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How I See It
By David Stroud
My first experience of Newfrontiers
was literally life-changing. During an early conference, I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit and my relationship with God exploded into life. I found a new passion for Him and wanted everyone else to know about it! I was captivated by the fact that the church had the power to transform a community and that God wanted to be known in this nation and right around the world.
25 years on this same passion still grips my heart and it is a wonderful privilege to be working with many churches across the UK and beyond. Moreover I now get to do this work with a wonderful team of other leaders, many of whom have apostolic ministries in their own right. This includes Guy Miller, Jeremy Simpkins, Steve Tibbert and increasingly, David Devenish, Colin Baron and David Holden.
For me the adventure of glorifying God in the nations starts with the local church. Many, many of these need to be started so that they can serve their communities and lead many to Christ. This is why at present, we are starting up to ten churches a year in different parts of the UK, rural, provincial and urban, and why I moved to central London a few years ago to start a church right in the centre of the capital.
Recently, I have appreciated much more of the force of Jesus’ message that the ‘kingdom is here’. In other words, Jesus, who one day will ‘make all things new’ wants to begin this process right now. He does so by reconciling men and women to himself, but also by healing bodies, feeding the hungry, clothing the homeless and re-shaping the very fabric of society. This means that we can announce the coming of the kingdom in many different ways as we seek to serve our communities, helping solve their most intransigent problems and consequently lead them to the One who has shown us how to live.
I have also begun to understand how significant the centre of the great cities of the world are. Not only are these cities full of people (more than 50% of the world now dwell in them) but they are often the most influential places to live and work as well. This is why we are looking to start many more churches in the global cities. As we do so, we not only lead people to Christ but also start to be able to season the culture with the very best ways of living.
It is why we have been involved in starting churches in places like Belfast, Dublin, Paris, Berlin and Madrid in recent years and pray often for New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and the other international hubs of the world.
As we press on, it is a terrific privilege that we get to do this with a huge family of men and women who God has joined together and we move forward relying on the Word of God to guide us and the Spirit to empower us that his kingdom may come and God might restore all things.
Terry takes up the story again …
Returning full circle to the UK, where, with our largest number of churches and longest history, it’s a great joy to introduce David Stroud. Having planted King’s Arms in Bedford and Oasis in Birmingham, David has demonstrated remarkable faith and courage in leading the charge into the theatre world of central London with the exciting ChristChurch, meeting formerly at the Piccadilly Theatre and now at the Mermaid.
David is motivated not only to plant churches but also to see the national culture affected by the presence of robust churches full of radiant believers proving themselves to be salt and light in multiplied work settings and places of influence, having a tangible effect on the society around us.
His leadership skills are not only wonderfully evident in his God-given ability to lead the 700+ people at our regular prayer and fasting events, but were also demonstrated as he gathered and led the recent Everything conference in central London which celebrated the truth that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.
His extremely helpful book Planting Churches, Changing Communities shows the key place of church planting in God’s strategy for the transformation of culture and changing the community. It makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of key aspects of kingdom advance.
Care for churches in the UK is expressed through a number of teams who co-labour with David and his team, which consists of some very gifted leaders in their own right. Steve Tibbert, for example, not only leads the burgeoning King’s Church, Catford, where he has seen phenomenal blessing and growth since his arrival in the capital, but he also serves and provides specialised training for a number of growing churches in the UK and, with others, provides leadership and motivation to churches in the Greater London area.
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