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Founded | 1989[ citation needed ] |
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Founder | Max Sinclair |
Type | Evangelical Christian Movement |
Focus | Evangelical Christianity |
Location |
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Origins | London |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Members | 2000+ churches |
Key people | Rev Carl Beech, Nathan Blackaby |
Employees | 8 |
Volunteers | 100s |
Website | https://www.cvm.org.uk/ |
Registered Charity number: 1071663 |
Christian Vision for Men (CVM) is a registered charity [1] operating throughout the United Kingdom and based in Chesterfield. Its mission statement is to "connect men to Jesus and the church to men". It works with over 2,000 churches, mainly by having its materials used by the churches men's groups to achieve its aims.
CVM was founded in 1989 by Max Sinclair. Until August 2006 it was known as Christian Viewpoint for Men, [2] working alongside Christian Viewpoint for Women which is now known as Activate Your Life. [3]
In 2006, Carl Beech became CEO, taking over from Richard Meryon [4] who went to work at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. Beech moved to the newly created role of president In January 2015, being succeeded as CEO by Nathan Blackaby.
In 2009, CVM launched talkinghead, [5] a website to capture video testimonies. In 2010 it started codelife, [6] a simple list of twelve guidelines to help men live by Christian teachings.
CVM gained mainstream press coverage in 2010 when it recommended churches to invite men to showings of World Cup football matches. [7] [8]
Throughout the 21st century, CVM has held annual weekend conferences, initially at conference venues such as the Royal Court Hotel in Coventry (until 2007). An experiment in 2008 saw two smaller conferences run, at Cefn Lea Christian Conference Centre, Newtown, Wales, from 11–13 July, and aboard the vessel, 'Black Prince', sailing Liverpool – Dublin – Liverpool over the weekend 10–12 October.
The 2009 and 2010 conferences were held at Warwick Conference Centre.
In an effort to make the conferences accessible to the maximum number of men, whatever their status and particularly their income, the format was changed in 2011 to "The Gathering", a weekend camp near Highworth, Wiltshire. The event has grown year on year. In 2016 The Gathering was attended by 2,300 men.
One of CVM's regional events was reported in the press in 2011: "Kingdom Warriors", [9] a conference at Southport.
Under Carl Beech's leadership, CVM aimed to be more inclusive of a lower middle and working class constituency. Unlike many Christian events in the UK, there is a beer tent at The Gathering. The Codelife system is also aimed at giving a simpler message than the intellectual sermons of most evangelical churches.
CVM is a member of the UK Evangelical Alliance. [10]
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches, serving more than 600 million evangelicals, founded in 1846 in London, England, United Kingdom to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest international organization of evangelical churches. The headquarters are in Deerfield, Illinois, with UN offices in New York City, Geneva, and Bonn. It brings together 9 regional and 143 national evangelical alliances of churches, and over one hundred member organizations. Moreover, the WEA includes a certain percentage of individual evangelical Christian churches. As of March 2021, the Secretary General of the WEA is German theologian Thomas Schirrmacher.
Promise Keepers is an Evangelical Christian parachurch organization for men. It originated in the United States, but independent branches have also been established in Canada and New Zealand.
Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. At the 2021 census, it had a population of 94,421, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England.
Friends United Meeting (FUM) is an association of twenty-six yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Its home pages states that it is "a collection of Christ-centered Quakers, embracing 34 yearly meetings and associations, thousands of local gatherings and hundreds of thousands of individuals". In addition there are several individual monthly meetings and organizations that are members of FUM; FUM's headquarters is in Richmond, Indiana, with offices in Kisumu, Kenya. Friends United Meeting is a member of the National Council of Churches in the United States of America.
Soul Survivor is a global Christian movement, based in Watford, Hertfordshire, part of the charismatic evangelical tradition. From 1993 until 2019, it ran Christian summer festivals aimed at young people, as well as other events throughout the year. It is also the name of a church, centred around weekly worship services at its warehouses in Watford.
Christianity Today is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. The Washington Post calls Christianity Today "evangelicalism's flagship magazine". The New York Times describes it as a "mainstream evangelical magazine". On August 4, 2022, Russell D. Moore—notable for denouncing and leaving the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention—was named the incoming Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief.
The Evangelical Alliance (EA) is a national evangelical alliance, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. Founded in 1846, the activities of the Evangelical Alliance aim to promote evangelical Christian beliefs in government, media and society. The Evangelical Alliance is based in London, with offices in Cardiff, Glasgow and Belfast.
Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship is a UK-based charity that was founded in 1928 as the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions. UCCF's dual aims are:
Hillsong Church UK is a charismatic Christian Non-denominational megachurch in the United Kingdom which is a part of Hillsong Church global. Hillsong London, founded as London Christian Life Centre, was the first church planted in the UK by the Sydney-based church, in 1992.
The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is an organization of Christian individuals that believes evangelicals have largely forgotten the foundations of the Christian Gospel and is dedicated to calling on the Protestant churches, especially those that call themselves Reformed, to return to the principles of the Protestant Reformation. To that end, they produce print and internet resources, broadcast radio programs and organize conferences aimed at teaching the Reformed version of the Christian message.
The Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada (EMCC) is a Canadian Christian denomination with historical roots from plants in the pioneer settlement of Ontario and the Canadian West, earlier European migration to the eastern seaboard of the US, and the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Its present identity comes through the 1993 merger of the Evangelical Church in Canada (formerly a conference of the Evangelical Church in North America) and the Missionary Church of Canada, which, before 1987, were two districts of The Missionary Church Christian denomination.
GOD TV is a word of faith Christian media network that started in the United Kingdom. The network's main offices are located in Plymouth, England, UK, and Orlando, Florida, US. Regional offices are situated in India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Australia.
Mark E. Dever is a theologian and the senior pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and the president of 9Marks, a Christian ministry he co-founded "in an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America. Dever also taught for the faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge and also served for two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge."
Spring Harvest is an inter-denominational evangelical conference and gathering in the United Kingdom that started in 1979.
The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, more commonly known as the Lausanne Movement, is a global movement that mobilizes Christian leaders to collaborate for world evangelization. The movement's fourfold vision is to see 'the gospel for every person, disciple-making churches for every people and place, Christ-like leaders for every church and sector, and kingdom impact in every sphere of society'.
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization focused on the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing philanthropic funders.
Carl Beech is President of Christian Vision for Men, having formerly been General Director, an evangelical movement focused on evangelism to men. In 2014, he founded The Gathering for Men, an annual Christian men's weekend festival. Beech is also the founder of the Codelife movement, which aims to encourage men to spend more time reading the Bible.
Tony Anthony is a British Christian evangelist. He became prominent following the 2004 publication of his autobiography, Taming The Tiger, in which he claimed to have been a violent criminal before converting to Christianity. The book was well received by the Christian community, and Anthony began an international ministry as an evangelist. However, an independent investigation in 2013 concluded that large sections of the book are false.
The Evangelical Methodist Church of America Christian denomination based in the United States. Ardently Fundamental, the denomination has its roots in a movement of churches that broke away from Mainline Methodism in the 1940s and 50s.
Mark Kenneth Russell is a charity executive. Since 2019, he has served as the Chief Executive of The Children's Society. He has additionally served as a lay member of the General Synod of the Church of England and of the Archbishops' Council, both from 2005 to 2011 and from 2015 to 2019. He was previously a local preacher in the Methodist Church in Ireland, and was a reader in the Church of England.