Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, equipping the next generation of believers,

pastors, and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel.

On today's episode, you'll hear a breakout session led by Sharon James from TGC's

2004 Women's Conference.

Father God, we worship you, our great creator. We want your name to be hallowed, your kingdom

to come, your will to be done in all of the earth. And we thank you, Lord God, that your eternal plan is to bring blessing to all nations through Christ.

So we pray that you would open our hearts and our minds now as we consider your works and your ways in this world.

And we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, I've been asked to introduce myself.

My name is Sharon James and I've come over to this conference from London, England,

and it's a great delight to be with you all.

I've been asked to speak this afternoon about how Christianity transformed the world.

So I want to begin really with just an introduction about why I'm passionate about this subject.

From a very early age, I knew that God wants to bless all nations.

God kindly, from an early age, gave me a deep awareness of his power and his beauty and his mercy and his love and the glory of the way that he calls people from every nation to glorify him.

I studied history at Cambridge University, went on to teach history in different schools and colleges,

including two very happy years teaching in Malawi in Africa. And I now work for an

organisation called the Christian Institute, which seeks to equip churches in the United Kingdom

and beyond to engage biblically in the public square. You can check out our website if you want

to. It's a very easy one. www.christian.org.

. Pretty easy that.

For nearly 40 years now, my husband and I have had the joy of serving the Lord together,

...