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Churches obey an Apostolic Mandate
By Nigel Ring
Brighton, UK
 In the early ‘90s at the Stoneleigh Bible Week (an annual conference we used to run which grew from 8,500 – 28,000 in eleven years) we decided to interview some of those who were involved in ministries of mercy. Although there were probably about 150 Newfrontiers churches at that stage we found it hard to identify more than a handful of people to interview. Piet Dreyer was launching Project Gateway in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa to train people in employment skills, and Angela Kemm was advocating for those living in shacks in the townships outside Cape Town which resulted in building 650 homes when apartheid ended.
However, God spoke to us very specifically in 1998 through Simon Pettit when he preached at our then bi-annual Leaders’ Conference in Brighton from Galatians 2:10. Writing to the Galatian church Paul told them that he had been commissioned from Jerusalem to take the gospel to the gentiles but, in doing so, he was also charged to remember the poor, the very thing he ‘was eager to do’. This Scripture probably referred primarily to those among the believers in Jerusalem who were suffering famine or whose businesses had been affected as a result of converting to Christianity. However, Simon expanded his message to demonstrate from this and other Scriptures that ‘to remember the poor’ is not an optional extra but an apostolic mandate for all ages.
Simon’s prophetic message, for that was how we received it, changed us significantly. As a Millennium initiative we took a substantial offering at the Stoneleigh Bible Week in 1999 and were able to channel nearly £300,000 towards ministries in the UK to set up about twenty ‘models’ in different ‘sectors’, such as homelessness, furniture projects and crisis pregnancy counselling, during the year 2000. This was followed by the five-year initiative, Act Together, through which we sought to facilitate and encourage all our churches internationally to engage effectively with the poor in their local communities. Now there is an international Task Team, led by Steve Oliver, which is looking at the theology of the poor and is seeking to ensure that every apostolic sphere is active in helping churches to pursue excellence in this important application of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Since the beginning of 2008 we have been surveying Newfrontiers churches to assess how successful we are being and to help promote networking. As a family of churches we have a prophetic word that we can achieve ‘more together than apart’ and networking across churches with similar interests is a powerful way of bringing practical application to this word from God.
So how are we doing? So far we have received responses from 290 churches with encouraging results. Between them they are involved in 604 ‘social action’ or ‘development’ ministries. These range across 26 sectors (see panel) and we have discovered that on average each respondent church is touching 4-5 sectors, some ministries touching more than one sector or theme (eg both Human Trafficking and Sex Workers). This represents nearly 1200 ‘impacts’ in the results so far analysed. These numbers are very encouraging. Can you imagine how many thousands of people are being exposed to the love of Jesus through all these impacts? We are increasingly aware of people who have been lifted out of poverty into places of hope. Some are even in Christian leadership as a result of such ministries.
These results will be published shortly on the Newfrontiers website with relevant contact details. It is our desire that those who are already active and those who are considering new ministries will network together, maybe geographically or within areas of common interest, in order to support and help one another. Our expectation is that this will raise the standards of how we minister and also increase the fruitfulness. To support such initiatives, materials are being developed including Introductory Guides (eg HIV/AIDS, Education) and DVDs demonstrating key indicators of ‘good practice’ to help people develop ministries that will bear much fruit. These will also appear on the website, www.newfrontiers.xtn.org/socialaction.
Through working with the poor in its community, every local church can be effective in fulfilling the kingdom mandate to ‘bring good news to the poor’ in word and deed. Let us pray and encourage one another to grow and be increasingly like Jesus as we seek to be his mouthpiece, his hands, his feet to bring hope to the broken-hearted and to see men and women raised up to be ‘oaks of righteousness’ whom the Lord has planted to his glory
(Isa. 61:1–3). |
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