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TOAM Session 8 - What the Future Holds For Newfrontiers – By Terry Virgo

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:54:24 PDT

We are a family of churches. Its not a Bible phrase as such, but it is something we value highly. It comes from the very heart of God. We don’t want to abandon the idea of a community. The people related to one another.

Denominations tend to be static, associated with rules and regulations. They have headquaters. Don’t tend to be charismatic even if they started that. We resist being called a denomination. We have called ourselves an apostolic sphere. Why?

1. Its to do with the gift of the apostle
2. Its to do with the relationships surrounding that gift

It’s a biblical concept. Apostle is based on a Greek word which means to send with authority, commissioning, representing someone. Its an ambassador, someone apprehended and sent. There are different categories. Hebrews 3 describes Jesus as THE Apostle. He was the ultimate sent one. In John’s gospel he kept saying he had a task, he had been sent. Moses was a different man before and after being sent. Moses was trying to help and met hindrances and then left. Then when he was sent, it was almost as though he was bullied into it! God imposed his will on him. He still has difficulties. But he is confident in his call.

Jesus was unique. But he also gathered the 12 and called them Apostles. They are unique. They have a peculiar standing. They are foundational.

Thirdly in Ephesians 4 it says Jesus ascended on high and then gives gifts. These are a different category. Paul was one of these, although he is almost in a category of his own. He was unlike the 12 apprehended after the ascension. Barnabus, and others in the Scriptures are also listed as apostles. In Ephesians 4 we see diverse gifts with different tasks all given from heaven. They have different roles. A pastor is not the same as an evangelist.

What then did Apostles do?

They provided the foundation of the church.
The early Christians were not just converted but added to a community founded on the foundation of these Apostles. God made his home in the church. Never known a whole people before who could say God lives in us. Jesus says I am the true vine and you will be like branches in me. We are in the Messiah, and the messiah is in us. When people were saved, some of them would have been rejected by their families. They found a new sense of belonging in the community of the church.

They gave identity to the church
The people were built on the apostles and their teachings. Jesus replaced the temple, now we are the temple. Some Evangelicals will say that Apostles were simply Bible writers, and when the Bible is written that’s the end of the deal. Of the 12 only 3 who wrote any of the Bible! The person who wrote most of the New Testament, Luke, wasn’t even one! Some say now we have the epistles who needs apostles. These scholars take away this phenomenally important ministry for world mission. They rob us of an incredible thing. The reformers were anxious to reject apostolic succession in the Catholic church, and so they rejected the continuation of apostles and most commentators since have just followed them.

1 Corinthians 3, describes Paul’s work as a wise master-builder in founding churches. Obviously the completed cannon of scripture is foundational for our faith. But Paul spoke about the work he did in individual churches. He was a church builder. He was the wise architect. God gave him a blueprint and he built it.

He said to the Corinthians they were the poof of his gift, and he said “surely I am to you” He said that the fact they existed was the proof that he was an Apostle. Paul was a dynamic figure who fathered churches. Phillip the Evangelist did not father them he simply evangelized. Paul says you don’t have many fathers. He developed relationships with churches. He brought them to birth and he continued to have a link with them. Even Colossae which he had never visited personally (one of his team had done it) he stabilized his team, and were still within his sphere. He had an ongoing relationship with a number of churches. Theologians speak of the “Pauline churches.”

He spoke of his ongoing care for the churches. He prayed for them day and night. It was affectionate and dynamic. It wasn’t institutional It was life imparting. 2 Corinthians 10:13 speaks of a sphere that reached to them. In the ESV this is translated as

“But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. 14 For we are not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ. 15 We do not boast beyond limit in the labors of others. But our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged”

The idea actually seems to be not so much that the area or sphere grows in Corinth but that it will stretch beyond them.

We gave an apostolic sphere a name – Newfrontiers. Actually, what is important is the apostolic sphere.

The idea is that the Corinthians faith will grow, and hence he will be able to reach beyond Corinth. A spiritually unsettled state of affairs at Corinth would be a hindrance to him moving forward.

Paul is not called to be a pastor, but to press on.

In Bible days, Jesus called apostles who then planted churches, and then the whole church got caught up in their mission and the world was reached. When churches were not healthy, the apostles came back.

JB Phillips “your growing faith will mean the expansion of our sphere of action”

A healthy church can help apostolic thrusts, we are in this together.

Churches and their faith and partnership determine the growth of apostolic work. The churches are caught up dynamically on a mission. We really are together on a mission.

We are trying to recapture Biblical Christianity. We need to fight for the apostolic. We want to see the dynamic of global evangelism through the biblical way of honoring apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. We want to win this battle.

We must beware of the danger of becoming too static. We might loose the edge of our New Testament origins. It could become too easy to belong to this movement. What is it we are building? We are building something radical.

Over the years there has been change within Newfrontiers. Many guys who have gone out from us, and who would have represented Terry initially, now are more and more functioning in their own gift. People have built networks of grace-filled churches that span different nations some nations where Terry has never been to. There is already a lot of pumping life out there in our movement.

When Simon Petit died, it was like a large tree had fallen, and God directed us not to replace him but to make room for the saplings that had been growing in his shade. We are now in a dozen more African nations as a result.

Adam is told fill the earth. Multiply. Sons who become fathers, who can then have sons. Newfrontiers is not just Terry’s apostolic sphere any more. He is coaching others who are themselves doing apostolic work.

We are coming to the end of the beginning of this movement. When this was one apostolic context. Its already more than one apostolic context. There are details to be worked out. But the principle is established. Jesus did not hand over to a successor, Peter was not the pope. When Peter stood with the eleven, Peter was the spokesman. But it was Peter’s moment, not Peter’s movement. Later James stood up and spoke at a controversial council, and it was his moment. Paul said he went to those of reputation, not that I went to the new leader. He spoke of those reputed to be leaders. There was not a stagnant nature.

What we are looking for is gifts that multiply, grow and develop. Paul did not come from the Jerusalem stable. He wasn’t trained by Peter. He grasped the gospel, he founded churches, he fathered churches, and he was recognized for his gift. He did not want to be alone. He wanted to be in step with what is there before me. He wanted unity with the existing. He wanted recognition and affirmation from those who were before him, though he was absolutely confident in the gospel. Later on, Paul is able to confront Peter “to his face” when he saw him drifting on grace. Why? Because he wanted the church to be one. There is confronting, and challenging each other. They were a fellowship of apostles, a band of brothers. They held together and kept relationship. They could have chosen their own way. They could have said “I’m off”. In fact, if some people want to leave Newfrontiers and go their own way then they are free to do that. Its not that Newfrontiers has authority. This is a name we gave to an apostolic sphere, that’s all.

There is a mutual support that is going on. We have relationships that have bonded us together. We believe that these relationships will continue. We are looking for the emergence of more apostles. Its God’s church. Its not our institution. Its HIM that gives the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Apostles are not an appointment of the church, they are a gift of Jesus. Terry can’t make more apostles.

You can encourage and train those with developing ministries, but it is GOD who gives the gift. The day we make it our thing is the day we drift towards and institution. We need the divine call and the divine equipment.

Apostle is not a name given to the church’s leadership, it is a gift given by the ascended Christ. Give us laborers for the harvest! Give us more of these gifts. Lets see more spheres opened. Let the criss-crossing happen. Not a case of little visits, but apostolic thrust. Paul did not have a big religious event. He probably had a meeting in a house somewhere where Peter just said – hey we are with you, we recognize God is with you.

Paul says “We were gentle, as apostles” in a letter written by Silas and Timothy. There is some confusion there about whether these two were apostles or not. We need to be careful to see who are the real apostles, recognizing they don’t have to look the same, but neither should we call a room full of pastors an apostolic team.

What is more important than Newfrontiers continuing, is that genuine apostles rise up where churches are in dynamic partnership with apostolic advance. It’s about a dynamic joining not about being on a list.

There is a generation coming up through Newday and Mobilise that are not very interested in institutional life. They are pumping and radically red hot. We have to stay vibrant for that to happen. It must be uncomfortable to stay around. What can hold the spheres together? There is fellowship to happen between different spheres knowing that we are more together than we are apart. Unity of doctrine and values. There has been great strength to us in that. There are promises God has given us to change the expression of Christianity all over the world. Not sure any one sphere can do that, but lots of spheres together can! We are going to touch nations. We need one another, we are going to still need one another.

Finally, Joseph was a dreamer who was thrown out, through youthful exuberance. Ultimately came into a place where he was a blessing to his brothers. We are seeing an opening of doors into reformed conservative evangelicalism. They are seeing “perhaps you are not as crazy as you thought”. Jonathan said, come and join the victory. We need a big heart to embrace and bless if we can the broader body of Christ.

God will take us from nation to nation. We want to see every nation touched.

If we are to be a grape vine it can stretch very far from one root. In these next few years we are coming to the end of the beginning. God will do an amazing thing.

TOAM Session 7 - The Armor Bearer By Joel Virgo

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:42:26 PDT

1 Samuel 14

Joel felt that God wants to speak in this session to the team players, not team leaders. You carry significant responsibility but are not the “main guy” so the focus of this talk is not on Jonathan but his armor bearer.

There is real strength in plurality. As one man stands on his own before God he can accomplish great things. But when a team stands you are more than the sum of your parts.

Deut 32:30 Moses said one shall chase a thousand, two shall chase 10,000. When you are joined there is a power that is released. There is an eternal principle that was true before we ever showed up. God revealed himself as a team- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is a God-like characteristic to community.

In the context of plurality there is still order, and distinction of role. The Son submits to the Father. Submission and authority never began. These concepts are generally seen as negative. What we have experienced has been tarnished by the fall. But there was good submission before the fall.

We have moved away from one-man ministry and understood plurality but we mustn’t then try and say we are all the same in an egalitarian way. The Father was not sent by the Son! It is just as God-like to be subordinate as to be the head. You can display the qualities of God by following someone else.

People jolt to mutual submission in a hurry to get away from the idea of headship. It can mean committee or no leadership at all. We can sometimes be self-effacing because we want to look humble. We don’t want to be humble, just look humble! We must understand that within true team there is leadership. Crab mentality pulls people down. We don’t pull Moses down the mountain, we are all now up the mountain and sharing in the glory. But even within the equality we must allow ministry and gifting to emerge and operate.

We need to build with strength. Not just putting one pin on a map in each nation. We need team players who in a God-like way will give themselves to serving a local vision long-term. We mustn’t think, every leader that comes through the door is to be a team leader and plant the next church. It is not a failure to instead be someone who faithfully follows another and helps them. Cliff Barrows said to Billy Graham “As long as you want me to I want to work with you and carry your bags or whatever you need me to.”

God wants to speak to some people and elevate to you the possibility that you are called to be like Cliff Barrows, and to give your life to help someone elses ministry. This will lead to greater kingdom advance. How then do you be an armor bearer to another leader?

Catch His Heart
The armor bearer says he is with Jonathan heart and soul, do whatever you wish. But notice that you cant say that to just anybody! Herod was foolish enough to say that to a stripper “whatever you want” and she wanted the head of a prophet! Whoever you choose to follow like this better instead be someone who’s heart is after God. Consider what is on the heart of those who lead you. We need those we have learnt to trust.

Jonathan has an unusual way of getting guidance. Different leaders will discern the hands of God and the ways of God in different ways. Nehemiah was more analytical. We have to get to the place where we know God has spoken. There needs to be faith. The decision-making might not feel very spiritual but this is fine if it is full of faith. Perhaps you need to help the leader get to the position of faith. Sometimes just by asking, “OK, so what do you want to do?”

Cover his back
Jonathan climbs on his hands and feet, with his armor bearer after him. He is behind him, he kills them after him. With this guy behind him he is watched. I am going to cover you. How do leaders watch each others back? The guy can’t see everything, even though he can see what God wants. Some leaders are persuaded but utterly unskilled. Let them set the trajectory, but some of them don’t know what it looks like. Some people are able to then work out the details.

Bring your skill to the same trajectory. In that area you lead the team. Without you there, there is no way it is going to happen. Jethro comes to Moses and brings advice. We need hundreds of people like that who can come to leaders and give clear suggestions. We need team players who say I know that I can bring qualities to the table that can make this happen. I may need to humble myself and listen to what is supposed to happen.

Absence, when the guy is away. When you are in a meeting when he is not in. Is it an opportunity for us to do it “our way” because he is not here. That is not team. You can call it team but you are lying. I am going to stand the ground, hold the line, push it through. Aaron in Exodus 32 does not act like the armor bearer. Idol worship and an orgy are the result, which is not the vision Moses had!

Aaron blames the people “you know what the people are like.” Moses is probably thinking, but I know God, and you were meant to stand holding the line!

When a team leader expresses his heart and speaks of a weakness. We need to then cover that. Not to cover it up, we may need to confront, or even rebuke, as appropriate but we deal with it in love. Don’t speak ill of someone, and pull them down, instead watch their back. We need to be strong where they are weak.

Can they be trusted?
Can your armor bearers trust you? We need to be able to trust. Moses had to trust the people he recruited to lead. Trust works both ways. Prove them. It takes time to develop trust. Don’t abdicate that. Dispense trust to key leaders God is bringing through. David asked some people who came to him “have you come to betray me?” Sometimes you have to rebuke someone to see how they respond. Some of our people seem submissive because they have never had to submit. How will they respond when you correct someone? When you see the trust build on it and protect them.

Share the victory
There was no headquarters where this victory was planned. Two nutcases were going for it, and Saul was like “Let me get in on this one.” Jonathan and his armor bearer didn’t say “hey wait a minute!” or build an institution.

Teams can sometimes break down and not really function properly. We may have to reconfigure, or perhaps people need to move on. That is painful. We don’t hold onto team for the sake of saying “We just don’t want it to change.”

Can be very hard when the new leader and you just don’t fit. Some people are functioning as team leaders by name only but need to make room for the one who God is raising up. This is a call to us for humility and followership.

3 John speaks of one who “likes to put himself first” and does not acknowledge the authority. This comes from a lack of perspective. We must evaluate people by the kingdom values. Don’t set yourself up or anyone else up inappropriately. When you are a new creation it sets everything up differently. We must not desire to be as God.

As Joel finished off what was an outstanding sermon, it suddenly struck me that Jonathan later showed the same attitude to David that this armor bearer had shown him. I suppose that in various situations in our lives we will all be the armor bearer, whilst in other situations we will be the leader. Even for the team leaders within our churches, there will often be a need for them to play the armor bearer to those with apostolic ministry. Certainly we must all learn how be lead, and to submit gladly.

Its God we follow ultimately.

We must all humble ourselves. In so doing we become like Jesus who humbled himself to be tortured and to become sin so we could become righteous. We live not for the hope of leadership position, but for the hope of glory. Be at peace about how God shapes your life to get his mission accomplished. The cry of our heart is to thank God for salvation, and for the privilege of knowing Jesus.

We can say to Jesus “I am with you heart and soul, whatever you desire I will follow you!”

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

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:23:33 PDT

Terry began by recommending two books by Bruce Ware. Father Son and Holy Spirit. Terry explained that this book had stirred him to contemplate the wonders of the trinity more devotionally and God's Greater Glory

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!

TOAM Session 5 – The Implications of Grace - Stephen Van Rhyan

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:59:52 PDT

The afternoon session is perhaps the toughest to lead as several thousand tired brains wrestle with over-full stomachs to stay awake and alert. Who better to help us in this battle than a loud South African who gets excited as he preaches!

Stephen began by reminding us of Abraham and his faith-filled obedience to God’s call, and his faithfulness during the long delay in the birth of a child. He then reminded us of the astonishing command of God to sacrifice his miracle son of promise, who represented everything he had hoped and longed for.

It is one of the great faith stories of the Bible, and is included in Hebrews 11.

Steve then compared the events on mount Moriah and Calvery. The venue, the fathers, and the sons all had similar roles.

At the point of climax they are altogether different, because the Lord provided a ram for Abraham, but there was no substitute for Jesus. Jesus was the sin-bearer. He was the lamb slain on our behalf.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son” (John 3:16)

Christ died for us!

This is the grand story. It shows us how God loves us. What are the implications?

Philippians 1:1-11

Grace To You
We must be touched by grace personally and deeply as leaders before we touch anything else. Salvation is from God from start to finish. It began with God. He is the author. God finishes what he starts. Our confidence is in Jesus not how many people are coming to the meeting. Our commendation comes from Jesus and is for being faithful.

Grace on Display
Christianity was never meant to be private. God is after a people, a gospel community living for the glory of God. As a body we are to declare to the outsiders, this is what this town could look like if only Jesus was your lord and savior. We are saints because of what Jesus has done. We show wherever we live what it could be like if Jesus was Lord

Grace to the Nations
Not static, but on the move. The community of believers must be connected to God’s global purposes. This is played out through a relationship. They were partners with Paul. This is how they got involved with mission. God saves us by grace, connects us to a community of grace, and then that community gets connected to apostles and hence God's mission. Its God’s desire that every local church is connected in a genuine gospel partnership with someone who actually knows you.

Seminar – Global Churches

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:16:01 PDT

I won’t share a full set of notes from this seminar, but will just share a few things that stood out for me.

Owen spoke about diversity, using material from his new book on the subject. He over-viewed the Bible’s teaching on the subject. He made the point that the early church did not just grapple with issues of law and grace they grappled with issues of race and culture.

Evan Rogers began by speaking in Afrikaans, and asked us how we all felt. He challenged us with the thought that people will come to our churches unable to speak English. He spoke how singing songs in different languages shows we are open and inclusive. Eg, singing “How Great is Our God” translated into a different language.

Steve Tibbett spoke about leading a multicultural church. Some argue that to grow a church you should target in to a specific people group or type of person. In fact, at King’s you can walk in and whoever you are you will feel comfortable, and that has been a growth engine.

TOAM Session 4 Effecting Society By Dave Stroud

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:41:40 PDT

God is not dead as the book recently written by the editor of the Economist said. We do have a voice. We can have a voice. What can we do? What will we do with the influence that God is giving us?

Dave read Daniel 1. He explained that the goal here was to put Babylon into the brightest people. He changes their names first. Jewish names have theological significance, but the Babylonian names were related to the Babylonian gods.

They were prepared to become very familiar with the people they are trying to reach. But there were places that they were not willing to go. He refused to make compromises, saying they would be tainted with sin. He makes a proposal, and is initially turned down. Daniel makes a counter-proposal. This is a great way to bring about change. Go for a trial run! Daniel and his friends end up ten times better.

Daniel has incredible influence.

How churches can have influence

1. What does God value? God values his people, but he also created everything. He cares about everything that happens in Babylon. There are always two camps among Christians. Some say “build the church” others say “get out there and change society” Jesus said we were salt – we get out there and its hard sometimes to tell where the salt and the meat end. But the other metaphor is a light, and a city on a hill. We have to build the church so the people will see. So we need to influence society and build the church.

2. How should we be involved? (Jeremiah 19:4-7, Genesis 12:1-3) Some Christians say, don’t try and change the world. Stay separate, or you will become like them. But the prophet didn’t say that! Jeremiah 29 says go and live in the city. Some of us set up Christian organizations and then shout at the world and tell them what they are doing wrong. That is often unhelpful, though sometimes we do need to speak up for justice. We do need to be confrontational sometimes, but we have to also win hearts. What can I do to help? Scripture encourages us to get into the culture.

Christians have often wanted to look different but in our hearts become very similar. The truth is the opposite. We should look very similar ie in what you wear etc, but in your heart you are very different. We run to a very different set of values. Take confidence in the promises of God that as you get involved you go there to be a blessing. While Jacob is with him, Laban prospers. When Joseph is with him, Potipher prospers. The promises of Abraham are having an effect. Eg the work of Street Pastors, Christians are out on the streets engaging with the gangs and has led to massive reductions in crime.

God cares for everything and we should be incarnational.

3. What should we be thinking? (Daniel 1:6-8)

Most people would rather die than think. We have to think. We need wisdom. There are marks of God’s natural grace in culture we can identify with and delight in. What can we redeem from a culture? Ie things that are not essentially bad, put them back in the proper place. What should we confront in culture? What are the idols that need to be demolished?

4. What should our vision be? Influence but not ultimate transformation in this age. Unpopularity will also be our lot at times.

5. How will things end? (Daniel 1:21) He is there to Cryus comes. He is a forerunner of the age to come as he will send the exiles back. IT ends on a physical earth with physical bodies in the new age. All things will be restored.

What can we as individuals do?

1. Daniel said yes to the opportunities that came his way. He wasn’t passive, but actively gave himself to his work. He didn’t feel ready and prepared. We don’t just need church planters, we need people who will become Christian barristers, and Christian businesspeople, and many other professions.

2. We need teams . We often hear one name, but there is always a team

3. Daniel did not allow cost to deter him (Daniel 1:12-13) He had conquered the flesh. Integrity is often tested. Must neither be corrupt nor negligent. We must be in prime condition. We need to go into strict training and run to win the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24-25) There will be testing. Get sharp. With every test comes a promotion.

4. Daniel and his team were outstanding candidates. Enormous difference in ability. God doesn’t promote people unless they give themselves to become outstanding. Put in the hours Genies is not a born naturally. Its about loving something and giving 10,000 hours to the thing you love. We must value education and secular learning. Look for the favor of God. Live with the fear of the Lord. He sees everything. Live the same in private and public.

5. Daniel continued as a man of prayer and of the Spirit. (Daniel 1:17) Its God who promotes, so Daniel prays.

6. He developed authority or cultural capital. He was someone who was listened to. One person can change the world.

TOAM Session 3 Where Has Newfrontiers Come From – by Terry Virgo

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:48:00 PDT

For some reason, even more than other years, I am finding myself wishing I could transport you all into this venue so you can just experience the worship. I don’t know how I can really portray the worship well on this blog. Lets just say I sometimes wonder about the structural integrity of this glorious building as a few thousand people all bounce up and down in unison and sing loudly! It somehow even reminded me of a verse in scripture which says of the ancient Israelites that on one occasion they were

“rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth was split by their noise”

During the worship time, someone brought a word based on the idea that together can also be read to-get-her.

Two books were mentioned, firstly Influential Women by Wendy Virgo which speak of the important role that women can play for good and evil in churches. This book will help in addressing the wrong perception some have of the role of women in our churches

The second book was God Knows You Are Human by Terry, this book tells us how God puts us back together again. It outlines Bible characters who experienced God’s favor and mercy.

Terry read from Ephesians 2:1-10

He explained he would be speaking this year about Newfrontiers, its past present and future. This would be different from usual as he didn’t plan to expound a particular passage. In order to help us look forward, he would today look back “The further back you look the clearer you can look forward”

His purpose was to highlight foundational values. In fact I wish I could have caught every word, so please do get the video or audio of this as it is a fantastic summary of what it is that we value in this movement.

We are fundamentally a word and spirit movement. We must value this and treasure it. We don’t want to drift either way. We are both reformed and charismatic.

Where we started: We were dead. Not a very exciting place to begin! Didn’t come together as entrepreneurial whiz kids who started something to go around the world. Terry said he is reformed because he believes the Bible tells me it was of God that I was saved. Dead people don’t search for God. They don’t contribute a lot. They need God to take action. There is a glorious “but God” He spoke, he acted

We were living according to the culture of this world. We evaluated things in the way the world does. The world doesn’t know the first thing about living as Eugene Peterson says.

This world is a short term thing, an age passing away. We used to follow that way. There was another power, another force at work. Sometimes people say “I don’t know what came over me” The devil drives us further than we would have chosen to go. We are subject to the lusts of the flesh. If there is no God, what a terrible world to live in. But while we were in that disgusting state, God loved us with a great wonderful love. He entered into that world.

God did something to us. We were raised with Christ. We were included in the resurrection of Jesus. All who are in him are raised to a newness of life. We are all given a new heart. No longer evil and deceitful heart. He has made us alive. We are saved by grace! God is the initiator. Even faith is the gift of God. He breathed life into us. God has done an amazing thing. His mercy, not your wise choice, his lavish grace not your longing. No one searches for God. If there was a bit of a search in your heart, then God had begun to work on your corpse-like person. He began to draw you to himself. We can celebrate his amazing goodness. It wasn’t my idea it was his. It wasn’t my initiative it was his. He loved me when I was so lost, so why would he stop loving me now? This God is FOR me! Its great news. We are a “but God” people. God changed our lives completely.

Verse 10 says we are created in Christ Jesus. God does things out of nothing. Not just forgiven, not patched up, we are a new creation! Its true of an individual and also the whole church. If anyone is in Christ then we are a new creation.

We are his workmanship. We are like a poem (which is the Greek word used here), a work of art. God puts us through set backs, delays, heartaches, heart breaks. Terry remembers how God broke his heart in his 20s and thanks God for that now. God wants to be able to trust you with things. He wants to know you will build straight not at an angle.

Terry then shared a recent prophetic word that someone had given. The guist of this word was that we in Newfrontiers are God’s workmanship, his work of art. We are surprisingly different, and people will be drawn in. We are not to merely copy the techniques of others. What God is creating in us is Spirit breathed, and it will attract others. We are to learn from techniques, but to realise he has built layers of diversity, textures of relationship and colours of grace in us. This word predicted that though we have been hidden away, now it is time for us to be brought out, made pubic, put on display and as a result many will be drawn.

In Christ Jesus we in Newfrontiers have been formed into a people. We have benefited massively from others coming in and have been changed and shaped. But we have been created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared for us.

We have a sovereign God behind us. What are the works God has prepared specifically for us in Newfrontiers to walk in? God has spoken to us over the years through prophecy.

John Groves had a word where he saw a herd of elephants that were charging where there was no road. They made a road, where there is no road. Others will follow and together you can accomplish more than you could alone”

We are now in all these nations. But decades ago when we started there was no road. No one was doing this stuff. No one was saying we are church planting. The idea of going together was not often spoken of in those days. You either stayed or sent a missionary.

We realized that being personally charismatic was not enough. Its not just about a private prayer language. Its about doing things very differently. Its hard to think back to what church was like back then. It felt like we had to change church life completely. It almost felt arrogant. How can we do this together? We began to train leaders, send teams, plant churches, conferences, and raise finance. We did all these things together.

We were directed to plant churches back in the whole of the UK then to go to the ends of the earth. We are now going together to the big cities of the world.

We were told we would gather old bricks that would join our new wall. We will have seen that, and we are going to see it more. So many men are in sad independent lonely works. They need to be in a galvanized world mission movement.

We were told we would change the expression of Christianity around the world. Why does it need to be changed someone asked? Well, these are some of the changes we are looking for

From legalistic to grace-shaped. The Apostle Paul would have fought to liberate many modern churches that are driven and devoid of joy.
From independence to interdependence. Many churches today are antonymous. It was never the apostolic concept that a church would be planted and then have nothing to do with world mission. Churches to see they are part of something bigger than themselves.

From closed in to looking out
From self centered to sacrificial
From Inward looking to mission orientated
From democratic to releasing gifted anointed leadership
From cessationist to charismatic
From an old wineskin to a new wineskin

The goal of Newfrontiers is to be planting new churches or helping exiting churches to change so the radical life of God can be released. God has made us an instrument for change globally.

Ephesians 1:13 says we have been “sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” There is life available in the Spirit. We want to be truly biblical, but we want to know the explosive power of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

A seal is stamped in wax. Its something you know about. Something visible. Adds authority or authenticity. ESV Study Bible notes says “Holy Spirit certifies the authenticity” of their salvation.

This is then referred to what happens in Acts. Peter goes to Cornelius and preaches and the Spirit falls on them. Peter sees that the gentiles are authentic people of God because of the demonstration of the Spirit.

So many teach that the Baptism of the Spirit is non-experiential. But when the Spirit came upon then for Peter that was proof they had been accepted.

When Peter describes this, he says God cleansed their hearts by faith (conversion) and then that the God who knows the heart testified to this by sending the Spirit.

In John 6:27 even of Jesus its said that the seal is set on him. John the Baptist was told that when the Spirit came on someone, that would be the one. The coming of the Spirit is tangible. It is something experiential. MLJ fought to say that Spirit was experiential. Puritans believe that it was experiential, and many in previous generations did. But the Doctor was almost alone in claiming this was something clear and unmistakable to both the person and others who look on.

We mustn’t rob the church of its joy and its awareness of God. Jesus said come and drink, not just come and learn a verse. Its dynamic. In Acts it’s very experiential. It’s not automatic and when you were converted. Even Paul saw the Lord on the road, and is called brother by Ananias so he is recognized as a believer, but told that now he would receive the Spirit.

Its not a gradual thing. Its not reserved for when you are mature. Paul asks “did you receive the Spirit?” In Ephesus they said “no”. Its plain biblical truth that the spirit is real and available in a dramatic way.

The Gospels promise the Spirit. The Epistles look back to the Spirit having come
Acts tells us how it happens.

Some say don’t use the narrative for doctrine, but we are told that “All these things written down for our instruction” – all narrative sections of the Bible teach us doctrine. All Scripture is profitable for teaching.

We must rediscover the splurge of the Spirits coming. Will never understand the growth of the NT church without understanding the Spirit.

Paul’s asks a question about receiving the Spirit in Galatians, modern commentary would say “I don’t know….” We need to KNOW we have received.

Are you thirsty? Not holy, special, very mature, just is anybody thirsty….

Terry spoke about how one man recently who received the Spirit after listening to a talk. He had asked God to lay hands on him digitally, and imagined the Lord laying his hands on him.

“suddenly, without any warning received a baptism of the spirit, shouting laughing, could hardly contain myself. Laughed cried, overjoyed, flood of prophetic activity then noticed I was not speaking in English."

You can read more of this on my blog

Coming upon of the Spirit is deeply felt and intensely experienced. MLJ says it is crying out, an extravagant word.

We don’t receive by merit, but by hearing with faith. We have been invited to come and drink. Come and receive. Not works of law. Not being a good person. By hearing with faith. It’s a gift. Promise is for everyone that the Lord will call.

The only people who were ever told to wait, were those who had to wait for Jesus to be glorified. On the day of Pentecost, Peter declares this Jesus has now been raised, now exalted. He has sent the Spirit. After that day no one was ever told to wait!

When God saw that Cornelius heart was cleansed through faith the Spirit fell. The Holy Spirit believes in justification by faith. He owns and seals people who are justified by faith.

1 Cor 14:15 Paul says he will pray with the Spirit and also with the understanding. The two things are different. Praying with tongues is like turning on a radio with a foreign language you don’t understand. It’s a form of worship. Its like an answer to Wesley’s prayer “O for a thousand tongues to sing” and God answers and says here’s one. Paul prayed more in tongues than all of them. Its biblical not to understand tongues! He doesn’t say “maybe God will” he says “I will.” You are using apparatus you have used before. You know how to speak. When you receive the Spirit, its you that speaks in tongues. Not a case of waiting. Jesus is walking on the water, and Peter says “tell me to come to you”, Jesus says “come” and Peter doesn’t wait thinking “any minute it will come” he walked to the edge of the boat and then he moved into another realm. We similarly just begin to speak and the Spirit empower tongues.

Terry concluded by reiterating that we are committed to word and spirit, reformed and charismatic. There is an essential truth that grips us, removed out guilt and shame, and the truth that has liberated us and we have been sealed with the Spirit.

If anyone is thirsty COME and drink!

TOAM Session Two By Stef Liston

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:00:42 PDT

We had a more contemplative time of worship, and Terry did one of his famous “book plug” sessions. He doesn’t just tell you to read a book he tells you why. The books he mentioned were

Planting Churches, Changing Communities by David Stroud. Terry explained the book was full of faith and methodology, information and expectancy. It is full of practical details of what to do that will be helpful for both a church planter and a small group leader.

The second book he mentioned was Just Like Us by Steff Liston is about the ordinary heroes of the Bible.

Stef was also the preacher for this session. It was a free-flowing sermon which ranged all over the Bible and made it a bit harder to take notes on, so I will share just a shorter outline of some of the bullets that stood out to me.

From our hearts flow everything. Above all else we should guard our hearts. He wants to govern and rule the seat of your affections. Everything starts and ends in our hearts.

If leadership is influence, then we are all leaders to some degree or other. People will look to us and be shaped by us. People are around us watching us. So words to the shepherds are relevant to us all.

The shepherds in Israel had forgotten who they were meant to look after. They have assumed that the people belonged to them, and that they existed for their benefit and feeling good about themselves. God says they are not your sheep, they are my people.

God says to them, I will not allow you to feed them because you are eating them. What you are teaching them is breaking them down and leading them astray. He says, I am bringing in a different kind of people. Me, I am going to leave them and the new David – Jesus. It’s a theocracy. I will lead them through a man. That is God’s plan for his people and how they will be lead.

Jesus owns his church. He told us not to call each other “Father”, so it is strange that churches do this. Stef told the story of a time when someone he met introduced himself as follows

“Im Father John but I don’t suppose you will want to call me that”

“No I cant do that really, can I call you John?”

“Not really”

“Mate then?”
“How about Father Mate?”

“No I can’t do that”

“Well in my church you have to call me Father”

“Its not your church!”

If you want to be a leader after God’s heart then you are to do it in such a way so they are being led by the Lord.

There is a reason why Jesus is called David as there are elements of David about Jesus. Matthew 18:1-6. Jesus called up a child and said that only people like a child can get in to heaven. What does it mean to be child like but not childish?

Humility is childlikeness. God is childlike. God never commands us to be something that he is not like himself. God showed his humility by becoming a man, a baby.

Kids delight in simple things. The world has been going on for a long while. Sun comes up, over she goes, and then its gone. God is delighted at the work of his own hands. God has not been tainted by the sin in the world. It struck me as I was listening that God is not cynical like us! He is unblemished.

Kids love to follow. David was a leader, but he was also a sheep. He wrote Psalm 23, as well as Psalm 131 says to not be lifted up, but calmed and quieted. It’s the king of Israel writing this. Spurgeon the city shaker was described by a visitor as someone who was “cradled in the Holy Spirit”

Kids are medicinal - Matthew 19:13-15 Jesus has important things on his mind, the disciples assume he wants to talk to the leaders and important people around. But kids are important. God’s image is in them. Jesus is probably thinking the disciples are bugging me, they don’t understand me, I need someone to pull my eyebrows and ask me what my favorite color is.

Kids are oblivious to hierarchy. They don’t get it. Someone might be an earth-changing apostle, but to the kids perhaps he’s just their granddad.

Kids ask for loads of things and are bold, we can be like that in prayer

Kids know how to enjoy themselves. Don’t be so driven that you cant relax.

TOAM - Session One Jonah and Acts by Mbonisi Malaba

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:47:41 PDT

Wow! What a glorious time of worship we have just shared together here at Together On A Mission. Rocky, powerful rhythms belted out and set to potent lyrics rich in doctrine. Bass and drums were clearly designed to glorify God.

There was a tongue which was interpreted with a prayer uplifting the trustworthiness of God in a time when human resources are running out. This was followed by a prophecy which challenged us to remember that building a glorious large people is really about making many small difficult decisions back at home when there are challenges we are facing.

The names of all the countries represented in this conference were read out and there were 35 different nations present! To gather from the ends of the earth to worship our glorious King is a wonderful thing.

There are few countries on earth where there are more challenges for the people than Zimbabwe so it seemed appropriate that the first talk was given by someone affectionately nicknamed “Bones” from Zimbabwe. I wonder if this is because of Star Trek or because he was very thin when younger?

Bones began by quoting Campbell Morgan and arguing this book is a story about the revelation of the heart of our great God.

Jonah 1 opens with God speaking. He is sent not just to any foreign nation but to the capital of a world superpower which is a sworn enemy of Israel. Jonah is described as prophet in 2 Kings, and says God will expand the borders of Israel. Jonah is no more to be Mr Israel, but to be Mr Nations. God has a global heart.

The command of God to Adam was to fill the earth. God told Abraham and told him that through him the nations would be based. There is a global tug. God will give us a bigger vision this week.

Isaiah said “here I am send me” Moses said “send him!” Jonah simply ran! God said “go” Jonah said “no”. Tashish was the opposite direction.

There is always a “good reason” to say no to God. God sends a massive storm. If God made land and sea then he probably made the storm! Jonah thinks “this is what I deserve.” But people still struggle to believe what happened next. The same God who sent the storm sends a fish. It suddenly struck me as I was listening to this how wonderful it was that the God who’s wrath led to the punishment, also had mercy that led to the means of escape.

Salvation comes from the Lord. God gives him a second chance to obey and he does. The people are cut to the heart by a simple message. They fasted and turned to God and he had compassion on them.

Jonah and God come face to face. The rest of the story fades into the background as Jonah is exposed to the heart of the global God. The key to unlocking the whole book is in the last chapter when God reveals he is concerned for the people. Our love for the one we love most is as small as a speck of dust compared to the sun of God’s love for that individual. God’s heart for the world is like 7 billion sun’s worth of power. We should therefore want to run to wherever people are as fast as possible. If we jump to the practice before understanding the principle we miss out. The practice is we should go to where the people are to express God’s heart. People are in the cities. We must prioritise population centres as much as we can. But that is not all that Jonah says. God’s heart is for people. We might say “I don’t live in New York, so is God interested?” The question is simply this, are there people there? If so then God cares for your town!

50% of the people in the world are in urban centres. So we have to care about both cities and rural areas. Caring for the rural areas can open up influence in the cities. So helping the farmers has opened doors with cabinet ministers for them in Zimbabwe. Remembering the poor doesn’t mean to forget the rich. But as there are more poor people than rich then God’s heart is drawn to then.

What does a global strategy look like? In Acts 18 we see Paul going from city to city. Paul was a tentmaker. Having skills-based employment is a key for us as we can then plant churches more rapidly. We can advance with greater integrity. There is a lot of cynicism about the church. We don’t peddle the gospel for profit. But Paul could look people in the eye and say “you can’t pin that one on me!” Business can help us plant churches. Wealthy and influential people can help us. Some need to move, some need to stay and press through. We ended by praying for both groups.

A forest of people came forward to be involved in church planting, and an army raised their hands to say they felt called to stay and press in for a breakthrough where they are.

Together On A Mission Begins

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:30:02 PDT

Arriving the day before the conference was a great idea. Thanks mum for suggesting it to us and for looking after our five children so for the first time in years I could come with my better half. Its going to be great to show Andrée what conferences mean for me these days.

One of the real privileges of being the “official” blogger at an event like this is you get to see what goes on behind the scenes. There is of course an army of unsung heroes who make it all happen. There is no doubt that these annual Newfrontiers conferences are the best organised that I have ever attended, and that includes secular meetings I have been to through work. It is easy to forget this for someone like me who doesn’t tend to notice my environment much (Andrée asked me yesterday what I thought of the painting in our hotel room and I had to confess I hadn’t noticed it!)

But yesterday I walked around the conference centre watching it being transformed into a meeting place. I was with Nigel Ring, whose well-known meticulous eye for detail was constantly alert to anything, no matter how small, that didn’t meet his approval!

Many people rightly credit the wisdom and leadership of Terry Virgo with the phenomenal growth of this family of churches. But, we should never also forget the vital contribution of this army of practical people serving in the background who in performing tasks which are often not considered “spiritual” have turned not just the conferences but the whole of Newfrontiers into a well oiled machine. This team has always ultimately been headed by Nigel. Every Terry needs a Nigel.

If you want to understand more about what it is that Nigel has done for Terry, I strongly recommend you begin to follow Nigel’s blog which shares great insights about how to do the practical things without which churches and movements of churches simply couldn’t continue. His blog is so helpful i have today awarded him a warnie and his headlines will join the others that appear in my sidebar.

If you are coming to Brighton it will be easy for you to forget the work that has gone into the event precisely because it is done so well. Good administration blends into the background and simply creates a welcoming, organised environment, drawing attention not to the administration itself but to the One for whom we all gather. Bad administration does draw attention to itself. So, please thank that steward, or greet the person manning the bookstall or appreciate the sound engineer this year. I am sure that in heaven all these unsung heroes will receive their reward.

How To Be Free Of Unforgiveness – A Sermon by Tope Koleoso

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:40:38 PDT

I woke early this morning to the sound of seaguls. Thanks to the wonders of technology I was able to make the most of the time while my wife still slept and watch the latest sermon in Tope Koleoso’s Delivered From series. Once again his preaching seems to have moved up a gear. He just seems to get better and better! God’s hand has really been on him as he has dissected first fear, then guilt and now unforgiveness. Watching the sermon rather than just listening to it seems to me to have more impact as you feel closer to the event. I urge you to download or watch this sermon right here:

How To Get God’s Attention - A Sermon on Isaiah 66:1-10

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:23:57 PDT

Today I went to the Newfrontiers church in Basildon where I preached on Isaiah 66. You can download the audio or read my notes here:

1.The God we come to.
These opening verses seem to encourage us to fix our gaze on the God who made a universe that is at least 100 billion light years across and says it is just a throne for him. His hands flung stars into space as easily as a child flicks paint. The ESV study bible says “He cannot be walled in”. So he says, you cannot build for me a house. We mourn at the state of the church v10 BUT, Jesus says “I will build MY church” (Matthew 16:18)

There is an onward purpose. The gospel must advance we have a part to play in this! We carry a glorious message that is guaranteed to succeed we mustn’t hold onto it selfishly.

We can draw close to this God, and these verses tell us the kind of people that draw his attention God chooses to bless:

2. The attitude that God loves

V2 But this is the one to whom I will look:  he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. . .

What God looks for in us is humility, brokeness, trembling. He is God and we are not.
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:19-21)

It is the Word of God that can save us and our friends. So quote it!

The implication of this is teachability, submissiveness to leaders. Desire to learn from the wisdom of others. Not above the word but under it.

GRACE of God says its just receiving the simple IMPLANTED message that saves us.

“Romans 10:9 “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

3. The Attitude God hates
The religious attitude is as rejected by God in these verses as the true unbeliever for both of them reject God’s ways.

“These have chosen their own ways…. when I called, no one answered,  when I spoke, they did not listen;  but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.”
Description of the world, but we can be tempted to be like that even as churchgoers! “I did it my way…” had not been written but the attitude was the same.

4. God’s Vindication of Us
The sarcastic mockers who call us “extreme Christians” will get their comeupance! We go against the flow and will receive opposition BUT,

5 “Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you and cast you out for my name's sake have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy’; but it is they who shall be put to shame."

Some of us have had to risk family for this business of following Jesus. It matters!

God vindicates those who follow him.

5. The Glorious Expansion of God’s church
7 “Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. 8 Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children. 9 Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the Lord; “shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God. 10 “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; 

There will be a great multitude that no-one can count from every tribe and language. We don’t passively wait for revival, we wake up and work for many to follow Christ.
What Kind of Church is God building? What is worth giving our lives to and our money to?

1. One where he is the Lord and we tremble at his word – not “this is how it has always been” – we live to PLEASE GOD! Galatians 1:10 “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ”
2. One that recognizes the sovereignty of God in all things –salvation, and ordering our lives
3. One full of the Spirit – because of word, and therefore allowing Jesus to rule thru his Spirit. Spirit wrote the book, and says in it that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
4. One full of grace – that is the gospel after all. Massive implications for how we do church. For example it means we have to show acceptance to others when they come to us under conviction. We don’t look down our noses at them, we minister God’s grace.
5. One full of obedience to God’s word ie holiness characterises
6. One that is full of faith and expectancy for GOD to act!
7. One where people understand the full gospel package and it is the norm for them to be saved, baptised with water, with the Spirit and JOIN the church, giving of their life and money to support it.
8. One which is governed by godly men who form a team and receive input from outside the church (ie Ephesians 4)
9. A Church which is committed to learning from other churches in its family of churches, but also outside- and to both being a provocation and receiving provocation from others as we grow up into our head
10. One where we are all maturing in God.
11. A Church which reflects God's multi-colored wisdom.

Ephesians 4
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [2] and teachers, [3] 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, [4] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

And so we return to where we begun. Those that give themselves to this glorious mission that is bigger than themselves, to follow this great God and savior humbly, trembling at his word, will find themselves close to God. We don’t wait till God sorts us out to serve him. As we serve him, he will sort us out.

God wants to draw near to us and meet our needs as we gaze on him and worship him.

Together And A Bunch Of New Websites

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:40:12 PDT

I am now back blogging. I thought I'd let you know about a new feature I am testing out here, and a bunch of websites that have been set up connected to the church where I am part of the leadership team.

Firstly, if you look to your left of the screen you should see a tab that when clicked will open out a draw which forms a tweetboard. This is kind of a replacement for comments. It allows you to discuss posts you see here, or perhaps even connect with other readers of the blog. All posts will also appear at http://twitter.com where you can get an account.

If you have facebook, you can use twitter to update your facebook status line. Some people seem to love twitter and others facebook so having a presence in both places seems like a good idea.

Next week I will be live blogging the Together On A Mission conference once again. If you tweet, and will be there, it would be great if you use the tweetboard on this site during the event. If you are tweeting on a phone and so can't use the tweetboard, please do add #TOAM to your tweets so they are easy to track

Also, new over the last week or two are also the following.

1. A news section on the Jubilee website which is kind of like a blog. http://jubilee-church.org/news

2. A revamped video section where you can stream and download old videos http://jubilee-church.org/video

3. A vimeo channel where you can watch sermon excerpts and other videos about us and Newfrontiers http://vimeo.com/channels/jubilee

4. Twitter sites for some of our leaders:
http://twitter.com/topekoleoso
http://twitter.com/stuartemsley
http://twitter.com/davepask

And, finally, though this is not new, I am at http://twitter.com/adrianwarnock

Hope you enjoy all these new sites!

Do say hello at the conference, tho sadly I cannot make the informal bloggers meet up Dave Bish is organising. Email him for details.

Why I Shout When I Preach - Tope Koleoso

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:07:21 PDT

My pastor Tope Koleoso now has a Twitter page which has some fantastic things on it, including some quotes about preaching from my Liam Goligher interview.

During the rest of my blog break keep an eye on Tope's Twitter page. You may also want to follow the new Jubilee Church news/blog page and the Jubilee Church Vimeo Channel, or if you prefer the Youtube Jubilee Church page.

I just couldn't resist another interuption to my break to share with you the following article Tope recently wrote:

“Do it from the heart, or don’t do it at all”
Tope Koleoso
As I preached on Easter Sunday, about the resurrection, a 10 year old boy (Jake Bennett) who was in the congregation, whispered to his grandfather – “why does Tope have to shout when he is preaching”. It is a good question.

I don’t ever shout for effect, for preaching is not acting. I shout because I mount the pulpit to preach with three overriding emotions bubbling up in my soul – Anger, Joy and Love. These three however, have an effect on how I preach.

When I have prepared well, I know the text and the structure of my sermon, but it doesn’t mean that I am ready to preach. It just means that I have a mental understanding of what the text says. Good preaching however, is not just about the science of exegesis. That is too easy and cheap and even a non Christian can probably do a good job of that.

No. Good preaching happens when the Holy Spirit moves the heart of the preacher by the text, the preachers experience, and the “now” Word of God to his soul. All of these move me at an emotional and spiritual level. Emotional because my heart is involved. Spiritual because the Holy Spirit is involved.

This means that during the sermon, any one of the mentioned emotions, (Anger, Joy or Love), spill out without warning or apology. This is because when I am preaching, I am angry at satan and sin, I am joyful about salvation and hope, and I am eager to show the Love of God to the lost.

Therefore, I shout, I laugh, I cry, and I dance. Therefore, I use my voice, my hands, my legs and my eyes. Therefore, I will do it with utter conviction and passion for if I will not do it from the heart, I will not do it at all. Therefore, I engage the crowd, the best I can for I will not be ignored seeing that I carry the greatest message the world has ever heard . . .

READ MORE from Why I Shout When I Preach

Elijah Prays For Rain - A Sermon By Terry Virgo

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:18:34 PDT

Elijah Prays For Rain from Adrian Warnock on Vimeo. Note that at the end of the video you will need to click on part two within the video player to watch the rest. You can also download the video in high definition from vimeo, or lower definition as well as audio from the CCK website.

In a couple of weeks time I will be at the Together On A Mission conference hosted by a man who I have been looking up to spiritually for three decades. I wanted to interrupt my blog break to share this sermon here to help those of you who will be joining us there prepare for the event.

This year's event feels like it will be more intimate. It will be a family gathering unusually with no outside speakers. Terry and the other speakers will no doubt be wanting to deliver messages that will shape Newfrontiers at this vital stage in our development. Can I strongly urge anyone who will be there, and also our friends from many different movements who cannot, to please pray for us. So, sit back, get yourself a cup of tea and watch this sermon, then put what you learn into practice.

Terry is a leader of leaders and through his ministry God has accomplished an incredible amount, including a movement of more than 600 churches in 50 nations. One thing that is perhaps less well known about Terry is that he is a real man of prayer. This comes across in the many prayer meetings he leads, and there is a long history of personal wrestling with God in prayer that has birthed this movement.

In this video Terry Virgo preaches on the subject of prayer using the prayer of Elijah. Be inspired to put into practice lessons from this prophet who James described as "a man just like us"

Please consider sharing this message on your own blog as I believe that in it God has a message for the church as a whole. If we will wake up, and begin to be more passionate in our prayers for God to act, who can imagine what God can do. Lets urge him "your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"

The Full Series On Elijah By Terry Virgo

#1 - The Voice Of God
1 Kings 17:1 Download
#2 - A Man Who Stood Before God
1 Kings 17:1 Download
#3 - A Man of Personal Obedience
1 Kings 17:1-17 Download
#4 - I Have Commanded a Widow to Provide For You
1 Kings 17:7-16 Download
#5 - Trusting Through a Trial
1 Kings 17:8-24 Download - Download video
#6 - If the Lord is God follow Him
1 Kings 18 Download - Download video
#7 - Mount Carmel - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
1 Kings 18 Download - Download video
#8 - Elijah Prays for Rain
1 Kings 18:41-46 Download - Download video

Adrian's Story Part Five - Learning to Value Being, Not Doing

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:12:00 PDT

It’s funny how God often uses odd little coincidences to hammer home something he wants to say to you. I realized, thanks to the posts from my recent sermon, that I hadn’t shared the next installment of my story with you. So I dug out the old version of this post, set about beginning to edit it, and considered if it needed any expansion.

The first few paragraphs were all about how I had decided to take a blog break and how that break had reminded me of something that God had taught me many years ago. I nearly deleted those paragraphs altogether as, at first, they didn’t seem very relevant to my situation at the moment. I wasn’t just finishing a blogging break, nor surely was I about to start one.

Then, it suddenly dawned on me. I have three messages to give in the next three weeks. The last of these is one of the seminars at Together On A Mission. So I have plenty of prayer and preparation to do alongside my normal work. I suddenly concluded that it is indeed a good time, therefore, for me to put my blog into hibernation mode, probably until the beginning of the conference, at which I will once again be live-blogging. It is possible that I may sneak a post or two in before then, but if not, I will definitely be back at the latest on the 7th of July. I have edited the following post less than I thought I would, and am grateful for the reminder. I hope to be able to spend some of the time I save walking in the woods, praying

Just before Christmas 2006, someone I know asked me what I was going to do on my blog to “follow” my interview with Wayne Grudum. In that moment I knew exactly how I was going to follow it—with silence. Sometimes the best way to try and follow something is quite simply not to! To be honest, I felt like I needed a break anyway. During that time not one of my readers wrote to me asking me to write something on my blog. Either that means they didn’t miss me—perhaps because they had all been busy—or they simply took me at my word that I was taking a “prolonged break.”

Or, perhaps more likely, it shows the place of a blog in the average reader’s day—it's a piece of light entertainment that we can live with or without—in a snatched moment in-between everything else we do that is much more important. So my little “sabbatical” back then, and the times I did the same thing since, didn’t cost you guys anything—there is always another blog to read. And, in any case, if for some strange reason someone was desperate for a dose of “Warnie,” then this blog has been around long enough that simply looking in the archives would uncover something you hadn’t read yet. In fact, especially when I have had breaks that involved recycling old material, I found that sometimes my readership actually increased!

Putting ourselves to one side for awhile to reflect is no bad thing; indeed it has biblical precedent, as does the thought that God tends to do things in “waves” or “seasons.” I really felt at Christmas 2006 it was right for me to just stop blogging for a few weeks. It also coincided with a needed pause in my preaching commitments, and although I still worked at my day job, it almost felt like a holiday. I then started 2007 blogging with a personal post reflecting on a period of my life when it was God who put me on the substitute bench, and for a period that lasted several years and not just a few weeks.

By the age of 18, I had a lot of the over-confidence of youth, but that was tinged with the realization that I had a lot to learn. As I left the safety of my parental home and launched out into London to study medicine, God had a plan to teach me one of the most important lessons of my life—one which every now and then I am reminded that I still do not fully live in the light of.

My youthful enthusiasm for God was, at least in part, because I felt I could hold my own socially in a church environment much better than I could out in the world. It's funny, because like many outwardly confident gregarious people, I was far from confident on the inside. Although all my evangelistic activities at school made me feel like public enemy number one, I would console myself that surely God was pleased with me despite the views of my school colleagues. In church, I had a different role and I took a lot of solace from feeling that people there valued my contribution. As I already described, I had been given leadership and preaching experience and received a lot of encouragement. I was convinced that some sort of ministry awaited me, having had a sense of “call” since early childhood. I foolishly persuaded myself that if life at school was hard, at least my work for God’s church showed that I had something to offer. God was about to go to work to begin to destroy the pride that I didn’t even realize I had.

God has a way of taking a dream and killing it—stone dead. Sure, he will often resurrect it years later, but you don’t tend to think much about that at the time—all you can see is (to paraphrase Monty Python) your dream is “stone dead, demised, passed on, no more, has ceased to be, a stiff, bereft of life, snuffed out, up the creek and kicked the bucket, extinct in its entirety, an ex-dream.” I remember well once during those years, when someone suggested that I might preach, the thought that went through my mind was simply, “No way!”

All this happened to me over the course of a few years, and much as you might think that process couldn’t have been from God, as I look back, I am more and more convinced he was, in fact, orchestrating the whole thing.

I am glad of two things, both of which suggest that perhaps the dream wasn’t in truth totally dead. Firstly, although during this time I found myself worshipping in different kinds of churches, I kept my links going with Newfrontiers by attending the Bible Weeks, and also through a friendship with a pastor, a dear man named Henry Tyler (who was my mentor for many years and who comes back into the story later on). Secondly, I did not lose my relationship with God, nor my love of reading theology and the biographies of preachers of the past. But I'm rushing ahead of myself. I haven’t told you how my dream came to die.

When I arrived at university I was suddenly a small fish in the big pond of London. The successful University Christian Union didn’t seem to need me to exercise the gifts of which I'd sadly become proud, nor did the charismatic church I attended in the morning or the evangelical Anglican church I attended in the evening. Suddenly I was not “doing things” for God anymore; no preaching, no leadership, not even leading Bible studies. This carried on for several years, and I didn’t press for things to happen, but instead slowly, and initially reluctantly, began to refocus my relationship with God from “doing” things to “being” his child.

Terry Virgo describes receiving a prophetic word early-on in his Christian walk that told him he was called primarily to be a worshipper of Jesus, and that anything else was a bonus. That was the lesson God wanted to engrave in me in those “fallow” years as a medical student. I only wish that I could honestly say that my teenage years were the last time I busied myself with too much activity and not enough falling in love with Jesus. The truth is, sadly, that like so many of us, there have been many times in my life where I have been so caught up with what I was doing for God that I forgot that the most important thing he wants from me is for me to simply be his son and worship him. In fact, when re-reading these words it made me realize that right now I need to I need once again to be reminded of exactly this point.

How foolish we are to believe that we can give anything to God with our hard work. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

God has given us everything we have, and even our serving him is just another expression of our dependence on him. He is the one who gives us every breath that we take as a gift of grace, not as our right. How often do we Christians get frustrated because our so-called “rights” are violated, or because we didn’t get what we wanted, or because our hard work wasn’t appreciated, or even because our “ministry” isn’t recognized by others? The true servant of God is immune to such thoughts for he realizes that even the strength he uses to serve is given him by God, and that it is God who decides what paths he wants us all to take.

I wish I could learn this once and for all, but I guess we are put on earth to struggle with this issue all our lives. There is something within us that longs for self-sufficiency, self-fulfillment, and self-worth. God, instead, wants us to be God-dependent, God-fulfilled, and worthy only because of what Jesus has done for us.

In the second half of 2009, I want to refocus my life once more on Jesus and knowing him better. Everything else must flow out from that. There is a sense of dissatisfaction within me once more with filling my life with activity and not leaving enough time to reflect and grow as a worshipper of Jesus. I am brought back to a passage I am often reminded of:

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead . . .

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” (Philippians 3:7-16)

Those quiet years were, for me, a time of pruning. There were, however, a couple of things going on in addition to my education. Firstly, God arranged for a family to mentor me during those years in understanding other cultures, which would prove very helpful later on. And secondly, my reading was slowly turning me into someone who thought he understood theology. As the years went on, sadly, I became more and more focused on having theological arguments with other Christians. I am ashamed to say that it got to the point where pretty much every time I met someone, I would sniff out the areas of theology with which I disagreed with them and aggressively engage them in debate. I became someone who wasn’t always very pleasant to be around. Fortunately, God had a plan to help me to learn better social skills, and also to revive my dream of serving him in some way. But you will have to wait for the next post in this long-running series to hear about that.

Chris Moyles On Church

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:31:34 PDT

Radio One chat shows in the UK are not exactly known for being pro Christian. But this video has commentary from Chris Moyles for six minutes with his team talking about his very positive reaction to watching a televised service that was a bit different to your average church (HT Peter O):

T4G Statement - Article 8 - The Gospel of Grace

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:55:45 PDT

A long while ago I began a journey blogging through the Together for the Gospel Statement. I am sure that anyone who remotely remembers that I once did this would have been convinced that I would never get back to it. Today I surprised even myself by deciding that I really am determined to finish this. Perhaps ironically, their third conference—T4G 2010—has recently begun accepting bookings. What has happened to the last three and a bit years since this statement was penned? One thing is for sure—the statement is definitely as timely as it was when it was first published back in April 2006.

On my last attempt I got as far as Article Seven, which launched me into an entire series on the atonement, which you can review here. I do feel passionately about that subject. I also posted a number of times on Articles 1-3, and also Article 4, which also led to a long series on expository preaching, as well as a number of posts on Articles 5 and 6.

I need to pick up the pace considerably if I am going to complete my blogging through all these articles before the next conference begins! So my aim is to do this fairly quickly and ensure that by the time I finish it hasn't taken me four years! Still, when blogging about the Bible there is never a shortage of things to say.

So, let’s take a look at the next article in their list.

Article 8

We affirm that salvation is all of grace, and that the Gospel is revealed to us in doctrines that most faithfully exalt God’s sovereign purpose to save sinners and in His determination to save his redeemed people by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to His glory alone.

We deny that any teaching, theological system, or means of presenting the Gospel that denies the centrality of God’s grace as His gift of unmerited favor to sinners in Christ can be considered true doctrine.

These glorious couple of paragraphs are a great litmus test for all doctrine. While the statement does not go so far as to insist that all readers uphold the five points of Calvinism, instead, they do urge us to test all doctrine by its ability to bring praise to the grace of God.

God chooses to save us because he wants to, and because of his great grace. Do we really believe that we have NOTHING to offer to God except our sin and our utter dependence on him? Or do we think, even just a little bit, we have something to contribute to our own salvation? Ephesians 2 tells us that we were dead in our sins. They must depend upon a Savior to resurrect them!

Whenever we succeed in life, do we truly recognize that it is only because of what Jesus has done in us? I love the way Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

Whatever you hear in preaching, ask yourself—“Does this make me praise God more, and be more thankful to him that he should save me despite my sin? Or does it make me feel good— as if I have contributed something worthwhile to my own salvation?”

It is because of the implications of these two paragraphs that many of us find ourselves wholly unable to joyfully welcome some of the so-called new perspectives on justification. If we make justification dependent on our effort, then we rob Christ of his glory and deny the wonder of his grace that “saved a wretch like me.”

I need this wonderful sovereign, unmovable, unfailing, irresistible grace. If I was depending on my own will power to get me to heaven and a future glorified body then I would have no hope at all! My will is weak. My God is strong. My sin is horrible. His unmerited grace becomes mine, even as my sin becomes Christ’s! I just have to stop striving to make it to heaven under my own steam. Wonderful, wonderful news! Call it old fashioned and schismatic if you want, but I am not interested in any other gospel that fails to emphasize this wonderful glorious truth.

May God receive all the praise for our salvation!

Sexless Marriages Are Less Happy

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:34:00 PDT

In news that will be no surprise to more than half the population (ie every men, plus many women) a recent study has identified that having more sex leads to happier marriages. Here is an extract from an article on the subject

Q. Are couples in sexless marriages less happy than couples having sex?

A. Generally, yes. There is a feedback relationship in most couples between happiness and having sex. Happy couples have more sex, and the more sex a couple has, the happier they report being. But keep in mind that sex is only one form of intimacy, and that some couples are fairly happy (and intimate) even without sex. In my 1993 study, I did find that people in sexless marriages were more likely to have considered divorce than those in sexually active marriages. There is no ideal level of sexual activity — the ideal level is what both partners are happy with — and when one (or both) are unhappy, then you can have marital problems. READ MORE

Introducing a Blog By Ami

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:44:00 PDT

Ami Loizides is a 19 year old young woman who attends Church of Christ the King in Brighton. Her blog is nothing short of outstanding. She has an engaging style and is honest in reporting her musings. I would urge you to go and read it. Here are some extracts to whet your appetite:

"How important it is to be able to take real joy from serving God in the unseen as well as in what is out in the open."

"Who’s approval are you seeking? If it’s the approval of others then yeah, it’s flippin’ hard to stay humble! If it’s wholeheartedly God’s approval, then surely it should be easy to remain humble; when you see what you’ve done compared to what Jesus has done. "

"It’s so easy to feel lonely in a crowd of people!"

"It is sometimes so so so easy to go through the motions as a Christian. It comes so naturally to raise your hands at certain points of the song in worship (note to self, it’s usually at the loudest part of the song when everyone’s nice and pumped up). And when a friend comes to you for advice, when someone needs a strong shoulder to cry on, the right words just come automatically as if memorised. Without realising it we can lose what it means to really worship and we can forego the challenge of tapping deep into the gift of wisdom that God has for us, and start saying what we’ve had said to us and what’s been repeated time and again."

Faith To Wait

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:42:01 PDT

Terry Virgo blogged about how faith can lead to sudden healing, or sustain us in years of waiting:

A lady in Oregon, with a . . . mixture of tears and laughter, told me that, having been prayed for the previous evening, she was able to put her own socks on that morning for the first time for 23 years. Intense spinal pain had prevented her from touching her toes for nearly a quarter of a century. Now the pain had gone. She was completely free. Surely this is the kind of faith we are interested in – faith that gets the problem solved now, immediately.

To our surprise, the book of Hebrews tells us to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (Heb. 6:12). Faith, it seems, does not operate only in the realm of the immediate, the here and now. In fact the faith that the Bible often highlights and celebrates is the faith that has to wait, yet keep believing.

Hebrews 11 tells us that by faith the walls of Jericho fell down! Amen! Bring it on! That’s the faith I am looking for! Let’s have some shouting followed by immediate wall demolition.

The fact is that the Israelites first had to patiently encircle the city for seven days in silence, and Caleb was one of the marching army. He and Joshua had waited 40 years for the fulfilment of the promises that God made them about inheriting the land. Still want to join the ‘Joshua generation?’ READ MORE

Spiritual Gifts – That’s It From Me, But More From Others

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:08:22 PDT

If my series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is now finished, has left you wanting to know more, then I encourage you to listen to three talks from my friend, Joel Virgo. Joel leads the Brighton Newfrontiers church, CCK. His first talk speaks about something I have blogged about previously, apostles today. The second goes through some of the gifts, and in the third he speaks about how the gifts can operate in meetings.

Joel argues for a different approach, depending on the size of the congregation, saying "the bigger the number of people in the room, the more important the leadership gift becomes in that meeting." He believes that the ideal size of meeting for the gifts to freely operate is around 100, although that does not mean they can't be used at all in larger or smaller meetings.

Also, there is one talk that I recommend more than any other if you are now eager to receive more of the Holy Spirit. Terry Virgo spoke at a Newfrontiers USA event on "How to Receive the Holy Spirit." You can download the audio, or read a testimony of how that talk led to a breakthrough for a man who had been seeking the Spirit for many years. Terry also has many other useful talks online

John Piper has a number of talks on the Holy Spirit available over at Desiring God. For example, "How to Receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

If you want to read more about this, I also recommend the following books. You will find you don’t agree with everything you read, not least because they don’t agree with each other! But, each of these books has something very useful to contribute to our understanding of this vital subject.

The section in Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology is probably the best place to start (as is the case with so many biblical subjects!) He has also written probably the standard work explaining the view of prophecy I hold to entitled The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today Grudem edited a four views book to which Sam Storms contributed called Are Miraculous Gifts For Today?

Daniel Wallace and James Sawyer wrote Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit. Read how two professors’ theological training had left them ill-prepared to deal with traumatic events, and their resulting journey away from what they called a spiritually sterile tradition to an experience of God’s Holy Spirit. Can cessationists experience the Holy Spirit without becoming out and out charismatics?

Don Carson’s book, Show the Spirit succeeds in steering such a middle course that I doubt anyone will agree with everything he says! But, it is very good to have your assumptions and beliefs examined in light of the exposition of this well-respected teacher. This book will leave both charismatics and cessationists a little uncomfortable, but definitely urges us to be open to the Spirit’s work.

A recent book from Crossway, He Who Gives Life is a very helpful and comprehensive theology of the Holy Spirit.

Gordon Fee's God's Empowering Presence examines every mention in Paul's letters of the role of the Holy Spirit.

Last, but by no means least, my friend Greg Haslam has recently written a fantastic book on the practicalities of pursuing the gift of prophecy today, called Moving in the Prophetic.

And there, for now, I will leave this subject of the gifts and this blog will move on to other things.

Seeking the Giver and His Gifts

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:26:33 PDT

As we draw to the end of this series on the gifts of the Spirit, I want to conclude by thinking a bit more about what is the purpose of these gifts. The gifts are a foretaste of heaven, of our restored relationship with God. They are one way to draw us into the presence of God. Through the gifts we encounter the reality of a living Jesus who is active in his church today. They are not the only way for us to experience God since for example prayer, worship music, sermons, and reading God’s Word all lead us to Jesus.

We are encouraged to be in a living relationship with a God who wants to direct our lives specifically, and who wants to do that, not just in the moral or ethical sphere, but also in terms of which of several good alternatives we should follow. He wants to guide our lives. He wants to have a relationship with us and to know us. He wants to set us free. He wants power and healing to come to us. He wants to speak with us. He wants us to know him. That’s what we have been talking about. Isn’t it a wonderful thing? Is it any wonder, then, that when Paul is speaking about this he tells us to pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts?

I hope this series has challenged us to passionately seek these gifts, to stir them up, and pursue them. Many who theoretically believe in the Holy Spirit and his gifts fall at this hurdle. They simply passively wait for God to give them a gift rather than pressing in and persistently asking him to bless them with these gifts. We do have a part to play in receiving the Spirit and his gifts.

Gifts need to be exercised in our meetings. The Bible says this, “Well, then, brothers, when you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or interpretation, that all things be done for the building up.” Now, a large church can’t do that on a Sunday morning—everyone of the congregation, one after the other—or the meeting will last all day! So if you want to obey that Bible verse, you need to get yourself into a small group, into a cluster or zone meeting, or perhaps into the church prayer meeting. Those are the contexts where each of us can do that, and it’s a safe environment where we neither foolishly embrace prophecy in a unwise way without thinking about it, nor do we reject it. So I want to encourage you. In a large church, don’t just come on a Sunday morning, because you cannot obey that verse if that is all you do.

Why are we so eager to use these gifts? It’s because their purpose is for the good of others. 1 Corinthians 14:12 says this: “Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.”

The Christian faith is a supernatural spiritual faith. It’s not man-made. There is a power at work—maybe you have felt him in a church meeting—he’s there. He is present in his church wanting to give gifts to us.

Imagine if I was to go to my wife and say, “Darling, I’d like to spend time with you. I’d like to get to know you a bit more and chat with you, but please don’t buy me any presents. I don’t want your presents, I don’t want your gifts. I don’t want anything from you.” She’d be pretty offended, wouldn’t she? Similarly, we are foolish to think we can pursue God without pursuing the gifts.

But imagine this: if I were to say to my wife, “Give me everything you’ve got, but I haven’t got any time to talk with you. I’m not interested in that. I don’t want a relationship with you, I just want your gifts.” I don’t think my marriage would be very pleasant!

We come to a Jesus who wants to give us gifts, but more than that, he wants to give us himself. He wants us to know him. He wants us to know sins forgiven. He wants us to know that he came and died for us, he rose again for us that we might be forgiven, that we might know our way to heaven.

Never allow gifts to distract us from our loving relationship with our Savior. The whole purpose of the gifts is to enhance that relationship, not serve as an end in themselves. But do not allow yourself to despise the gifts just because you have seen counterfeits at work. We seek the giver and his gifts, because through these gifts we meet God.

A Prophecy Told Me I Should Marry – Spiritual Gifts Q and A 3

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:46:00 PDT

The details of the following situation have been changed to protect the anonymity of those involved.

Q. A friend of mine has come to me for advice. His girlfriend has told him that one of her close friends told her that God wanted them to hurry up and get married. He is not so sure as they have only been going out for three weeks.

A. The first thing to say is that your friend needs to be reminded that modern prophecy is not authoritative. When it comes to affairs of the heart, in my opinion, wisdom and common sense trump so-called prophecy every day. There is massive potential for major damage and destruction on this. Even genuine prophecy can often be misinterpreted. It is a good idea to find out exactly what this person shared (preferably first-hand) and try to establish exactly what it was they felt God said, and how much of what they said to the girlfriend was actually their interpretation of what they thought they heard or saw.

It is just possible that the “word” itself may have been right, but the interpretation wrong. Is it possible, for example, that your friend was being too casual about the relationship? This word may have actually been intended as a wake-up call to him to be more intentional—that he should decide in his mind whether he could ever see himself marrying this girl. If the answer is a definite “no,” he should finish it, but if it is a distinct possibility, he should commit himself to intentionally pursuing a relationship with her in such a way that the goal of that relationship is to determine whether or not they will be married (even if that takes a few months or even years to decide), rather than to merely be in it for fun.

This kind of prophecy, however, is a “match” prophecy and one that I strongly discourage in almost every case. In this instance, the word was shared by someone very close to the girl, which would immediately further add to my suspicion that this might be wishful thinking rather than a true word. There are dangers in people who know each other too well prophesying for each other. The heart is very deceitful, and too often we hear what we would want God to say to our friend rather than what he is actually saying. You may want to think about having a conversation with the person who shared this “word.”

So, starting from a position of caution, let’s go through the checklist I shared in my sermon:

I wonder how this prophecy has left the girlfriend and your friend feeling? If they are feeling anxious, stressed, and not encouraged, then I would immediately tell them this word can’t be from God as it is not fulfilling the purposes of New Testament prophecy listed in the Bible.
How does this word make them feel about Jesus? Is the Jesus we see in the Bible impatient? I don’t think so! Jesus says that to him one day is like a thousand years. So the way this prophecy portrays Jesus is not glorifying to him at all!
I have already said that this prophecy is not really consistent with the Bible. The only possible link to biblical commands would be when Paul said we should marry rather than burn with lust. But, Paul was speaking about people who were already engaged, and surely your friends can exercise some self-control for a bit longer. I would take this opportunity to speak with them about keeping pure, however.
What about other ways God speaks to people? Firstly, would YOU, as their spiritual counselor, advise these people to marry just yet? I think not. The fact they have come to you is a good opportunity for you to show them that wise advice from a spiritual leader is far more valuable to us than any prophetic direction. What about their circumstances? Are they in a position financially to marry?
Wisdom speaks to us very clearly about marriage. It is not for nothing that the old words of the marriage service said that it should not be entered into hastily or carelessly. The string of divorces, even among Christians, warn us to be slow to jump into this life-long serious commitment. To vow to marry when you haven’t already at least gone through all four seasons together is usually very unwise.
The fact that this word has not left your friend with a clear sense of direction and desire to act in a certain way again makes me feel this is unlikely to have come from God.
Even if your friend’s girlfriend is full of faith for this, your friend is fully within his rights to simply tell her he is not ready to make that step. He should do that gently and kindly, and this whole process, which is perhaps difficult, can be used to help strengthen their still young relationship, and certainly teach them to trust in God and the fullness of all the different the ways in which he can speak to us today.

The Gift of Prophecy – How To Test It

adrian.warnock@gmail.com (Adrian Warnock) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:50:09 PDT

In today’s post I continue to share an edited transcript of my sermon on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The following is a list of questions to ask yourself as you test a prophecy:

Is it upbuilding and encouraging? Does it leave you feeling positive? Even if there is an element of rebuke in it (sometimes that does happen), there should be a positive feel to it.

Does it lift Jesus up? Is it honoring and glorifying to Jesus?

Is it consistent with the Bible? Is it in line with biblical teaching? Does it contradict the Bible, or does it resonate with the Bible? The Bible is the main way we hear from God, and the only authoritative way.

Is it consistent with the other ways in which we hear from God? We don’t just hear from God through prophecy. We hear from:
- The counsel of others.
  You need a wise, mature, spiritual Christian who is going on with God, who is growing, who knows God, who believes in the gifts, and yet is also wise so he can help you to weigh it. This is so important sometimes. If a prophetic word has been given to you, before you allow that to dominate your life and become a weight on your back, find someone like that you can speak to about this.
- Our circumstances
  Now that sounds very unspiritual, doesn’t it? Let me give you an example. If someone feels that God wants them to move, but then they can’t buy or sell a house, it just doesn’t work, does it? It’s not wrong sometimes to use circumstance as a kind of “fleece,” although we must be careful not to test God. Another example of how God uses circumstances is in our own gifting and abilities. If anyone came up to me and said , “Adrian, I really feel God is saying to you that you’re supposed to be a craftsman and you’ve got to build houses for Jesus, I would laugh at them. I can’t even put shelves up, okay? You can ask my wife about that. So I would know that was wrong because the circumstances told me so. This might sound very unspiritual. But it’s actually a vital way in which God directs us. Proverbs 3 gives us some conditions to fulfill, which promise us that God will make our paths straight or direct us. Interestingly, our ability to hear God in prophecy is not one of those conditions.

Is it wise? Is it consistent with wisdom? Sometimes what sounds like a great prophecy will come, and then we realize that there’s no wisdom in following it. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t feel right in our hearts. The consequences of a particular course of action may be very obviously such that it would be foolish to follow that word.

Does it give you a sense of direction, or does it leave you in no man’s land? Does it leave you feeling free and inspired and uplifted and driven on, or does it leave you feeling bound and condemned and fearful?

Do you have faith for it? If you have no inward witness that it’s right, then it is very unlikely that the word is correct. Go, pray about it, talk to others, and then if you still feel the same way, release yourself from any sense of obligation.

Some people reading this may need to be set free from previous words that have become a chain around their necks. If you are one such person, what God wants to do for you right now is to set you free from wrong prophecy that has come to you. Maybe it’s something you think God spoke to you, or maybe it’s something a well-meaning brother or sister came and shared with you, but actually the fruit in your life has been that you have been bound up by it. And maybe you’ve even made wrong decisions as a result of it. This general principle applies to many people, but one specific example that seems to repeat itself all too often is that a prophecy, whether or not the prophecy has actually said this, is interpreted as saying that God wanted you to be a so-called “number one” leader of a church. If that word is not a correct one, and you have tried to pursue that, you might have had very troubling consequences. Maybe you even were a leader for awhile, or perhaps you tried to pursue that and it’s just gone horribly wrong. Sometimes we need to realize that the word we thought was from God was not, and we need to be set free from living under false expectations. In that case, God would want to take that pressure off you and would actually want to say, “Not everybody is called to be the number one guy.” Speaking personally, I’m very grateful that I don’t believe God wants me to be a "number one" guy. It doesn’t mean I can’t serve God. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a ministry. It doesn’t mean I can’t do all kinds of things for God, but it does mean I know what my role really is. Prophecy is intended to help us find the role in which we are most suitable, not tie us up in knots pursuing something for which we are unsuited!

There are true prophesies that can take years to be fulfilled, and that’s okay. We believe in promises that are yet to come. We don’t want to lose the hope real prophecies, but we need wisdom to distinguish true words that we should cling to from words that have bound people up and condemned themand made them define their lives in the wrong way.

In the next post I will conclude this series, but I am aware that this post has focused a bit on the “negative” side of prophecy. I want to end, therefore, by saying that the capacity of prophecy to bring real hope, direction, faith, and strengthening is so huge that we must not let the dangers of prophecy stop us from eagerly pursuing this wonderful gift.