Heather Bellamy spoke with Deo Gloria Trust about their anniversary and a £250,000 prize fund.

Eric: The Deo Gloria Book Award was done quite a few years ago now and it was aimed at trying to launch new books and new authors and to promote them and facilitate them getting out in the market. It is quite difficult, as you probably realise, that you write a book and then you go through various processes trying to get it published and trying to get it out there. So one of the things the Trust thought was let's get some new writers in and get them involved. Unfortunately it didn't quite achieve what we thought it would and one of the winners was PD James who was already well known. It was much harder to get people to write than we had first thought, but it was a good initiative - to try to do various different things. That's one of the things the Trust has always tried to do, is take on new initiatives. We try them out and if they don't work, well they don't work. If they do, fantastic, and we'd like to see them go forward.

Heather: Fifty years is a long time. The Church in the UK and our nation itself has seen tremendous change culturally, spiritually and socially, so has the vision or focus or what you've funded changed over that time?

Eric: Yes it has to a degree, but Deo Gloria Trust means "To God be the Glory" and that's one of the founding things that we as trustees abide by; that in all that we do we want to give God the glory. That is the principle of everything we look at and everything we do and that hasn't changed. The world has changed and things have changed though; what worked in the sixties and the seventies obviously isn't applicable today. So perhaps the car stickers that were put on - perhaps "Jesus Lives" or "One way to follow Jesus" that people had in the sixties and seventies are not as appropriate today and we have to find different ways of reaching society to reach people where they're at. I think it is also very important that we don't expect people to come to us, we expect to meet people where they are and then talk to them about Christianity from there.

Heather: Can you tell us some of the key people who've been involved with Deo Gloria over the years? I presume it has widened out from just that original founder.

Eric: It has widened out from just the founder. There is a Board of Trustees and some of those are still members of the family; for instance, we have a couple of sons of Kenneth Frampton there still and also friends and people who have been in Birmingham Bible College for instance and various other places like Interserve and other organisations that are well known to us.

Heather: You have a prize fund to celebrate the anniversary. Is there anything else you're doing to celebrate this milestone of 50 years?

Eric: The Trustees thought long and hard about what to do for a fiftieth anniversary and rather than get together and just pat ourselves on the back for saying we've done this over 50 years, we thought it would be much more useful to actually spend some time culturing and nurturing some other things that are happening. So we've got four different groups; prayer is one of the groups that we are looking at and we are seeing how that can focus and coordinate into new developing roles; evangelism in general, developing new support for evangelists, not for individuals, but for production of new resources and literature and media and also through the use of the internet. We are also looking at children and youth, up to 25 year-old. We want to make sure that there are some new initiatives that take place, as there are many opportunities, but there isn't enough money to make it happen. So many people want help with those things, but in actual fact there isn't the money to be able to do it and if you want to take some children out on a trip for the day, many deprived areas can't afford that; they can't afford the bus fares, so we want to be able to facilitate that sort of thing to happen as well. Then finally we want to talk to people in other religions, in Islam and other religions and tell them about Christianity and share the love that there is in Christianity for all of them.

Heather: Can anybody that's a charity in the UK apply and how can they apply?

Eric: Anybody who is a registered charity in the UK and Wales can apply to us. We have a website, www.deo-gloria.co.uk and you'll see all about the Jubilee Competition there, or look under Grants and you can see more about us there as well.

Heather: And finally, what do you hope to see happen in the next 50 years?

Eric: Fifty years is an awfully long time. I think what I would like to see and what can actually happen are possibly two different things. The vision would be lovely, that we would see many more people come to Christ and know him for themselves. We'd like to see freedom of speech in this country, that people can stand up and say all about Christianity that they want to and we want to see God's love pervade through the Church of today, through to the society that we have and be all encompassing.