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Together On A Mission
 Report from the leadership
conference in BRIGHTON, UK
By Adrian Warnock
North London, UK
For some reason, as I think about the recent Together on a Mission 2008 conference, I find myself mentally reviewing the past 30 years. I attended the very first Downs Bible Week and almost every annual Newfrontiers conference since. We have an incredible heritage of life-changing, movement-transforming events that many of us have shared together.
In all those years, at least as far as I can remember, the only other occasion when a preacher has received a standing ovation was after Simon Pettit spoke on ‘Remember the Poor’. This year, when Mark Driscoll finished his final sermon, however, the crowd rose to its feet as one, many with tears streaming down their faces. Why was that? What was it about this week, and in particular the preaching of this man, who Terry Virgo likens to a new Spurgeon, that led us to act in such a non-British way?
Family reunion
One thing that definitely endeared Mark to us was that he seemed to understand and embrace the family feel of our group of churches. In some ways the values of Newfrontiers were summed up for me this year in a reunion afternoon tea I took between the sessions with some very dear friends of mine.
 We all began our Newfrontiers journeys in Sussex and have been a part of the family since at least the early days of Stoneleigh Bible Week. Since then, one couple has served God in Africa, London and now Southwest England, another serves in America, and the third in Japan. I am the only one still living just a few minutes away from where I had been when we first met! This scene of joyful reunion was being repeated many times during the week.
Intentional and strategic mission
Throughout all the preaching a single, very clear message seemed to emerge. God was challenging us to become more intentional and strategic about the missional work in which we are already engaged. He was calling us to speed up our church-planting efforts, and urging us to learn how to engage with non-Christian culture more effectively.
In many ways, although the messages felt fresh and challenging, there was nothing new about what we heard. After all, the Bible and its message has never changed! As I listened during the week, I had a flashback to the last Downs Bible Week, held back in the 80s, when Henry Tyler took a seminar series on being a missionary. He spoke about being on a mission both where you are and also to the ends of the earth.
I remember being filled with such a glorious sense of God’s call on us to reach the lost. This year’s conference echoed in me that same sense of excitement and urgency, and made me want to listen to Henry’s talks again. (Sadly I don’t have a copy of them, so if you have a box of tapes somewhere in your attic, do let me know!)
Faithful in a hostile culture
This year’s missional message began in the very first sermon as Stephen van Rhyn spoke from the book of Daniel about how to live as a faithful exile in a hostile culture. Stephen provoked us by quoting John Stott as follows:
‘It is comparatively easy to be faithful if we don’t care about being contemporary; it is also easy to be contemporary if you don’t care about being faithful. It is the search for the combination of truth and relevance which is [challenging].’
P-J Smyth gave us some very helpful practical advice on how a local church can successfully transition to having a new leader, and how to be on a mission together correctly honouring, but not idolising, our leaders. He also advised leaders on how to avoid violating their people’s consciences whilst still encouraging them to follow.
David Stroud took us to the example of Jonathan and his amour bearer. We were encouraged to have a bold, risk-taking faith that is also wise enough to take small steps first before committing to the big ones, all the time trusting God to confirm His guidance along the route.
David Devenish explored the idea of Christians being appointed ‘prophet to the nations’ from Jeremiah 1. He urged us to engage positively with culture, whilst holding tightly to our core value system that has the potential to transform the nations.
Stephen and Philip, two Spirit-filled models
One of the other reasons I found myself thinking about previous conferences during the week was the magnificent way in which Terry served us once again in his two talks. Some of my earliest memories of sermons are from when he did character studies. I have never heard anyone who inspires me more than he does when preaching about a servant of God.
He had felt compelled by God to speak of Stephen and Philip. He held them up as examples of people who pressed on in the purposes of God out of their own sense of vision and calling. They were both so flooded with God that they did more than they were appointed to do. Terry again emphasised the place of the miraculous among us, and it was thrilling to see thousands of hands going up when he asked which of us had recently seen healings in our local churches.
Terry commended Stephen to us as a ‘wisdom and power’ man. He noted that these days there are power websites and there are wisdom websites: if you go to the power site, there is no wisdom, and if you go to the wisdom site, there is no power. He urged us rather than being drawn to either extreme and rejecting either teaching or the supernatural to instead hang onto our beliefs, and press into God for more of the Holy Spirit’s activity.
Terry spoke of Philip’s willingness to serve in a high profile position, behind the scenes to the individual, and also in practical ways. He spoke about the need for us to hold our ‘ministries’ lightly, and be willing to make room for others to serve in the way God is calling them to do.
 Relevant to the culture
Mark Driscoll began his first session by boldly stating that there were five errors he felt charismatics often fall into, and that we had avoided all but one of them – a tendency not to be intentionally missional enough. In his second session he then explained in detail what he meant by engaging the culture in order to
reach it. He urged us, ‘We don’t
MAKE Jesus relevant, we show how
he already IS relevant.’
In his final session, Mark gave an analysis of the history of movements and how he felt that applied to Newfrontiers. He also urged us to look at our systems and methods with fresh eyes in order to preserve our identity as a movement. Citing the example of Vineyard, he urged us to ensure that we flourished for years to come for the sake of the world that needs many more grace-filled, Spirit-empowered churches.
At the end of his message Mark shared an emotive prophetic picture with us. He believed that God was saying that Terry, at some point in the future, would have to walk Newfrontiers like a much-loved daughter down the aisle to be married to someone else. In an interview recorded at Jubilee Church in North London and available online (see below), Mark was eager to stress that he felt the timeframe for Terry identifying a replacement was not immediate. He also urged us not to engage in fruitless speculation, but instead to commit to pray daily for Terry that God will reveal to him who that man should be, and exactly when and how that transition should take place.
Mark also told us that he felt he had learned much from being with us, and had met a movement which was, in many ways, remarkably similar to his own Acts 29 Network. Given the fatherly tone and gracious but firm mes sage coming from an outsider, the people’s warm response to Mark seemed appropriate.
I attended the prophetic seminars, and it was good to hear there of two very specific outcomes of last year’s equivalent seminar. In response to the prophetic, a childless couple had conceived and have since had a baby, and a church plant in Paris has begun. For all the talk of the past and future of our movement, this year was also a time when many met with God as individuals. One young man known to our local church attended the Mobilise conference having not been in church for a long time. Caught up in the vision of what could be, he declared as the week progressed he no longer wanted to waste his life. A big picture and many individual impacts – what more could we want from a conference?
Adrian Warnock is a member of the leadership team of Jubilee Church in North London. His full report of the Together on a Mission conference, including session summaries and video interviews, is available online.
Free mp3 downloads of the sessions are also available at: www.newfrontiers.xtn.org
Dates for next year: 7 - 10 July 2009, Brighton, UK |
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