Awesome Unity!
Recently Terry Virgo was preaching on "Gathered Together As One Man" at his home church, CCK Brighton. I heard the tape of him giving this message at Stoneleigh in 1998 so I was really interested to hear how this message may have developed and matured. I was quite blown away really by one example of something that the Newfrontiers leadership are doing in the UK.
Terry is calling together a whole host of leaders from across the UK; Mark Stibbe, Nicky Gumbel, Stuart Bell, Steve Thomas (Salt and Light), Greg Haslam and others to pray and simply be together.
I think that every now and then Newfrontiers can come under attack for elitism and for individualism. This serves as a clear illustration to me of how Terry's heart is for the whole church of God. So exciting to hear!
3 comments:
Wow ... and then he finished the sermon by talking of a foreign speaker (I didn't catch his name) who has spent some time in meetings in Reading with considerable blessing.
Terry emailed him and asked him to come back to the Brighton Leaders Conference next year and the speaker replied saying that it was extrodinary because God had spoken to him before he came to Reading - promising blessing BUT also saying that he would be invited back again and again.
This was to be a sign that God was coming to the nation in blessing again.
Wowwww ... I know I've written of disappointment at previous promises of blessing. And yes - the cynic in me says; "Not again". But surely we must rise with hope ... we must know that God is for us ... his desire is to bless ... and make sure we're at Brighton next year!! ;)
There is a decent degree of unity between churches in Reading, with 30 pastors meeting to pray each week and some other initiatives. Often not as gospel-centric as I'd like to see.
Unity is a funny thing, do we see unity on any terms, or unity in the things that matter the most....
Presumably newfrontiers instigated unity keeps the main thing as the main things.
Yep you've touched on a tricky one there. "Unity" has been a word that is often used to batter down those questioners. "Be quiet ... we must be united". Unity I guess can often become the object of something so whittled down (i.e everything in the Word of God that we don't agree on - we throw out) that it barely exists!!
So what is unity? Is it possible to have a discussion about WHAT it is before having to start with what we don't agree on!!!?
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