CCK Life blog

Main Seminar 6: Terry Virgo – Newfrontiers part 2- Present

What a preach!! Make sure you download the video, this is something you don’t want to miss out on! There was such a sense of wonder as Terry glorified Jesus and His Bride, the Church in the final session of Day 2 in a way that only he can. It really is such a privilege to be a part of a family that has such a biblical understanding of the Church as God meant it to be.

1. We must treasure the Church
It must have been an incredible revelation for Paul when he heard a voice say ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’ Great is the mystery of the unity between Christ and His Body, the Church. In Phil 4:1 Paul’s overwhelming exuberance is sensed as he refers to the church as “my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, dear friends.” Great grace was on them all. They were a people overwhelmed by God’s grace.For freedom Christ has set us free. We have to preach grace.
2. The church is where we loose our individualism and personal agenda
If you want to find your life you have to loose it. How? In the stuff of relationships. In stuff of Church building. The fruits of the Spirit grow in the ‘one another’ context. The most magnificent things about Jesus are not meant for theological books, but to transform you. The cross transforms. God wants to build leaders He can trust. Sanctification is impossible alone. We are called to make disciples. We are called to serve. Don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another (become a slave).
3. Joyful obedience
God is worthy of obedience. It is the best thing to do, otherwise it becomes rules and legalism. Satan lies that God is holding back. The church not only consists of individual obedience, but corporate obedience as well.
4. Utterly committed to building biblically
We’re on a mission around the world to build biblical churches. Churches that are transformed by the guidance of the Spirit. Democracy may be the way to run countries, but it is not the way to run churches.
5. Restoration
Nehemiah rebuilt the walls and the city. We need distinctives back.Restoration also means the return of the presence of God.
David wanted the Ark back. He could not run the nation without God’s presence. The Church is the dwelling place of God’s Spirit where He is neither quenched or grieved, but revered and glorified. Peter was with Jesus all the time – that’s what being a Christian was to him. Being with Jesus is breath taking; being with the Holy Spirit is magnificent. Jesus went back to His Father and sent His Spirit in His place. We’re to be with Him. His presence makes us distinct.

The Church is a community of love worked out in relationships where the presence of God loves to dwell.

Main Seminar 5:Stephen Van Rhyn – Grace

Stephen leads the newfrontiers church in Cape Town, South Africa, supports Manchester United and delights in poking fun at Brighton in comparison to Cape Town! He is also an outstanding preacher and a very gifted communicator.

Stephen began his preach with a story – the gripping tale of Abraham and his son, Issac. He started off with the promise and miraculous birth of Issac and then lead us to Mount Moriah where God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Issac. He then compared this to Calvary – A similar story where a Father had to sacrifice His one and only Son, only this time, His hand was not stayed.

What are the implications of this grand story for us as a family of churches together on a mission?
From Phil 1:1-11, Stephen brought out the following 3 key learnings.

1. Grace to you
God’s grace must touch us personally before we seek to touch anyone else. Grace is the centerpiece of Paul’s gospel. Salvation begins with God and God finished what He starts. The day of completion is when Jesus returns in all His glory. Does your confidence lie in this great truth? Or do you place your trust in numerical growth or manifested Holy Spirit power?
2. Grace on display
Even though salvation is an intensely personal affair, Christianity is not private. Without the gospel we have no church. God is after communities of people who will demonstrate His glory and power.
3. Grace to the nations
Churches impact cities. In Gen 20, God promises Abraham that through his offspring, the nations will be blessed. The gospel is communicated through relationships. Churches should be connected to apostolic ministry in mutual love and respect and humility. The question is not “who will succeed Terry?”, but “who are you connected to?”

Mobilise Main Seminar 1: Andrew Wilson – The Cross and The Cosmos

One of the brightest minds in newfrontiers kicked off Mobilise today morning. Mobilise is the training track for students and twenties with aim of raising up leaders  to plant churches and affect campuses and workplaces for the glory of God.

Andrew used 5 story lines that run through the Bible and showed us how they found their fulfillment in Jesus Christ on the cross. Colossians 1:1-15 was the text for Andrew’s preach.

Story 1: The creation story. God made man in His image. Man rebelled and chose to usurp the authority of his Creator. The problem of evil arose. A new man made in the image of God was needed.

Jesus: A Man who is the image of God. (Col 1:15)

Story 2: God calls Abraham and sets a part a people for Himself. But the hope for the world (Israel) turn to sin and become the problem not the solution. A new covenant was needed.
Jesus: In Him, we have been qualified into the Kingdom of God. (Col 1:12)

Story 3:The exodus. Yahweh ransomed the Israelites from slavery and crushed their oppressors.A new redemption was needed from a more powerful enemy.

Jesus: On the cross,  He rescued and delivered us from sin and death. (Col 1:13-14)

Story 4: The exile. The Temple was destroyed and Israel wept because Yahweh had judged them. But there was hope – they believed Yahweh would forgive them their  sins and raise them from the dead.

Jesus: One the cross, death was undone. (Col 2:13-14)

Story 5: The Roman oppression. Israel was ruled by the oppressive might of Rome. Under the cry, ‘Roma Victor’ the Romans would steal people’s countries and impose their government on them. The cross a symbol of Roman authority. It made a bold statement - If you rebel against our authority we will kill you.

Jesus: And having disarmed the powers and authorities, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col 2:15)

To read an interview with Andrew Wilson which I had the privilege of conducting, please click here.

Leadership Main Seminar 4: David Stroud – Daniel: affecting society

David Stroud leads the newfrontiers church in the West End of London. David used the life of Daniel (from Daniel 1) to show us how we need to engage with society in way that glorifies God’s name. He used 5 questions followed by 6 key learnings to communicate his message.

Q1. What does God value? (Dan 1:1-2)
God cares about everything that happened in Babylon. God created everything and loves everything.

Q2. How should we get involved? (Jer 29:4-7; Gen 12:1-3)
Look similar but differ in your heart. Take confidence that God has promised that you will be a blessing to the nations.

Q3. what should we be thinking? (Dan 1:6-8)
Be wise and sensitive.
- what should we accept from culture?
- what should we redeem from culture?
- what should we change in culture?

Q4. what should our vision be?
Influence but not ultimate transformation.

Q5 How will things end? (Dan 1:21)
Isaiah prophesied that Cyrus would set the Israelites free. Be faithful until the end.

6 Key learnings from Daniel
1. Daniel said yes and gave himself whole heartedly
2. Daniel was part of a team (dan 1:7)
3. Dan did not allow the cost to deter him (dan 1:13-14; 5:17)
4. Daniel and his team were outstanding candidates (1:20)
- encourage people to work hard
- value education and secular learning
- look for the favour of God
5. Dan continued as a man of prayer and the Spirit (1:17)
6. Daniel became someone who was listened to (2:24)

Andrew Wilson is an Elder at King’s Church, Eastbourne, husband to Rachel, father to Ezekiel and author of Deluded by Dawkins and Incomparable. Andrew holds degrees in Theology from Cambridge and London and is not someone you’d want to engage in debate with if you’ve only read the introduction and conclusion to The Origin of Species! Yohaan Philip recently had the privilege of interviewing him and writes:

It’s quite interesting that the setting for this interview is not a massive room, with walls filled to the ceiling with a wide assortment of books and a plush brown leather chair behind a stately oak table as would befit a man of the intellectual calibre that I am about to interview. We are seated in the children’s playroom in the Clarendon Centre, surrounded by dolls houses, plastic balls and a Hot Wheels garage set. It leads me to my first question.

YP: Congratulations Andrew (call him Andy and you incur his wrath!)You’ve recently become a dad for the first time! How does that feel?
AW: It’s absolutely amazing! Ezekiel ‘Zeke’ Jack James Wilson is his name. He’s reading all the right books. He sleeps well and he’s just beautiful. It’s life changing. It has also been a spiritual thing – it has shown me more about God. You get home at the end of the day and wow there’s this other person. Your family has doubled, it’s just extraordinary! The passion you feel for this person and how you want the absolute best for him – it’s fantastic!

My mind drifts to Andrew’s book, Incomparable. Andrew does well to make lofty truths on God an easy read without losing a sense of awe of the God he writes about. How does he do it?!

YP: You are quite the intellect across the Newfrontiers family of churches. Everybody raves about Incomparable. What has helped shaped your thoughts?
AW: I was blessed early on. Academically sound thinkers who had a God saturated view of the world came across my path. Though some of them disagreed with each other, they all began with a very Theo-centric (God-centric) view of reality. John Piper’s been more influential to me more than anyone else. I read books by Judson Cornwall and Tom Wright at a formative stage of my thinking, where I just suddenly realised that if there’s a place of studying hard and working hard it has got to come from a God-saturated view of the world.

I remember listening to an eight message series Judson Cornwall preached on Psalm 8:1 “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” He preached on the names of God. This really fired me up. I began to think that this guy is making the character of God something very important that I needed to know, not by him saying you need to know God, but by him telling me who God was. Then I began to notice this trend reappearing in other key writers and thinkers (like Piper) that I interacted with, and I thought “there’s something about knowing who God is that has dramatic application in and of itself.” It’s almost like I can preach on God and not give an application, and it does the work for me. You preach on holiness and people will feel convicted of sin. You preach on love and people will feel overwhelmed with the compassion of God. You preach grace and people will be able to stop sinning. These doctrines of who God is, in them have true power. I think probably some people may occasionally think, “if I don’t apply this all the time instantly, then maybe it’s of no use to anyone” and I’m not sure that’s true. I think there is sometimes power in just saying ‘behold your God’ and that became a specialization for me. I felt God saying that I should preach on nothing else but the character of God, which I did for about 2 years. This God-lead initiative for me to just preach on Him has been foundational for me.

Andrew is almost jumping out of his seat, alive with passion. It’s contagious!

Andrew also oversees Phase 1 of the Future Leadership training programme run by Newfrontiers in Brighton and it has been here that I have grown to respect and adore this spirit-filled young man who engages with God with his heart and mind. I’ve had the privilege of worshipping God along with Andrew during training, and his heartfelt prayers are filled with such a depth of an understanding of who God is that you are immediately drawn into intimate worship.

YP: As someone who loves to study about God, how do you personally ensure that you aren’t relating to God on a purely cerebral level rather than living being filled with the Spirit  – we can know lots of things but the Holy Spirit is the one who underlines reality.
AW: I’m not sure if I do all the time, if I’m honest. I think sometimes I am aware that my devotional times with God have such a strong emphasis on the Word that often I feel like times of praying and enjoying God can suffer. I find my way of approaching that over the last year or so is to realise that I need longer chunks of time and to spend a day or a morning just spending time with God. I told my wife last night that I prefer ‘hanging out with the Trinity” and she laughed at that! Sometimes I don’t even take my Bible with me but just talk to God because my bias is to read and study and find revelation and excitement. It could stay at just a cerebral level if I didn’t spend those times worshiping God. At the same time I’ve come to a place of not being ashamed that the main way I connect with God is through my mind, and that’s ok so long as it’s being expressed in praise and joy and love. The risk I would have is if I was just studying for debates. The crucial thing is spending your time studying on God, the gospel, the great truths. If I spend my time mugging up on eschatology, as important as it is, or Calvinism or Arminianism or whatever debates are on the table, I would have lost that.
Also, being in a charismatic church helps and being surrounded by people and the pressure of “pray for me for healing.” I can’t do that just from having read the Word. I’ve got to be devotionally in step with the Spirit, otherwise I’m going to flunk this. I’m not going to be able to show you any power of healing. I’ve got to be in line with God otherwise this wont work.

I throw a cheeky question in..

YP: What are you doing in Eastbourne?! I heard you moved from London to Eastbourne. I hear from a reliable source that the average age group at Eastbourne  is 45 – 60 years. You make an impact with young people so why Eastbourne?
AW: It’s amazing to me that Steve Boon is now a reliable source! (laughs)
YP: (laughs) But he is a very reliable source!

AW: I moved to Eastbourne to marry Rachel, but I stayed there because I felt God lead me to staying there and being part of the work there (Kings Church, Eastbourne), and particularly about Eldership – which I came into about 5 months ago. A friend of mine said that when you become an elder somewhere you basically raise the bar for God to speak to you to move you along. It’s no longer ok to just say “I feel like doing something else now.” I believe in the sovereignty of God speaking, and having a high view of God being able to prophetically speak to me personally has in fact increased my likelihood to stay where I am. So without being super-spiritual I’d have to say this is what God’s got for me now. But if you ask my wife or me, I don’t think we’d anticipate being in Eastbourne our entire lives or ministries, but for the moment we’re there until God moves and we’re thrilled about that.

And just in case anyone in Brighton thinks “full of old people”, we’ve got 700 plus people on a Sunday and a lot of them are young who need discipling and teaching. But having said that I love coming to Brighton and sitting in Borders and drinking coffee and reading in Starbucks. I love the city.

On that positive note, I bid him adieu and leave feeling quite enriched.