Newfrontiers
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Newfrontiers describes itself as an international family of churches together on a mission to establish the Kingdom of God by restoring the church, making disciples, training leaders and planting churches.
Newfrontiers is rapidly growing and in September 2005 was approaching 500 churches worldwide.
Newfrontiers has its roots in the Charismatic movement and was one of several groups that were influenced by a group of men gathered by Arthur Wallis.
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[edit] History
Newfrontiers itself began out of the ministry of leader Terry Virgo who grew up in Brighton, England. Terry had been somewhat disillusioned as a young Christian by his experience of the traditional UK churches. Having experienced the Charismatic movement in the 1960's he longed for a return of Christianity to its New Testament 'charismatic roots' and, as a pastor of a church on an estate in Seaford in the UK, he formulated the desire of building a church that was biblical both in its doctrine and in its experience. In this formulation he was influenced by the teaching of the British 'Restorationist' Arthur Wallis. Wallis' understanding was that a return of the 'charismatic gifts' (such as prophecy and speaking in tongues) to the traditional denominations was not sufficient. Instead what was required was the restoration of the New Testament forms of church government as described in St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist and Pastor/Teacher Eph 4:11). Wallis and Virgo (along with others) saw this as essential to the reviving of the world wide Christian Church.
During its beginnings the movement was strongly shaped through 'bible weeks'. These were conferences - usually a week long - which gathered those from amongst the early UK charismatic/restorationist movement to hear preaching from the 'apostolic team' (essentially the main leaders of the denomination). The Downs bible week ran for a decade from 1979 and gathered more and more people and churches who wanted to hear the Bible teaching and experience the lively worship. As the years passed by, the churches relating to Terry Virgo forged an alliance to work together to start new churches and carry out missionary work and Newfrontiers (then known as 'Coastlands') was born.
In those early years Newfrontiers was basically a small group of churches in southern England (most notably Bedfordshire and Sussex), but from very early on the group began to be involved in working in other nations. Newfrontiers now has churches across the British Isles and in every continent of the world.
After a break from the Downs Bible weeks of a few years, Newfrontiers started the Stoneleigh Bible week in 1991. This conference also focussed on Bible teaching and worship albums were released. Musicians such as Paul Oakley, Stuart Townend, Kate Simmonds and the group Phatfish were all featured on these albums. The conference became a major annual Christian event and attracted a large number from beyond Newfrontiers and British Restorationism.
Stoneleigh was stopped in its tenth year after the leadership believed God to be leading them to concentrate more on planting and growing churches. Since then the major focus of the movement has been to further develop mission from within their churches and to aim to grow to be a thousand churches in the UK and to have individual churches with more than a thousand members.
Newfrontiers runs an annual international leaders conference where thousands of church leaders and Christians in their 20s come from around the world to gather for the now familiar mix of Bible teaching and lively worship times. This conference in Brighton attracts in excess of 4,000 people a year including people from other denominations. Worship albums that have been recorded at the leadership event have been produced since 2004, featuring the "original" Stoneleigh band line up, with Stuart Townend, Kate Simmonds, Lou Fellingham (Phatfish), and the South African worship leader Evan Rogers.
Due to its focus on both church planting and church growth strategies, Newfrontiers is amongst those churches in the West experiencing expansion against a backdrop of decline in traditional church attendance overall.
[edit] Beliefs and distinctives
Newfrontiers has evolved somewhat from its early days, but today remains an evangelical and charismatic group which has largely blended its restorationist ideals with traditional reformed theology. In doing so they aim to combine traditional Reformation ideas whilst maintaining a modern and informal style of worship. This fusion of influences helps explain the various distinctives within the movement.
'Style' of Worship service
Following modern evangelicalism, worship often takes the form of soft rock, utilising drums, keyboards and electric guitars. As with many Charismatic churches, worship times are free flowing and church members are encouraged to participate by praying, reading passages of Scripture, or by using spiritual gifts such as prophecy, speaking in tongues or interpreting tongues.
During a 'typical service' time is often equally divided between 'worship' and 'preaching' and the latter, following their Reformed Evangelical commitments, is often very bible focused but with an attempt towards highlighting the relevance of Christianity within the contemporary world. Spiritual analogies from popular films and books are often used.
Church Leadership
Following their Restorationist origins, Newfrontiers is committed to building churches according to what they see as New Testament principles as a means of reviving world Christianity. Because of this one of the slogans of the movement has been "Changing the expression of Christianity around the world".
Within this self-understanding is the importance of restoring the '5-fold ministries' of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor & Teacher within the church (see history above). This means that one of the key movement distinctives is that of raising, training and 'releasing' leaders to lead local churches. This is why the annual 'leaders conference' is such a focal point of the movement's activities.
At the level of each local church, this leadership is expressed in terms of a plurality of local elders, and the raising and training of local leaders to lead house/cell groups, worship teams and other particular ministries (such as outreach to children or the poor etc).
Following many Reformed and Evangelical churches, many Newfrontiers churches hold to a complementarian position on gender similar to that promoted by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. This means that women are not able to occupy positions of governmental leadership within the local (or wider network of) churches, such as eldership or apostolic ministries; however there is no prohibition of women leading in any other capacity, and many women operate as worship/cell leaders and/or 'prophets', 'evangelists' and 'teachers'.
Evangelism
Newfrontiers believes that the most effective form of evangelism is worked out from strong local churches: churches where each member participates, the gifts of the Spirit are outworked, where there is joy in caring one for the other, where there is a desire to make a difference in society and to reach those in need. Because of this strong emphasis on 'church led' evangelism the movement differentiates itself from other agencies focusing on evangelism outside of a recognisable, locally led and organised church (so called 'parachurch' bodies).
They are also strong proponents of the Alpha course.
[edit] Buildings and meeting venues
Churches in Newfrontiers meet in a variety of different locations. Some, such as for example Brickhill Baptist Church retain their Baptist roots and meet in a traditional church building. Many others meet in schools and other non-religious venues - one newfrontiers church in Londonmeets in a multiplex cinema, another in a large central London theatre. A number of churches, including Terry Virgo's home church in Brightonhave bought old warehouses and converted them into large places of worship. Perhaps the most unusual venues are an old Tram power station that now houses a church in Newcastle, a former bus garage that has been converted into a church in Norfolk and a former synagogue that houses a church in Sheffield. Some newfrontiers churches that are starting from scratch (church plants), meet in homes until they launch publicly. One example of this kind of church currently meets in North Central London.
[edit] Further reading
- No Well Worn Paths by Terry Virgo
- For academic and historical study of the British house church movement related to Arthur Wallis with a large section on Newfrontiers see Restoring the Kingdom by Andrew Walker
- More Newfrontiers resources can be found on line at Newfrontiers Resources
