Our Journey Together

By Terry Virgo

When I first visited Nigel and Janita Ring’s home to speak at a mid-week gathering in 1973 it never occurred to me that this would be the first step in what would ultimately come to be called Newfrontiers.

Having seen the transformation of my home church in Seaford, Sussex, I was invited to their home to address a group of Christians on charismatic issues. This led to subsequent visits where I kept teaching truths about the church, the Holy Spirit, the grace of God and related themes.

I used to take a car full of guys with me from my home church who helped to model informal worship sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It also led to the joy of laying hands on people and seeing the Holy Spirit make his presence felt. Numbers multiplied until Nigel found it necessary to extend his house. Subsequently, one of the couples who attended moved and invited me to their new home near Horsham, where a similar process took place.

The number of house churches that I helped to get started, multiplied. Gradually mid-week meetings became local churches. Men began to leave their secular jobs and become pastors of growing congregations. Ultimately houses were outgrown and buildings were hired. Later, warehouses would be bought, millions of pounds would be raised and spent, and very substantial churches would be established.

Bible Weeks were started, gathering thousands. Gradually existing churches, who wanted to transform their traditional church life into something more flexible, grace-based and Spirit-filled, reached out for help.

The number of churches I was involved with multiplied, taking me out of Sussex, initially into Kent, Surrey and South London.

It became impossible to respond to the growing number of invitations to help new churches, so I began to ask guys with whom I had worked for a while if they could possibly help me and travel on my behalf.

Our Journey Together

By Terry Virgo

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