most remarkably, he also had a fulltime job as the ‘Man from the Prudential’.
Thank you for reading this edition of Heroes of the Faith. We pray it may inspire all of us to believe God for another move of the Holy Spirit that is so desperately needed in our secular age. Please continue to pray for those of us who work on the magazine.

David Littlewood, Editor

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