in Christ: Andrew Fountain's blog

I just listened to a sermon on Revival by Adrian Warnock, preached at Jubilee church, Enfield last Sunday. It is one of the best messages on revival that I have heard for a long time. He gives two definitions of revival. The first is:

"a powerful intensification of the Holy Spirit’s normal activity" (Stuart Piggin)

What I like about this definition, and the way Adrian develops it, is that it doesn't place revival in some strange and unreachable category so that all we can do is pray and wait passively. As Bill Jackson points out in The Quest for the Radical Middle, (a history of the Vineyard) an unheathy emphasis on the anticipation of a great revival effectively killed evangelistic effort. If God works in a different mode in revival, then what is the point of working hard right now?

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 6-2

This was a very focussed session by Tony Thompson drawing from his experiences of church planting. He identified three key prerequisites to a successful plant:

1. Leadership (which means more than just one man)
2. A people (enough people who are committed to being part of the church)
3. A strategy

Well worth a listen for anyone who is involved, or thinking about being involved in a church plant.

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 6-1

As someone who is leading a church plant right now, I found this tremendously helpful. There was no single theme, just lots of good ideas, principles and practical advice. Much of it was illustrated with stories from his own experiences.

Click here for the free download page at Newfrontiers

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 4-1

Once David gets into his material, it is a well-reasoned Biblical theology of missions. The argument is roughly as follows:

• God himself is missional and therefore it is not an option for us
• 70 nations are listed in the table of nations in Genesis, (after Babel).
• God tells Abraham he is to be a blessing to all the nations
• Israel are given this mandate (they are to be a light to the nations)
  • They fail
• Jesus came to fulfill this mandate
  • he appointed 12 disciples as the foundations for the New Covenant people of God (which as we know parallels the 12 tribes)
  • he then sent out the 70
  • this number is no accident
• Multiple languages were the curse of Babel
  • but the gift of tongues tells us that every language is a vehicle for the gospel
  • in fact God’s desire is that every language should praise him!
  • it takes all the languages of the world to praise God!

He then goes on to describe how this impacts the local church. This seminar is a good foundation to an important topic and I found it interesting and helpful.

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 3-3

This seminar gets a five-star rating! Lex talks about God’s promise of the help of the Holy Spirit, and then spends the first half of the talk describing several healings in detail. The stories are very different and he uses them to illustrate the diversity in the ways God works. I found this extremely uplifting was filled with praise to God.

The second half is on the practical “how-to” of healing. Lex considers four theories which are widely taught today:

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 3-2

Stephen begins with a set of arguments against those who say that large churches are a bad thing. He points out that if you are going to grow as a church, it is essential that you want to grow. He moves on to discussing how we can make evangelism an integral part of the church. I really appreciated the thoughts he had on how to “make Sunday count” by working on 1) excellence, 2) the target audience, and 3) visitors.

Click here for the free download page at Newfrontiers

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 3-1

This talk is actually a history of the Pentecostal/charismatic movement in the last century, focussing mainly on the events of Azusa Street in 1906. It is well researched, interesting and informative. Lex particularly emphasizes the fruits of the original outpouring. I found the accounts of events of the time quite fascinating.

Click here for the free download page at Newfrontiers

Great news! All of the sessions from the 2006 Leadership Conference in Brighton can now be downloaded for free. Click on the "buy" link at the end of any review and you will be taken to a page that lets you "buy" the download for zero cost. Well done Newfrontiers! This is a really good move! It was a shame to have restricted access to such excellent material and now it can reach a much wider audience.

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 7-3

The final part in this series turns the attention to children. All the positive comments from the reviews of the other two seminars apply here and this session would be useful to anyone who has children, whether in leadership or not.

Newfrontiers Leadership Conference 2006 - Training Track 7-2

If you found seminar TT7-1 valuable, then you will enjoy this one as well since it continues where the previous session left off. The honesty of the speakers is very refreshing. I think that these talks are valuable, not just to couples in leadership but to all Christian couples.