Newfrontiers
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Newfrontiers (Previously New Frontiers International, abbreviated to NFI) 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. It was known during the 90s and early 00s for it's international Stoneleigh Bible Week, in Coventry. The event gathered up to 26,000 delegates from around the world for teaching and celebration, before ending in 2001 with the catchphrase "Let's Go!". The vision was to focus on planting churches and increasing growth of the movement worldwide. Now leaders in Newfrontiers and students and 20s gather annually for Together On A Mission, at The Brighton Centre in July. Regional events titled Together At... are held around the country (i.e. Together At... North) to replace the bible week that existed before. In addition, 12-19s attend Newday for a similar blend of worship, teaching and celebration aimed at youth. This is headed up by Terry's son Joel Virgo.
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, with Terry Virgo starting and overseeing the ministry.
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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 1960s 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 a more thorough restoration of church life to a New Testament pattern was necessary. Although particular attention was given initially to the "Ephesians 4" ministries of apostle, prophet, evangelist and pastor/teacher, in reality a much more all-encompassing understanding of the nature of church life was to emerge.
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 movement). The Downs Bible Week ran for a decade from 1979 and gathered up to 20,000 people at its height. Expositional Bible teaching and lively worship were major features of the event.
Originally operating under the banner of Coastlands, the growing network of churches that related to Terry Virgo and the team he lead formed closer working relationships focused on mission, church planting and church oversight. Newfrontiers was born.
Initially, Newfrontiers consisted of churches primarily in southern England (primarily Sussex, Kent and South London) but from early on the group was involved in working in other nations. Involvements in church care and oversight began in India, Mexico and South Africa. 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 come from around the world to gather for the now familiar mix of Bible teaching and lively worship times. This conference in Brighton runs concurrently with Mobilise for students and Christians in their 20s and attracts, in total, over 4,000 people a year including people from other denominations. The combination of these two events is now called Together On A Mission. Worship albums that have been recorded at the Together 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. In 2007, Stuart Townend decide to retire from worship leading the annual event, with Simon Brading and his band sharing the worship leading with the rest of the line up.
Newfrontiers also runs an annual youth event called Newday. It also runs regional bible weekends called Together At... to allow Newfrontiers churches to get together and celebrate, on a smaller scale than Stoneleigh but with a similar idea.
[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 (see contemporary worship). 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 '4-fold ministries' of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, and 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', and 'evangelists'. Women are also able to preach, as long as it does not undermine the 'husband' in their personal marriage, as the bible speaks of men and women working together in harmony, with separate but sometimes crossover roles. This was highlighted when wife of David Stroud, who oversees the UK stream of Newfrontiers churches, preached at Together At... North in 2006 in the main meeting.
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
Newfrontiers churches have traditionally placed a low emphasis on buildings. In doing so they have moved away from the traditional view of equating the church with the venue. Instead they have emphasised that church is defined by the community of believers that gather together to worship.
Consequently Newfrontiers churches meet in a variety of venues, with the building having less significance than in traditional church denominations. The older Newfrontiers churches were mostly former Baptist congregations and as such retain their original Baptist buildings (e.g. Brickhill Baptist Church and City Hope Church). However, other congregations were formed out of house gatherings or were planted from larger congregations and often did not have an associated 'church building'. Initially office space and meeting places were rented: commonly this included schools (e.g.Christchurch Family Church), Universities (e.g. Hope Church, Manchester) or even multiplex cinemas (e.g. Jubilee Church, London), or theatres (e.g. Christchurch, London).
Some congregations saw benefit of purchasing a venue, often combining a meeting place with office space. The trend in Newfrontiers currently is to buy converted warehouses (including Terry Virgo's home church CCK, Brighton and for example, Bournemouth Family Church, Orwell Church, Ipswichand City Church, Cambridge).
Perhaps the most unusual venues in the UK are an old tram power station that now houses City Church, Newcastle, a former bus garage Aylsham Community Church, Norfolk, an old cinema and bingo hall Winchester Family Church, a former Territorial Army Drill Hall Barnabas Community Church, Shrewsbury, a football ground Grace Church, Nottingham, a national cricket ground Oasis Church, Birmingham and a former synagogue City Church, Sheffield.
As Newfrontiers is continually starting up churches a visit to any one church may find yourself meeting in a rented or purchased building, or in somebody's home, depending on the local needs, size and available finances.
Travelling abroad will find even greater diversity with meeting venues varying from culture to culture. A church plant in the outskirts of Accra, Ghana meets in a mud hut with a straw roof and houses the local primary school midweek.
[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 online at Newfrontiers Resources
