According to a report from Barna Group entitled Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age, 28 per cent of American adults share their faith via social media and almost six in 10 (58 per cent) non-Christians say someone has shared their faith with them through Facebook.

Bryony Taylor, a social media expert and a Church of England priest, told Premier she’s surprised the number isn’t much higher.

“I did a similar study with 300 adults, mainly British people a few years years ago,” she said.

“There was a much a higher percentage of Christians in this country that happily that share their faith using social media. I’m quite intrigued to hear it [the findings of the study], especially given that America is sort of a more Christian country than ours.”

Forty-four per cent of Christian respondents to the survey said technology and digital interactions has changed how they share their faith.

Taylor told Premier she thinks online evanglism can be more effective than face-to-face evangelism. She gave an example of a former colleague asking a faith-related question.

“He sent me a message on Twitter saying ‘Do you have to be baptised to be saved?'” she said.

“There’s no way he would have asked me that question over a cup of coffee at work but he felt able to use social media to ask me that question so I feel it can be more effective because people feel less intimated.”

The report…

The founder of Operation Mobilisation is celebrating him and his wife Drena’s 80^th birthdays this year by going all over the country – from Brighton to Glasgow Central station – sitting in cafes to meet friends he hasn’t seen in ages as well as meet new people.

He started in Paddington in London on Tuesday and spoke to Premier from there at lunch time.

Verwer said: “It’s been fantastic…our director for our whole work in the Middle East, he just showed up because he’s a fellow I hardly ever see!

“My own son popped in to visit me so it’s been a steady stream of people all morning – I am in this new Costa on the second floor at one of my favourite stations…It’s been a great morning, this is the first of twenty stations.”

He explained that the idea of travelling to most of the major cities in the country and spending a whole day there was so he could catch up with old friends and also hear the stories of people he’d never met. 

“Last year we had big celebrations for our (OM’s) 60^th anniversary and often in these celebrations I only got a couple of minutes to speak to people because so many people are there and so I thought instead of one celebration I’m gonna have twenty in a more relaxed atmosphere – have a coffee,

“And it’s proven true because this morning I even had 40 minutes with this couple from the Middle East and then another…

Spokesperson for the Be Here for Me Campaign, Clare Carberry, told Premier’s News Hour: “We are very surprised, very dismayed, it’s an absolutely momentous ruling. This is the first time since the 16^th century, I believe, normal prayer has been made criminal in the UK.”

Ealing Council was the first in the country to create a 100-metre protest-free “buffer zone” outside a Marie Stopes clinic in the west London borough.

Mr Justice Turner decided to allow the ban after a Christian mother challenged it. He said the council was “entitled” to conclude it was a “necessary step in a democratic society”.

Carberry believes the judge’s decision has huge implications for Christianity in the UK.

“A Christian may not pray in that very wide area on that particular road,” she said. “You also may not make any expression of opinions regarding abortion and you may not offer help for women who are in need. For a Christian this is particularly significant because practice is just as important at theory for us.

Ealing Council enforced the buffer zone following what is described as protests that intimidated, distressed and harassed women using the abortion clinic.  

However, Carberry said women were not protesting but rather holding prayer vigils and offering the clinic’s patients information about alternatives to abortion.

“We don’t describe what we’re doing as a…

Giorgi Kakava has been told he will be able to stay in Glasgow with his grandmother Ketino Baikhadze and continue his education until he is nearly 18.

Mrs Baikhadze’s daughter Sopio fled Georgia for Scotland seven years ago and was awaiting the outcome of an appeal for asylum in the UK when she died in February after a long illness.

That left Mrs Baikhadze as the legal guardian of her grandson with the threat of deportation hanging over them but after a community campaign they have been granted leave to remain.

More than 70,000 people signed an online petition calling for the Home Office to allow them to stay in Glasgow and the schoolboy’s case was raised in the House of Commons by local MP Paul Sweeney.

Prime Minister Theresa May promised that Home Secretary Sajid Javid would take a fresh look at it while First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she hoped the Home Office would treat the case with “compassion and common sense”.

Giorgi Kakava (centre), who has been granted leave to remain in the UK, just months after the death of his mother. The 10-year-old will be able to stay in Glasgow with his grandmother Ketino Baikhadze and continue his education until he is nearly 18

Members of Springburn Parish Church were told of the decision on Monday at a service to dedicate a tree and bench to Sopio led by Rev…

The services head Simon Stevens has promised NHS England will work on improving cancer care and mental health provision.

Steve Fouch from the Christian Medical Fellowship told Premier why the government’s recent announcement of an extra £20bn a year isn’t enough to save the NHS.

“The money that’s being offered ifs going to help maintain current services – there’s enough to do that.

“But we know that the NHS is seriously overstretched in many areas and if you’re trying to access child and adolescent mental health services at the moment it’s extremely sparsely resourced.”

Stevens has set out what he thinks will need to be the service’s priorities – following new funding commitments from the government.

He said despite plans for some unnecessary procedures to be cut – he expects the total number of treatments to increase.

Fouch told Premier that it’s important to remember NHS staff in our prayers.

Speaking during Premier’s News Hour, he explained: The good thing to pray for those people is that they do not lose heart and remain committed to their values and those ideals because that is what makes the NHS work – it is the people with that heart and that vision.

“And I think that it’s very close to the heart and the vision of the Church of reaching out in kindness and compassion and love. “

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