How I See It

By Peter Brooks

In 1987 Susan and I left Australia in our early twenties and started to back-pack around the world. We literally took a one way ticket to Singapore and headed north asking God to take us wherever He wanted.

After some incredible adventures in numerous nations we ended up six months later in the UK. In Brighton we walked into a cinema where the now Church of Christ The King met under Terry Virgo’s leadership. What started on that day was a renewed love affair with God, His church and the lost, which eighteen years later propelled Susan and me along with our four children (who were all born in the UK) around the world again.

In Brighton God did many things in my life. I started to work out God’s call which I had heard Him speak over me when I was thirteen years old. I began to embrace and understand the person of the Holy Spirit.

I became aware that the expression of church I had previously known was not true to the New Testament. I also became passionate to see a dynamic church raised up amongst every tribe and tongue.

God has promised His Son a massive inheritance. The Pacific Rim is a big part of this and we in Newfrontiers have a significant contribution to make. My passion is to see literally millions saved and swept into churches that are vibrant, faith-filled and full of the Word and Spirit. I thank God for churches we now have in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Cambodia and the Philippines but this is only a beginning. God has already given us promises about Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, whilst numerous other nations are on our door step as well!

Raising up men and women who will play their part in leading dynamic churches is a huge part of my role as I oversee the work in the Pacific Rim. I thank God that Susan and I could walk unknown into one of our churches in 1988 and within a year be launched into leading the youth work. What followed was an opportunity to lead the eldership team, and then the fulfilment of what God had spoken into my heart many years before, an opportunity to oversee the planting and building of churches in my home region!

I am incredibly excited about our future as a family of churches. If God can use me, believe me, He can use anyone! The greatest move on the earth by God globally is still to happen. If you are not yet fully involved in His purposes then get involved because the adventures that await are without measure and full of glory!

Another young man who arrived on our shores and turned up at Church of Christ the King was Peter Brooks from Sydney, Australia.

Together with his wife Susan, he quickly won our hearts and was invited to take over the church’s youth work. Later he became an elder and subsequently the leading elder of the church. While with us he fully embraced all the values that we hold dear and exemplified them in his own life in a remarkable way.

Peter had always said that one day he would return to Sydney; now he is there. With Steve Brading and Mike Irving alongside him, Pete is building Grace City Church and serving churches throughout what we call the Pacific Rim. I know that our friends, not only in Australia but also in New Zealand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Japan, greatly value Pete’s robust faith, exuberant joy and strong dependence on the Holy Spirit. They all testify to the help and encouragement they receive from his life-imparting involvement with them.

Peter’s sphere of churches represents our most recent geographical involvement. Australia and New Zealand can provide launch pads to the vast mission field to the North, the millions of South East Asia.

Peter demonstrated while he was in England a great skill in developing young men for future ministry. Some are now pastors in churches in the UK and our former student leader from CCK, Tom Eaton (right) with his wife Julie, are still working with Peter as they plant the church in Nagoya, Japan.

The whole of Australasia and the teeming millions of South East Asia present a vast field of service. Peter is strongly motivated to continue raising up leaders, planting churches and invading this vast area with church plants. I am thrilled that Newfrontiers is advancing in this hugely populated area which is buzzing with life and so needing the gospel, and I am delighted that Peter and Susan came right around the world in order to be joined to us and to be sent back to do such a great work.

How I See It

By Peter Brooks

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