Information AboutNewfrontiers |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT NEWFRONTIERS | |
| charismatic and pentecostal christianity | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Newfrontiers describes itself as an international family of churches together on a mission. Newfrontiers is rapidly growing and in September 2005 was approaching 500 churches worldwide. Newfrontiers has its roots in the Charismatic Movement and was one of several groups that were influenced by a group of men gathered by Arthur Wallis. Today Newfrontiers is a worldwide family of Churches, together on a mission to establish the Kingdom of God by restoring the church, making disciples, training leaders and planting churches. HISTORY Newfrontiers itself began out of the ministry of leader Terry Virgo who had been somewhat disillusioned as a young Christian by his experiences of church. As a pastor of a church on an estate in Seaford in the UK, he formulated the desire of building a church that was biblical both in its doctrine and in its experience. He was influenced by the teaching of Arthur Wallis regarding restorationism. This is the belief that a return of charismatic gifts to the traditional denominations was not sufficient. Rather the restoration of New Testament forms of church government, as described in St. Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, was essential to a reviving of the Christian Church. The movement has been strongly shaped by bible weeks, which are usually a week long and involve preaching from the apostolic team (essentially the main leaders of the denomination). The Downs bible week ran for a decade from 1979 and gathered more and more people and churches who wanted to hear the Bible teaching and experience the lively worship. As the years passed by, the churches relating to Terry Virgo forged an alliance to work together to start new churches and carry out missionary work and Newfrontiers as we know it today was born. In those early years Newfrontiers was basically a small group of churches in southern England (most notably Bedfordshire and Sussex), but from very early on the group began to be involved in working in other nations. Newfrontiers now has churches across the British Isles and in every continent of the world. After a break from the Downs bible weeks of a few years, Newfrontiers started the Stoneleigh Bible week in 1991. This conference also focussed on bible teaching and worship albums were released. Musicians such as Paul Oakley, Stuart Townend , Kate Simmonds and the group Phatfish were all featured on these albums. Stoneleigh was stopped in its tenth year following a prophecy and the group now focuses on evangelism and church planting, aiming to grow to be a thousand churches in the UK and to have individual churches with more than a thousand members. Newfrontiers run an annual international leaders conference where thousands of church leaders and Christians in their 20s come from around the world to gather for the now familiar mix of Bible teaching and lively worship times. This conference in Brighton attracts in excess of 3,000 people a year including people from other denominations. As it continues its work of planting new churches Newfrontiers is one of only a few groups of churches in Europe which are consistently growing in numbers and attracting young people. BELIEFS AND DISTINCTIVES Newfrontiers today remains an Evangelical group which largely teaches Reformed theology but remains modern and informal in their worship style. Newfrontiers churches tend to hold to a Complementarian position on gender similar to that promoted by the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womenhood. Worship often takes the form of soft rock and even on occasion dance/drum and bass music. Worship times are free flowing and church members are encouraged to participate by praying, reading passages of Scripture, or by using spiritual gifts such as prophecy, speaking in tongues or interpreting tongues. The group believes God still gives spiritual gifts, including Apostolic and prophetic ministry to the church today. This is why a Newfrontiers slogan is "Changing the expression of Christianity around the world". The Newfrontiers approach to church and the format of services has a reputation for being unconventional and informal. Popular culture is embraced providing that it is moral and not in conflict with evangelical Christian beliefs. Sermons are often humorous and attempt to relate Christianity to the contemporary world. Spiritual analogies from popular films and books are used. They passionate commitment to build the church according to what they see as New Testament principles, they believe that the most effective form of evangelism is worked out from strong local churches. Churches where each member participates, the gifts of the Spirit are outworked, where there is joy in caring one for the other, where there is a desire to make a difference in society and to reach those in need. They aim to achieve this by restoring the church to its new testament constitution, making disciples, training leaders, planting churches and reaching the nations. They are also strong proponents of the Alpha Course . BUILDINGS AND MEETING VENUES Churches in Newfrontiers meet in a variety of different locations. Some, such as for example Brickhill Baptist Church retain their Baptist roots and meet in a traditional church building. Many others meet in schools and other non-religious venues - in at least one case a Newfrontiers church in london meets in a multiplex cinema. A number of churches, including Terry Virgo's home church in Brighton , have bought old warehouses and converted them into large places of worship. Perhaps the most unusual venues are an old Tram powerstation that now houses a church in Newcastle , a former bus garage that has been converted into a community church in Norfolk and a former Synagogue that houses a church in Sheffield . FURTHER READING
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