TOAM Session 6 – What Is Newfrontiers Doing In The Present? -By Terry Virgo

He also recommended Finally Alive by John Piper as well as This Momentary Marriage.

Terry began by saying he would be looking at where Newfrontiers is today. We are seeing God’s mercy and are going to the nations to plant churches. That is what we are about.

Restoring the life of local churches is a huge value for us. Jesus sent his disciples to go and make disciples. What they instinctively did was plant churches. People who embrace God’s government gather in churches. You can only come to true maturity and God-likeness in community. God is a divine community. He is a society. Three-in-one. Its impossible to become like him alone. It is impossible to grow to become a mature Christian alone. We speak about 1 to 1 discipling. Jesus preferred 1 to 12 discipling! There is a fellowship that blows your mind away. A unity and harmony that is staggering and amazing. Jesus loves the church. Its his bride, his delight. We must treasure the church.

Paul was confronted by the risen one who said “I am Jesus who you are persecuting”. He could have answered but I am persecuting Christians! But Christ and the church are one, united, we are the body. Jesus even ensures that Paul has to receive the next step from one of Jesus’ members. Paul learns what it is to be integrated. Cornelius gets an angellic visitation, but the angel says “send for a man”, Pauld describes the churches as his beloved, his joy, his crown. Thats how God sees us. We must love the Church. We must know the wonder of the church. There is a passion and a delight for the Church in the heart of God. We must really love the Church and see it from God’s perspective and genuinely believe for a glorious church.

Churches are to be founded on and flooded by God’s grace.
We are aiming to build churches that are full of people who are free in the grace of God and basking in God’s acceptance of us. We are free from law, religiousness, rules and regulations. Its not a case of us having to work harder. We must live grace. Get it into every pore of your life. Enjoy it, drink it in. Many churches are heavy, heart-aching, working at it, slaving away. We want a whole church that is full of complete freedom. This was perhaps Paul’s greatest battle. We must bannish legalism. We need to build grace-filled communities.

The church is where we loose our individualism and selfish ambition.
We don’t have a private agenda. We get free from all that in community. Many of the commands of the New Testament can only be obeyed in the context of the local church. We have to loose our life. But we do that in the stuff of fellowshiping with the people you don’t initially like. Its not just a noble thought when your hands are raised and you worship. No, its when someone says “No, you are not on that list” or “No you can’t lead worship next week”

Don’t be a church hopper who never puts down their roots. The group is not about having my needs met, its about laying down my life and my preferences. We are told to be kind to one another. Not think abstract “kind” thoughts! We forgive one another when people hurt us. The fruits of the Spirit work in church not in space.

There are two warring women in Philippians. There seem to have been two reasons for writing – tell those women to stop rowing and thanks for the money! Then there is a breathtaking theological statement of the majesty of Christ who took on human form and went down to the cross. But all that was written in response to two women arguing to persuade them to stop! Its the gospel that changes us as a community. God is at work among you, there are communities of love, gentleness, and kindness.

The world is so bitter, harsh and cruel. So to come into a community of love, not grumbling and complaining we will shine like lights. People can be full of themselves, even in Christian circles. We build our sanctification, our Christlikeness in church and we can serve. People need to be close enough to tread on our feet. We must build lives together. We must relate together. Its a wonderful creation, breathtakingly different.

Through Love Serve One Another
Become one anothers slave. In the fellowship of the saints we lay down our lives. We do humbling things. There is an army behind an event like this of unsung heroes. We serve one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

Obedience of Faith
The devil offered man the choice to be their own god and make their own choices. But, we can then try and impose God’s will on people by force, laws, and rules. We want to see an obedience that comes from the heart. The Christian witness of simply saying “We are not alllowed to go to the party” is poor. So when people at work say are you going to sleep with one woman for life are you going to say “yes, because I am not allowed to sleep with others” or are we going to be convinced by faith that it is best for us to live God’s way. Do you believe what Jesus says or not? If you ask the question, “do I have to?” then you are asking the wrong question! The lies of the enemy are penetrating us, and Jesus wants to change us from the inside so we believe it by faith.

Heaven is outworked in the church. We live by different values that we are thoroughly persuaded of. Its a community of obedience by faith.

The church is not just individually obedient but corporately obedient. We must see that we have to build the churches themselves by biblical values. This is what we mean by restoration of the church. The church wanted things to be the same. When Martin Luther nailed his thesis to the door, and Calvin joined him in teaching justification, everything had to change. Justification changed the whole church. We want churches that are corporately changed by the Spirit. People are so cynical about the Church, but its God’s church and we want to get it right. We don’t want to sprinkle unregenerate babies and we don’t want to be embarrassed by unregenerate bishops. Thats why we are on a mission around the world to plant new kinds of churches or help existing churches make the radical changes that are required.

Democracy is not the way to run a church. We have to change that. A completely new type of church, not democratic, not institutional, not independent. God tells us to be inter-dependent. We must work these things out. The Holy Spirit appoints elders. God has given us a big heart to love and fellowship with other believers and we mustnt be harsh with them. But God has given us a vision of what church should be like and we will go into all the world and plant those kind of churches.

Church is precious, wonderful and magnificent. We cannot apply sanctification and obedience to the individual only. We have to restore the church to its Biblical model.

The theme of restoring what was lost is very common in the Bible. The walls needed to be built up. We are the people of God, we must get distinctives up. But restoration is also about recovering the corporate presence of the Lord. David restored the ark to Israel. A personal relationship with the Spirit is not enough. We need churches that are full of the Spirit corporately. God wants to make the Church truly his temple. We want God to dwell in his people as a body. Church is where God is. Where God is here now. His presence is here, neither quenched nor grieved.

This is fundamental to the identity of Newfrontiers. The church is a people gathering to the manifest presence of God. Peter left everything to follow Jesus. Emmanuel. God is with us! Peter followed Jesus, and was told one day, I am going! Peter was angry with him about him saying he was going away. Then was told I won’t be here any more, but I will be back,. The coming of the Holy Spirit meant Jesus would be with them. You can keep religion, being with Jesus is magnificent. To be a Christian is to be with Jesus. We need to be those who can’t bear the thought of a day without Jesus.

When pentecost came and the Spirit fell, perhaps Peter yelled “He’s back!” Terry said, “I hate doing church when Jesus is not here.” Its the presence of God that makes the church distinct. Even Moses knew that it was God’s presence that makes things different. But we must cultivate our openess to the presence of God. We don’t gather to a faint memory of what it used ot be like when Jesus was here. We want church where Jesus is here. In the midst in all his glory. Where God is encountered. Lives are transformed by such encounters. The gateway to heaven is the church. Its the dwelling place of God. We are the new temple. Its the place where God lives on our planet. Here is the place of God’s presence especially when we are gathered to worship. It is God’s own presence among us that distinguishes us from all the other people on the face of the earth.

Where are we now? Well we are planting churches. We are trying to build them biblically, loosing our individual life in order to find it, building communities of love worked out in real relationships where the prsence of God is happy to dwell. If we continue to honor and respect his word and the presence of the Spirit. We will see much growth as we follow this path. We are going to the nations. We want to be a people of word and spirit, who build church right and who welcome Jesus among us!