Newfrontiers International Forum and the future

Tomorrow I fly to Holland where we will gather our Newfrontiers International Forum. This important get-together will be our first since July’s Together on a Mission in Brighton and we will be continuing to consider the transitioning of Newfrontiers into the next generation.

Men carrying significant responsibility within Newfrontiers will come from Mexico, USA, Russia, the Ukraine, Armenia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan, Australia and Western Europe. Between us we represent involvement with Newfrontiers churches from over 60 nations.

As I spelt out at TOAM in Brighton (see my blog published on 30 July http://www.janga.biz/terryvirgoblog/?p=888), I am not looking for a successor but multiplied sons to carry on the mission growing across the nations.

We prize our corporate life within what we call Newfrontiers but more important is the raising up of gifted sons who develop their own apostolic spheres and multiply the mission.

We anticipate this particular transition will take place over the next few years, but I was so pleased last weekend to speak at the East of England Together where one could see in embryo what needs to be developed in many places.

Together at East of England
About 1,200 people from about 21 churches in the East of England gathered at Pontins in Lowestoft, under the leadership of Mike Betts and a team of guys, for a great weekend. I counted it a privilege to be there.

It reminded me of our earliest Downs Bible Weeks in the early 1980s where about 2,500 gathered in Sussex at Plumpton Racecourse. In those days we represented a similar number in churches from Sussex, Surrey, Kent and South London.

We had yet to call ourselves Newfrontiers and hardly considered ourselves to be an ‘apostolic sphere’. Everything was embryonic and there was no expectation that as a family we would ultimately be represented in every continent of the world.

One notable difference last weekend was that we not only represented churches from the East of England but also from Scandinavia, Latvia, Poland, Finland and Turkey. Pioneering couples were expertly interviewed by Maurice Nightingale who demonstrated great Michael Parkinson skills, and an offering of over £50,000 was raised which expressed serious commitment on the part of those who gathered.

I realise that Together weekends are not the only way to express our unity of purpose (after all we stopped Stoneleigh) but it was great to be part of the occasion and observe the positive developments. I also heard very enthusiastic responses to the similar Together weekend in the New Forest, led by Guy Miller and his team, where India and Portugal were also represented. Since then, Guy and his team have also led the Indian Together on a Mission where 400 leaders from right across India gathered. I have not personally been to India for three years now. Other apostolic spheres are clearly emerging.

We will work hard at the Forum discussing, praying, prophesying and aiming to obey the Holy Spirit as we move forward together.

In the coming weeks I’ll continue to comment on this development. We really do feel that God is giving us help and direction, and we continue to look to Him for specific details that must emerge in the progress of change that will be required.