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How I See It
By Jeremy Simkins
I’ve often thought of how different my life would have been if I hadn’t reluctantly visited one of Terry’s first church plants in Hastings way back in 1979! That historic night for me birthed a passion for the church, to which I’ve given my life for over 30 years!
Hearing Terry I was arrested by the radical message of God’s grace, glimpsing for the first time who I was ‘in Christ’ and experiencing the reality of Jesus’ passionate love for His bride and the filling of His Spirit to propel us out to reach the nations!
At the same time my parents introduced me to the works of their old pastor, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. His writings have probably helped to shape my theology more than anyone else.
As I look back over the decades I realise what a privilege it has been to be caught up with Newfrontiers, one of the most pioneering movements of the 20th Century.
In the 1980s I attended the very first residential year of training, based in Brighton. Upon returning home, I married Ann and was soon to become one of the youngest leaders in the church, being affectionately known as ‘the baby elder’!
The 1990s began with Ann and me finding ourselves at the front of the Brighton Leaders Conference spontaneously responding to Dr Kriengsak’s powerful invitation to church plant. Soon after that we moved to Eastbourne to be part of one of the early Newfrontiers strategic church plants!
As the new millennium began to dawn we were once again propelled out, but this time much further, ‘up North’. This was to play our part in fulfilling the ‘bow and arrow’ vision, the cord being pulled up the country, to strengthen and plant churches in order to fire arrows to the nations.
A decade later the church we planted on Teesside had grown to over 300, with over 25 nations presented, and had planted out churches across the North.
But Ann and I are still ‘on the move’. Last year we relocated to serve ‘Christ Central’, a city-centre church right in the heart of Manchester, one of the UK’s most vibrant and cultural cites, famous the world over for it’s cutting edge music, media and of course sports!
I am now leading the North Team with nine interlocking regions forming a great engine of friends working together serving 70 churches and church plants. It’s true that ‘we can do more together than apart’.
One of the expressions of our togetherness has been to form the North Bible Weekend. Starting with only 450 campers in 2004, we have now grown to an anticipated 2,500 this year. It has been truly wonderful to see hundreds of children giving their lives to Jesus and to experience the birthing of multiple church plants across central and northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Canada, Scandinavia and now Africa.
All this leaves me with a deep passion for true apostolic Christianity, a fusion of God’s Word and His Spirit resulting in powerful combustions exploding us out ‘from the North to the Nations!’
Dozens of churches in the north of the UK are served by Jeremy Simpkins and his multiplied teams of leaders.
Having moved from the south coast where he was involved first in the pioneering King’s Church Hastings and subsequently King’s Church Eastbourne, Jeremy and his wife Ann relocated initially to Teesside where Jubilee Church has prospered and grown, and then most recently to take the leadership of Christ Central in Manchester. From there Jeremy not only provides leadership to the 60+ churches in the North but also has a growing sphere of responsibility in Canada, where Newfrontiers churches appreciate his regular involvement.
Jeremy also hosts the growing Bible weekend in the North in August where 2,500 people are expected to gather this coming summer and where his developing apostolic commitment to planting churches across the North of England, Scotland, Wales, Canada and beyond will be celebrated and owned by the expanding number of churches who attend.
Further south, Guy Miller was involved initially in Winchester, and then relocated to Bournemouth where the Citygate Church has flourished under his leadership. He and his team serve a growing number of churches predominantly in the south-west of the UK where their annual Westpoint camp anticipates gathering about 1,500 this summer.
Guy also carries huge responsibility overseas, initially in Portugal and now throughout the Iberian Peninsular where he is involved with six churches.
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