Category: Restoration in the Church

Church-based Evangelism

Terry relays that the early Restorationists were charged with being too inward looking and takes this chapter to explain why, even after a strong formation as an evangelist, he ‘turned [his] back on the lost for a while’.
“The lasting results of our endeavours, however, could not even be termed negligible. They were virtually non-existent. People were contacted and sometimes even came to church for a while, but only fell away again after a short while” (p97)
So, because of a prophetic word in a prayer meeting in which the Lord instructed the church to ‘mend the nets’, greater focus was given to living out internal relationships within the church in accordance with New Testament norms for fellowship. This had the effect of causing the church to grow but mainly through transfers of Christians from other churches: “What I began to see was that if we ‘got the church right’ people would be pressing our doors to get in but, in the main, the importunate were thirsty Christians.” (p97)
Terry acknowledges that because of this, his churches were accused of ‘poaching’ parishioners, that they had somehow wooed them deliberately. He says, this wasn’t the case and the transferring was actually due to a genuine move of the Spirit. As people came into a genuine experience of God, there would be a chain reaction in those who witnessed the change in them, their baptism and the power of the Spirit in their life, thereby bringing friends and family to Christ.

However, Ephesians 4:7-13 also details the ascended Christ giving evangelists as a gift to the church for its growth. Terry names Mike Sprenger and Ben Davies as gifted evangelists in Brighton and the wider movement respectively, who bolstered the church in the two-fold capacity of being an able Gospel communicator and an equipper of others to do the same. Of the evangelist he says “An evangelist moving freely among churches open to his ministry will be a constant source of inspiration. He should not be a stranger who simply comes to town to put on his show in the area and look to the local churches to back him up… Let them in to disturb and equip you!” He quotes Howard Snyder at the Lausanne Congress saying “The church is the only divinely-appointed means of spreading the Gospel… Evangelism makes little sense divorced from the fact of the Christian community.”
The acid test is who is actually joined to the local body, not who is ‘converted’. “The invitation is to flee one society and be added to another (Acts 2:40-41)” Having believed the response is to be baptised and Terry says the movement is ‘upfront’ about baptism in water and baptism in the Holy Spirit as the initial steps in proper discipleship. He details how house groups sometimes change mode from an inward focussed fellowship setting to something like a proto-Alphacourse setting where a meal will be shared with contacts from outside the fold who then hear after-dinner first-hand stories of personal faith in God. “Gradually the whole atmosphere of church life becomes evangelistic. Numbers are being added to churches to such a degree that buildings are becoming full. Where do we go from here? Happily, we did not start with the goal of filling the building but filling the earth, so the fact of our overcrowding is greeted with rejoicing, not dismay.”
The solution is to keep planting out when growth overflows. “When we had become about 500 committed adults plus nearly 200 teenagers and children, we asked about 200 who were travelling from Brighton every Sunday to form a new congregation in their area. A school hall was found and so we started again. We began originally in a small school hall in Hove. Our ultimate goal was not simply to fill the large church building, which we later renovated, but to fill the Brighton and Hove area.” The language of ‘added’ gave way to “that other exciting New Testament word ‘multiplied’.”

Conclusion
There are many aspects of this chapter familiar to my own experience at the same church. My tenure here began around the turn of the century and has continued for almost 25 years at time of writing. The same ethos of church-based evangelism, the Ephesians 4 Evangelist and of church-multiplication prevails. The impetus of the Spirit and the mission context of the surrounding area seem to be in constant motion but periodic recollection of the primacy of corporate prayer, of prophetic guidance and waiting on God serve as helpful bulwarks against the faddishness and fleshliness which church-life is apt to fall into. Most of all, for movements which spring out of the furnace of Holy Spirit renewal and revival, the risk of self-parody ‘having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.’ 2 Timothy 3:5 is never far away and we need to be alert to all its forms, especially where these preclude the Gospel going out.

Flocks and Shepherds

“Wherever the Bible has been readily available, understood and obeyed, the church has prospered. When it has been lost or obscured by tradition the church has languished.”

“Jesus himself had set the example. Even after his resurrection he had not only presented himself alive, but had made the disciples’ hearts burn within them as he explained in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Lk 24:27). He wanted their faith to rest not simply on the excitement of his resurrection experiences but on the sure and certain word of God.”

“In the present move of the Holy Spirit, informality and congregational participation (‘body ministry’) have become valuable features in the meetings. Concern to be ‘led by the Spirit’ has caused some to fear that a prepared message would be liable to quench the Spirit. ” Terry rejects this, pointing out that the New Testament demands that elders labour in the word (1 Tim 5:17, 2 Tim 2:15) and the charismatic gifts for corporate worship include bringing a ‘teaching’ (1 Cor 14:26).

“The preacher must make sure he is sharing what he has received from the word, not what he has put into it, sharing God’s truth not his own imagination.”

Church leaders are judged in terms of their pastoral ‘bed-side manner’ and their ability to preach and communicate in the pulpit. “What has to be demolished is the attitude that judges and evaluates pastoral ministry only in these terms. A pastor is a leader. He is responsible for the spiritual life of his sheep. He must not simply be able to impress them from the pulpit but must have enough access into the lives of his people to speak directly to them about areas where they fall short and to encourage and help them in practical matters.”

In championing a biblical approach to submission and authority in the church, Terry pushes back against prevalent accusations levelled at Restorationist churches of ‘heavy shepherding’: “The submission to spiritual authority being expressed in churches seeking restoration is totally voluntary.” He points out that Biblical ecclesiology demands a plurality of elders and this brings about a security for the flock.

With regards to training Terry notes “Elders are not merely Bible College graduates, though they might have gained some helpful theological training, but men who are gifted and have a calling from God which shows their ability to care for the flock.” This is written in reaction against highly trained professional clergy who might well not be qualified in the Biblical ‘1 Timothy 3’ sense, where the qualifications are those of character and specifically observable godly leadership of a household and good public reputation. This essential attention to the primacy of Biblical qualification of church leaders is still strangely countercultural in the church at large, and its foregrounding is a good thing. However, it overlooks the fact the many of the first generation of Newfrontiers pastors were theologically trained (having been participant in leading Anglican / Baptist / Brethren churches prior to forming Restoration fellowships) and had the unwelcome side-effect of an often intellectually under-nourished leadership in subsequent generations, at least in comparison to other denominations who had their own seminary qualification requirements.

In terms of decision making, the whole church is involved but it is not to be a voting democracy. Quarterly family meetings with prayer, worship, news and consultation along with discipline announcements took the place of ‘church business meetings’ which had been experienced in old denominations where Terry observes: “People were outspokenly angry and the godly pastor’s single vote had no more authority than anyone else’s. This amazed me, since it was evidently his God-given anointing that had gathered and blessed the large congregation. He was obviously qualified to lead the flock.”

Conclusion – In Newfrontiers, an emphasis on the indispensable union of ‘Word and Spirit’ in ministry is another high value. This was not unique but was certainly somewhat unusual amongst the church streams of the British New Church movement, and this is apparent in the argument Terry chooses to make in this chapter. The move of the Spirit was bringing a freshness of relationship and worship in the church, and there was a risk that the virtue of a well-prepared sermon or the presence of spiritual authority in leadership could be confused with the stifling formalism which was being over-turned. This happened in some quarters but Newfrontiers were discerning in these matters from the start. Real authority was to be exercised by pastors and members voluntarily received and submitted to this, under strictly Biblical parameters.

Here is a link post to the chapter summaries I have written on Terry Virgo’s Restoration in the Church (1985). This book represents a first statement of the genesis and doctrine of Newfrontiers and is supplemented by Terry’s later books including No Well Worn Paths (2001) and God’s Lavish Grace (2004). For each chapter, I note the title and the central themes being addressed. I have also written an introductory post which explains my reasons for engaging with this text.

1. Come and See (the importance of a Biblical conception of what the church is)
2. Chosen for Fruit (purpose and security in the life of the believer)
3. Right Foundations (confidence in life based on the security of God’s work on you)
4. Amazing Grace (true Christianity is ultimate freedom)
5. Clothed with Power from on High (the Baptism in the Holy Spirit for empowered living)
6. Worship in Spirit and in Truth (open Spirit-led gathered worship)
7. Making Friends (real relationships in the church, in the family, in church leadership)
8. Flocks and Shepherds (word and spirit ministry, elder-led church and membership)

Making Friends

“Formal acquaintance seemed to be the standard in the church. People who had known each other for years were still on handshake and surname terms. Real friendship such as I had grown up with and really valued was almost entirely missing. After a couple of years I was received into membership and ‘received the right hand of fellowship’. But nothing changed… Christian life therefore seemed like a matter of losing all of my old ungodly friends and in their place simply attending meetings.”

Terry paints a bleak picture of how the dead formalism of churchgoing Britain played out relationally in the 1960s. Genuine Spirit-initiated restoration in the church needed to restore genuine friendships as well as touching corporate worship, personal confidence in the gospel and experience of God. The informality of the home setting of the early British house-churches along with the intimacy of falteringly stepping out together in the exercise of the charismatic gifts in a context of ‘open worship’ meant natural friendships started to replace stilted formality. “True friendship calls for open-eyed confrontation as well as melting moments in worship.”

“We are not casual friends, we are blood brothers and sisters in covenant with God and one another”

Terry relays an anecdote about a mother who inherited a tradition of cutting off the ends of the roasting joint an placing them on top before cooking. When her daughter queried it, they asked the grandmother who said she only ever did that because her old oven was so small! “Many a church meeting has as much relevance to the next generation as this strange, inherited and now totally unnecessary custom. When such dead meetings and religious observances become part of our church life they militate against real friendship because they militate against reality itself.”

“When I know that God received you and me just as we are ‘warts and all’, I can receive you similarly.”

“It is only a good friend who will bother to tell you that you always dominate conversations, that you never listen to anyone else, that you are inconsiderate to your wife, that you are too soft on your children, that you put people off because your breath smells or you don’t use deodorant. Is this the kingdom of God, you may ask? Is it down to such pathetic details? Yes. It is the stuff of life.”

“Large congregations do not provide the setting for close and intimate friendship to thrive. The small house groups that we have been led to make use of are far more helpful to that end.” House group leaders are seen as an extension of the discipling ministry exercised by the elders: “As they accumulate experience they can be given more responsibility for the people, and so men can begin to display their potential as possible future elders.”

Terry relays his experience of delegating pastoral responsibility, influenced by Jethro’s words to Moses in Exodus 18:21. “I chose some able and faithful men; able, or nothings is accomplished; faithful, or they divide the church and destroy the work!”

“We discover our place by accepting one another and serving one another in love, not by being preoccupied with a constant search to identify ‘our ministry’.”

There was an emphasis in New Frontiers and other restoration streams upon the discipleship of children primarily within the family home, in line with the Biblical emphasis. Sunday Schools existed as a backup, and evangelism was not aimed at children with the hope of bringing their adults along. Family life involved “recovery of the biblical order of relationships between husband and wife, abandoned by modern society and, sadly, by many in the church.”

“A loving and mutually respectful attitude between husband and wife is the key to a good family life. When children see their father loving, protecting and honouring his wife and giving her her true place in the home, they will learn to respect her themselves… When a wife shows true heart submission to her husband, honouring the dignity he has been given as God’s true appointed head of the house, she demonstrates the way of obedience which her children can follow.”

When Terry introduced open worship, he noticed that the women took to it more readily than the men, perhaps because they already had a higher quality of interpersonal relationships and held daytime prayer fellowships already. His solution was to start gathering men for ‘an unstructured time of fellowship, praise and prayer’ which had the effect of evening up the male-female ratio in contributions at the Sunday meetings.

“We have certainly noticed what a profound impact lively men’s meetings have on those recently converted. Many have their previous concept of church completely shattered in one evening. At the risk of sounding simplistic, we do encourage our men to be men!”

“The ladies are still very evident and fulfilled in our church life. They take part freely in worship meetings through prayer, prophecy, healing, tongues, interpretation, singing, Scripture reading, testifying and, indeed, in every area except where the Bible plainly forbids them. They are therefore not permitted to ‘teach or exercise authority over a man’ (1 Tim 2:12)”

“Within a family setting, true fathers emerge – people whose counsel you really learn to value. They are not imposed from HQ as professionals, but instead emerge from our ranks. The flock of God finds its shepherds with the anointing and gifting of God so that the whole flock becomes secure.”

Conclusion – A lot of very recognisable Newfrontiers emphases are dealt with in this chapter and all through the lens of relationships in the local church. Real relationships underscore discipleship, ecclesiology, family life and the respective and differing roles of husbands and wives. Through this same lens, Terry champions the need for particular effort and attention to authenticity in male relationships for the genuine health of households and the church. This is seen as something which will not flourish unaided.

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

Philippians 3:3 – “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh“

Terry took up his first pastorate in Seaford on the proviso that they would be open to a Spirit-led mode of worship service that subverted the (then prevalent) formulaic and front-led ‘hymn sandwich’ format.

“I explained to the church the concept of ‘open worship’ and waited in increasingly oppressive silence. After the pause, one of the elderly ladies, grasping the idea that we could now sing ‘choruses’ in our morning worship, searched her childhood memories and asked if we could now sing ‘a little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right’! My heart sank. My co-elder’s head sank into his hands.”

The church eventually came round to the participation of the ‘whole body’ of the congregation participating in worship and ministering to one another in the Spirit, being taught about the primacy of love and edification of one another in worship (see 1 Corinthians 13).

“The doctrinal content of our songs of worship will determine to a greater or lesser degree their real spiritual value. That is why the scriptures set to music are so edifying. It is not enough that the melody is sweet and the lyrics sentimental. What an anticlimax to find that when we sing ‘kings and kingdoms shall all pass away’ we only add ‘but there’s something about that name’. What do we mean? What are we singing?” Terry quotes from Bill Gaither’s ‘There’s something about that name’, but his comments are pertinent to any number of contemporary church songs that one could cite, perhaps even more so in the present day.

“A time of worship is a fresh opportunity to get to know God. We can grow in faith as we declare glorious truths about him and to him. Often there will be a breaking free from sin as we touch his holiness and experience his love melting our hearts afresh… Worship must be in spirit as well as truth and we should expect our emotions to be roused.”

Terry quotes D M Lloyd-Jones describing the reality of the gathered worship described in the New Testament “Here is a gathering of men and women who are filled with the Spirit of God, and each one of them has got something; one a psalm, one a doctrine, one a revelation, one an interpretation, one a tongue. When one gave his contribution, the others rejoiced and they praised God together; and they were all in a state of great joy and glory and happiness” (Westminster Record Vol 43, No 9) Lloyd-Jones readily admits that that is not the church experience that they have and says “The really important question for us to face is, are we like the early church, are we like the early Christians, rejoicing and praising God, filled with gladness and joy so that we amaze the world and make them think at times that we are filled with new wine?” (ibid.)

“New wine in new wineskins. New songs from new creatures enjoying a new covenant. God deliver us from staleness at any point. He makes all things new”

Clothed with Power from on High

Terry points out that the disciples would be familiar with the Old Testament phenomena of the Spirit of the LORD coming to ‘clothe’ individuals with power for particular purposes. They would also be clear having read the prophet Joel, that there would be a time coming when this phenomena would be far more widespread (Joel 2:28).

“Are we automatically filled at our conversion or do we have to wait for an endowment of the Spirit as they did?” Terry says he heard preachers who disagreed on the matter but he just knew he needed God’s empowerment. He talks about the powerlessness he felt to witness to Christ publicly and relays his embarrassment at seeing some old ladies who were being taunted whilst preaching the Gospel on Brighton seafront, when he couldn’t even muster the confidence to admit to his Christianity to a couple of bystanders. He sought the Baptism in the Spirit with a group of friends who encouraged him to thank God and step out in speaking in tongues:

“Through all my doubts, I heard my friend’s fiancee speak, ‘You know, you’re very clever Terry if you’re making all this up. You’ve been doing it for ages.’ There was something about the way she said it that made me laugh, and that laughter broke all the tension of the situation. I realized how worried I had become about it all; how self-defeating it was to get so intense. As I relaxed it was as if a flood of the Spirit went through me and I responded to God in words of praise I would never have used before: ‘Jesus, I love you. Jesus, you are wonderful. Abba, my Father.’ Words that previously I would have considered almost effeminate now expressed something that I knew and felt about God. I knew that he had filled me with his Holy Spirit.”

“Having shared the doctrine of receiving the Holy Spirit I assure people that the promise is to everyone the Lord calls (Acts 2:39), then I lay hands on them, encouraging them to believe (Gal 3:2). I have never felt it right to tell people that they have automatically received, nor do I try to force them to speak in tongues, but simply invite them to come and drink in the light of the clear promises of the Lord Jesus and to expect the manifestation of speaking in tongues.”

– Terry points to Acts 8:5-17, Acts 9:17, and Acts 19:6 as examples of people being filled with the Holy Spirit post-conversion.

“The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a reward for trying so well on our own. It is a gift to enable you to overcome right from the start!”

“The early believers were mistaken for drunks and to remain drunk one must keep drinking!”

Conclusion – The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a vital and foundational teaching in Newfrontiers, birthed as it was in an era of lifeless church-going and formalism. The vital church life seen in the book of Acts was Spirit-empowered and that it is paradigmatic for authentic church in any era. Terry quotes from Smith Wigglesworth regarding another peculiar but common tendency to rest on spiritual laurels: “I would rather have a man on my platform not filled with the Holy Ghost but hungry for God than a man who has received the Holy Ghost but has become satisfied with his experience.”

Amazing Grace
“Restoration in the church is not simply a matter of charismatic gifts and new church structures. The people of God must be restored to a fresh appreciation of all that is theirs in Christ. Freedom from law and condemnation open the door for praise and wholehearted dedication to God.”
– Terry acknowledges the move of God that restored the charismatic gifts described in the New Testament (speaking in tongues, prophecy, physical healing etc) to the church in the UK in the C20th. However, he points out that this needs to be grounded in a properly Reformed doctrine of grace if the freedom of the believer is to be established.

“The mistake is thinking that in order to reign in life we must do something, while the New Testament does not teach that. It says that we reign in life by receiving the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness. (Rom 5:17)”
– This is a New Testament truth which became a pillar of NFI doctrine and was preached by Terry everywhere as a core component of his apostolic ministry: We always and only ‘reign in life’ by receiving and not by performing.

“I do not remember sinning with Adam in the Garden of Eden, nor do I remember dying on the cross with Christ. However, the Bible says that both have happened as a matter of fact (Rom 5:17-21). Now I am to live in the awareness of that fact.”

Conclusion – this careful walk through Romans 5 would form the basis of Terry’s pastoral argument in ‘God’s Lavish Grace‘ (2004) which was derived in turn from the apostolic ‘foundation-laying’ teaching which Terry delivered to new churches and in conference settings many times. An early outing of this at Clarendon Church in 1979-80 can be heard here.

Right Foundations

“Before we can build lives that glorify God and survive the storms, we must be careful to pull down and destroy the rubbish upon which our lives were previously built.”

“Our heavenly Father does not want a family of fearful, insecure children but he does want our confidence to be built upon his own faithfulness and power, not our own ability.”
– That is not to say that God despises anxious people, rather that we have every reason to be confident if we understand ourselves rightly as secured by God’s sovereign choice and sustenance as opposed to our performance.

“We often fail to believe two important Bible statements… Our Lord’s words ‘apart from me you can do nothing’ (Jn 15:5) and the promise that ‘nothing will be impossible with God’ (Lk 1:37). Instead we live in the middle area of human ability.”
“We all know the jargon, but are our lives truly built on the words of Jesus?”

“Baptism is not a rite for Christians to consider whether or not they will obey after their conversion. It demonstrates the burial of the old self, which is part of conversion. The Bible gives us no authority to preach forgiveness of sins and eternal life without reference to baptism and all that it signifies.”

“A Christian who always demands his ‘rights’ has never understood the cross. We should rejoice that God has not given us what we justly deserve…. Our inconsistency is revealed when, having entered through the door marked ‘Grace’, we then demand justice when we are inside.” – This one has major application for us thirty years on, living in an era of even greater hyper-individualism. Our rights and self-expression are generally excepted as a sacred value in a way that it is quite at odds with the true Gospel of Grace.

Conclusion – Terry draws attention to the importance of Gospel foundations for the individual which at once secures them in depending upon God’s unwavering approval, whilst deterring them from self-confidence

Chosen for Fruit

“In the end we are believers because we are a chosen people. Our roots precede our ‘decision for Christ’ and go back to God’s eternal choice. This is true for every believer. Together we make up a chosen people.”

“He chose us that we might bear fruit. We need to be aware, therefore, of hiding behind our sense of insignificance or we might miss the destiny God has for us. Part of the message of restoration is the recovery of the sense of purpose for every believer.”

“God is very interested in personal identity.”

“Ultimately, we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ in order that each one may be judged by what he has done in the body… Do not suppose that this is only for the unbeliever.”
“God had bestowed on [Paul] his grace and he was determined that grace would not be in vain (1 Cor 15:10). He has given us his grace, too. He has called us by name and given us identity.”
“Part of the message of restoration is to bring back the reality of accountability and the wonder of working for the purpose of gathering fruit unto eternal life.”

Conclusion – God’s sovereign choice secures and defines us individually and is aimed at the purpose of crafting a people for Himself. This simultaneously affirms and subverts our individuality, giving us real purpose in walking out our life in God’s purposes.

In his Foreward to ‘Restoration in the Church‘ Terry Virgo recognises that many Christians in the UK have recently (late 70’s / early 80’s) come out of historic Christian denominations and started meeting in ‘house churches’. But he sees this phenomena as a symptom of something much bigger, and he doesn’t want Christians to stop prematurely:

“If the use of the home is but a branch of this tree, what is the root? In a word, it is a diligent attempt to restore the church to New Testament Christianity, both in principle and practice.”
That’s what ‘Restoration in the Church’ is going to be about: “I pray that God may use this book to cause many to face questions from which they might naturally shrink, such as ‘What is God saying to his people through these new churches that are emerging?’ and ‘What does he want us to do about it?’”

Chapter 1: Come and See
“Our devotion to Christ is rarely matched by a similar devotion to his church, but finds expression in other areas. And so we fail to share God’s heart and follow his strategy.” – these ‘other areas’ might well be good Christian things – dedicated mission or mercy organisations, for example – but a low-view of what the church actually is results in us annexing our personal faith and expecting little of the church.

This attitude is not what you see in the New Testament: “Paul did not work simply to win converts, but to plant churches. He did not view his evangelising work as complete until elders had been established and churches formed. It was through the local church that the Kingdom of God was to be manifested. From them the gospel would sound forth.”

The charismatic gifts are for the gathered local church and should not be squandered either by privatisation or para-church priority. The Baptism in the Spirit “whetted their appetites for more of God and his ways, and they are endeavouring to build churches where he is free to move.”

“Many evangelicals are rendered ineffective by a sense of personal rejection. The gospel has not yet freed them from their apparent insignificance.”

Conclusion – Various strands of the British New Church movement (of which NFI was one,) emphasised the importance of the primitive New Testament understanding of ‘Church’. Whilst this emphasis was subordinated to the individual / personal benefits of a revived spirituality in the other ‘new church streams’ / emerging denominations, Newfrontiers consistently championed the church / corporate / body aspect over the individual aspect. Whilst this, and many of Terry’s other books, focus on personal spiritual establishment and restoration, it’s always with a view to building the Church.