wordandspirit

I managed to get down as a day visitor to Brighton for the final newfrontiers Together on a Mission conference on Wednesday. Though I never get to go for the whole week, attending the conference is always one of the highlights of the year for me. I have to commend newfrontiers for making the talks available for free allowing everyone to benefit from the teaching.

Session 1 – Matt Hatch – A Culture of Discipleship in the Local Church

I have always found Matt Hatch very helpful and provocative on the subject of accountability and developing a culture of discipleship within the church since I first heard him at TOAM a few years ago. This time he took us through John 4, highlighting the importance of communicating the acceptance of Jesus and moving people to a place of delighting in Jesus. Some of his church resources on accountability are available here, and his seminar certainly provoked some thought about being more proactive in seeking to disciple the men in my cell group.

Session 2 – Dave Stroud

Then came Dave Stroud with a main session in which he outlined some of the future plans for newfrontiers in the UK, which it seems will consist of several distinct “apostolic spheres” working together under his guidance. He picked out five challenges for courageous leadership. First was, everything leadership, which essentially is a call for the church to broaden her horizons and have a more holistic vision of the mission of God. Second, missional leadership, by which he means churches that are deliberately engaged with the communities they are located in. Third, affirming leadership, in which he reminded us that, though newfrontiers remains theologically complementarian, there needs to be a firm commitment to creating environments that are equally liberating for both women and men. Fourth, embracing leadership, in which he expressed the desire for newfrontiers to take up a more central role within evangelicalism, rather than watching from the sidelines. I found this very interesting, and perhaps more controversial than his third point in some ways. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Finally, he called for naturally supernatural leadership, which seemed to be a gentle rebuke aimed in the direction of those who seem to assume that the mark of spirituality is strange behaviour.

Session 3 – Terry Virgo

In the afternoon, Terry Virgo spoke on Heb 12. As always, his amazing gift for teaching was a joy to receive. He spoke on the Lord’s discipline, and particularly applied his message to people struggling with bitterness. Adrian Warnock notes are here.

Worship

Worship was led by Kate Simmonds and Simon Brading. There was the usual mix of new songs along with well-loved classics. I love the atmosphere at TOAM – thousands of people, passionate about God and hungry to meet with him. It draws you in, even if you are feeling tired (which I was).

Session 4 – PJ Smyth on Sickness, Suffering and Healing

Finally, in the evening it was PJ Smyth. I must confess I wasn’t impressed at all with PJ Smyth when I first heard him at TOAM 2006, which with hindsight I realise was more a reflection of my own arrogance than any faults with PJ. In any case I have warmed to him over the years, and the message he brought was one of the most outstanding I have heard on the the subject of suffering, bringing a faith-filled, thoroughly biblical perspective to bear on the trial he has gone through in the last year as he has battled cancer.

I won’t attempt to outline his talk, because Adrian Warnock has already blogged a detailed outline, and you can download notes and listen to it online. But suffice to say, this is one well worth your time. It is the best treatment of the subject I have come across since I read Mark Stibbe’s Fire and Blood.

Another very powerful moment that evening was when John Groves got up to lead us in a kind of corporate promise-making ceremony (the day after I blogged about how little we emphasise promises in our movement). We rededicated ourselves as a movement to fulfilling the key prophetic exhortations that have shaped newfrontiers over the years. It was a holy moment as we answered “we will” to the various charges to remember. I would love to hear that cry of “we will” resound throughout all the individual churches too – it is not just the leaders, but every member who must play a part in seeing these promises come to fulfilment.

After sadly missing out last year, I was able to make it for a day visit to the newfrontiers “Together on a Mission” conference this year. As always, Adrian Warnock is doing a sterling job of live-blogging the conference. You can also get real-time updates by following the #TOAM hashtag on twitter.

I always find a visit to TOAM to be a spiritually refreshing and energising experience and this year was no different. I’ll just give a brief report on the sessions I went to.

Session 1 – Matt Hosier – Faithful & Fruitful – The “Lion”

My first session of the day was a seminar by Matt Hosier. His was the first in a series entitled “The Lion, the Bear & the Bulldog”, which was about how we can remain faithful and fruitful at different life stages. I just about still fall into the “Lion” category (up to 35). He worked his way through 10 things you should do before you are 40, based on a list from John Maxwell.

Rather than being a biblical exposition, it was more a collection of proverbial wisdom: “become reconciled to your averageness”, “don’t be dictated to by the tyranny of the urgent”, “things that are worth achieving take time”, “develop the skill of friend making”. A nice touch was that a representative of each of the three age-groups was given a brief chance to give their perspective on the needs of those in the “lions” age range. We were reminded of the importance of simply being willing to serve, and the need to actively seek input from older generations. It was great to be prayed for by a really nice bloke from Brighton at the end.

Session 2

Sadly my visit was on a day when Dr Goodwill Shana was due to speak, and he was unable to attend due to visa problems. Still the extra time meant the day wasn’t quite so rushed as usual. It was great to meet some fellow newfrontiers bloggers, including Dave Matthias, Dave Bish, Steve Froud, and Steve Dunn.

Session Three – Terry Virgo – The Armour of God

The afternoon session started with worship led by Evan Rogers in his usual exhuberant style. Then it was Terry Virgo, preaching on “the need for defence”, working through the armour of God from Eph 6:10-17. It is testimony to his gift for Bible teaching, that a passage that most of us have heard preached on dozens of times was brought to life yet again, in a challenging & insightful way. I won’t summarise his points since Adrian Warnock has already done so here. He was particularly good on the breastplate of righteousness, and on the helmet of salvation, where he emphasised our future hope – the “not yet” part of our salvation.

Session Four – Dave Devenish – God’s Purposes Fulfilled Through Scattering

The evening session’s worship was led by Kate Simmonds, and we learned an excellent new song about the grace of God. Dave Devenish had the unenviable task of preparing a message for a major conference at very short notice. After a slightly rambling introduction he got right into his stride, speaking on the way that God fulfils his missional purposes through scattering. He showed that this was not merely apostles going to new places, but hundreds of ordinary people taking initiative at a grassroots level. I think this is a principle we really need to take hold of if we are to see significant gospel advance in our nation. Again Adrian Warnock has provided detailed sermon notes.

MP3 downloads

I obsessively listen to almost every TOAM message each year so am eagerly awaiting the downloads to appear on the newfrontiers website. Sadly they haven’t appeared online yet, but look out for them here over the next few weeks.

I had the privilege of attending the New Frontiers Brighton leadership conference for the day on Wednesday. I arrived just in time to sneak into Ian Stackhouse’s seminar on preaching. I chose the seminar because I had never heard him before and I was hoping that he might discuss some of the issues in his new book (that I haven’t read) – the Gospel Driven Church. However, the main point of the seminar was that preaching is still relevant and that we should stick to the Biblical text and let it speak. He seemed to disapprove of using lots of illustrations or preaching on topics and current events without explicitly saying that you shouldn’t. I was annoyed I hadn’t chosen Philip Greenslade’s seminar instead.

Anyway, things greatly improved for me when I got to the bookshop. I noticed a man buying 10 volumes of the Word Biblical Commentary series. I knew immediately that this meant it was on special offer and so I ran to make sure I grabbed the 2 volume Hebrews commentary by William Lane. This means I now own my first choice commentary on each book in the New Testament.

The first main session of the day was a sermon by Dave Holden, and as usual he was outstanding. His main point was encouraging those who build churches to build them well. I had lunch with a doctor and two pastors, who discussed how to help people with terminal illnesses (the balance between praying for healing and preparing people for death). It was a subject that I felt way out of my depth on, but for these guys, its part of their job.

The afternoon was a seminar by PJ Smyth, one of New Frontiers up and coming new leaders. His style is very dynamic, and he likes his audience to participate with various noises and actions. My preference is for preachers to be a bit more boring and academic, but I guess I’m in the minority there as lots of people really appreciated his style. His sermon also brought up the interesting issue of how we treat contemporary prophecy as compared to the Bible. Much of the sermon was based around significant prophectic words spoken about New Frontiers. His main point was that New Frontiers needs to be getting into the major world cities and building big (‘juggernaut’) churches from which to plant smaller (‘fiat uno’) churches.

I had dinner with a bunch of Ukranians who didn’t speak any English, but I did also get to speak to someone who has just got back from an extended visit to Zimbabwe. Sounds like things are really bad there – she told us about beheadings of people who voted the wrong way in the recent elections.

The evening was CJ Mahaney. I explained to someone beforehand that CJ was a very dynamic and amusing speaker, and most likely to speak on subjects such as humility, suffering or the cross. I got it exactly right. He did one of his typical extended introductions where he waxes lyrical about his gratefulness, love and admiration for New Frontiers. Finally, he preached a very solemn and passionate sermon on Christ’s gethsemane experience – where he looked into the cup. It was an unashamed advocation of the penal substitution theory of the atonement, which it looks like New Frontiers are underlining their commitment to in light of Steve Chalke’s book, which Dave Holden had subtly alluded to in his talk.

Another great blessing of the conference was that it gave me an opportunity to finally meet Andrew Fountain, who I have been in email contact with for some time now. (In fact we met up just before the conference as well). I’m hoping to get him round to my house to tell me all about New Covenant Theology before he heads back off to Canada.