Over the past few decades, year after year, Newfrontiers has grown as a movement, so that now we are hundreds of churches in dozens of nations across the world. But what can account for this remarkable expansion?

The scriptures tell us that when Jesus ascended on high he gave gifts to men - apostles, prophets, evangelists etc. These people were gifts to the church, each with a different role and anointing to equip the church for her ministry and mission. We firmly believe that it has been these diverse gifts all working together that has played such a huge part in our growth. But of all these ministries, perhaps the one that's least understood today is that of apostle.

This video was shown at the Celebration events across the country and paints a clear picture of our understanding of the gift of the apostle.

Epistles or Apostles?

Once upon a time it was not uncommon to hear, "now we have epistles, we don't need apostles" the assumption being that once the first century apostles had written down a body of doctrine for the church, their job was done. However, a new generation of leaders and church planters who are passionate about building the church, preaching the gospel and reaching the nations, are now seriously questioning this stance. What is the biblical role of an apostle? Is there a scriptural mandate for that role to continue today? If so, what does that look like, bearing in mind the misuse and even abuse of this role by some who have claimed apostleship in the past?

These are some of the important questions that David Devenish addresses in his book, "Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission", with the subtitle: "Restoring the role of the apostle in today's church".

Ephesians 4 ministry

In his introduction he writes, "A passion for the truth leads me to the conviction that if the bible indeed teaches us that apostles are a continuing gift to the church, along with the other ministry gifts of Ephesians 4, then it is important for the church and for world mission that this ministry is restored."

His book has been highly recommended, not only by Terry Virgo and others within the Newfrontiers family of churches that David is a part of, but also Church leaders such as Bob Roberts Jr, Senior Pastor of Northwood Church, Dallas and founder of Glocalnet.

Bob writes, "I couldn't put down Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission. It is an incredible and solid book - it isn't lightweight theologically, biblically, or practically. There is nothing I have read that comes close to it in explanation and application. So much of what is written on this today is anecdotal, fluff or not biblically based. David's book will become a standard read for those exploring or curious about apostolic ministry. This book is a real gift to the church today"

Over the next few weeks I shall be quoting a number of extracts from David's book in a series of blogs called 'Apostles Today?'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German pastor and theologian who opposed the state-controlled German Evangelical Church under Adolf Hitler. He and others founded the Confessing Church which became the center of German Protestant resistance to the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer became linked to a group planning to assassinate Hitler and this led to his arrest, imprisonment and eventual death by hanging on  April 9, 1945 only a few days before the end of the war. His best known book was The Cost of Discipleship, in which he not only attacked "cheap grace" as a cover for ethical laxity but also preached "costly grace".

Standing against the tide

During his time in prison Bonhoeffer grew increasingly aware of the failure of the church in Germany to stand against the evils of his day. It’s empty forms of worship and religious language had no authority or power; it had lost it’s prophetic voice. But, he wrote, a day would come when Christians would once again be called to proclaim the word of God so that the world will be transformed and renewed by it.

"It is not for us to predict the day - but the day will come - when people will once more be called to speak the word of God in such a way that the world is changed and renewed. It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious language, but liberating and redeeming—like Jesus’ language; so that people will be alarmed and yet overcome by its power -  the language of a new righteousness and truth, a language proclaiming that God makes peace with humankind and that God’s kingdom is drawing near. Till then the Christian cause will be a silent and hidden affair, but there will be those who pray and do right and wait for God’s own time.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Thoughts on the Day of Baptism, Letters and papers from prison.

Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947) was born to an impoverished family in Yorkshire, England. Converted at the age of 8, Smith was illiterate until his twenties and learned to read by reading the bible. A plumber by trade, he eventually gave up his profession to preach the gospel. In 1907 he was baptized in the Spirit at an early pentecostal meeting in Sunderland and began preaching with ‘signs following’. Called the ‘Apostle of Faith’ there are many stories about his life, including the deaf hearing, the lame walking, cancers going and even the dead being raised.

Just before he died in 1947, Wigglesworth is reputed to have given this remarkable prophecy at the Annual Conference of the Elim Pentecostal Churches:

“During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the Church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it and will be characterized by a restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches.

In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is the great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival, but both are steps towards it.’

When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidenced in the churches something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world, has ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and the Welsh revivals of former years. The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to the mainland of Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.”

Previously quoted by Adrian Warnock

A W Tozer (1897-1963) was born in humble beginnings on a small farm in Pennsylvania. Within a few short years he had earned the reputation of a ‘20th century prophet’. A key figure in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Tozer was a prolific author and pastor. He spent 31 years at Chicago’s Southside Allianace Church. Under his preaching, the congregation grew from 80 to 800. Tozer’s prophetic voice still speaks to us today.

This frightening hour

“For a generation certain evangelical teachers have told us that the gifts of the Spirit ceased at the death of the apostles or at the completion of the New Testament. This, of course, is a doctrine without a syllable of Biblical authority to back it. Its advocates must accept full responsibility for this manipulating the Word of God.

The result of this erroneous teaching is that spiritually gifted persons are ominously few among us. When we so desperately need leaders with the gift of discernment, for instance, we do not have them and are compelled to fall back upon the techniques of the world.

This frightening hour calls aloud for men with the gift of prophetic insight. Instead we have men who conduct surveys, polls, and panel discussions. We need men with the gift of knowledge. In their place we have men with scholarship – nothing more.

Thus we may be preparing ourselves for the tragic hour when God may set us aside as so-called evangelicals and raise up another movement to keep New Testament Christianity alive in the earth. Say not, 'We be children of Abraham. God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.'

(AW Tozer, Keys to the Deeper Life)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) - Spurgeon regularly preached to a congregation of more than 10,000 people in Victorian London while still in his twenties. His sermons were transcribed and published, selling up to 25,000 copies every week. As many as 2,500 of his sermons are still on sale today and he continues to be highly influential among Christians of different denominations.  While he is often recognized for his strong reformed theology, Spurgeon also emphasized the need for the Holy Spirit's power.  These blogs will reflect the second emphasis.

Jerusalem was the happiest city that ever was when the Spirit of God was there! The disciples were singing from morning to night and I have no doubt the outsiders asked, “What is it all about?” The Temple was never so frequented as then—there was never such singing before the very streets of Jerusalem and the Hill of Zion rang with the songs of the once despised Galileans! They were fall of gladness and that gladness showed itself in praising God. I have no doubt they broke out, now and then, in the services with shouts of, “Glory! Hallelujah!” I should not wonder but what all propriety was scattered to the winds. They were so glad, so exhilarated—that they were ready to leap for joy!

Glorious Disorder

Of course we never say, “Amen,” or, “Glory!” now. We have grown to be so frozenly proper that we never interrupt a service in any way, because, to tell the truth, we are not so particularly glad, we are not so specially full of praise that we want to do anything of the sort! Alas, we have lost very much of the Spirit of God and much of the joy and gladness which attend His Presence—and so we have settled into a decorous apathy! We gather the links of propriety instead of the palm branches of praise.

May God send us a season of glorious disorder! Oh for a sweep of wind that will set the seas in motion and make our ironclad Brethren now lying so quietly at anchor to roll from stem to stern! As for us, who are as the little ships, we will fly before the gale if it will but speed us to our desired haven! Oh for fire to fall again—fire which shall affect the most stolid! This is a sure remedy for indifference.

C.H. Spurgeon. September 18, 1881 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, London.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) - Spurgeon regularly preached to a congregation of more than 10,000 people in Victorian London while still in his twenties. His sermons were transcribed and published, selling up to 25,000 copies every week. As many as 2,500 of his sermons are still on sale today and he continues to be highly influential among Christians of different denominations.  While he is often recognized for his strong reformed theology, Spurgeon also emphasized the need for the Holy Spirit's power.  These blogs will reflect the second emphasis.

Sons of God

One work of the Spirit of God is to create in Believers the spirit of ADOPTION. “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, whereby you cry, Abba, Father!” “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!” We are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and so receive the nature of children—and that nature, which is given by Him, He continually prompts, excites, develops and matures — so that we receive day by day more and more of the childlike spirit.

Now, Beloved, this may not seem to you to be of very great importance at first sight, but it is, for the Church is never happy except all her members walk as dear children towards God. Sometimes the spirit of slaves creeps over us—we begin to talk of the service of God as though it were heavy and burdensome—and are discontent if we do not receive present wages and visible success, just as servants do when they are not happy. But the spirit of adoption works for love, without any hope of reward, and it is satisfied with the sweet fact of being in the Father’s house and doing the Father’s will. This spirit gives peace, rest, joy, boldness and holy familiarity with God.

Transforming our mission

...Now, mark you, this will have a great effect upon the outside world! A body of professors performing religion as a task, groaning along the ways of godliness with faces full of misery, like slaves who dread the lash, can have but small effect upon the sinners around them. They say, “Those people serve, no doubt, a hard master, and they are denying themselves this and that. Why should we be like they?” But bring me a Church made up of children of God—a company of men and women whose faces shine with their heavenly Father’s smile! Who are accustomed to take their cares and cast them on their Father as children should! Who know they are accepted and loved, and are perfectly content with the great Father’s will! Put them down in the midst of a company of ungodly ones and I will guarantee you they will begin to envy them their peace and joy. Thus happy saints become most efficient operators upon the minds of the unsaved!

O blessed Spirit of God! Let us all, now, feel that we are the children of the great Father and let our childlike love be warm this morning! And so shall we be fit to go forth and proclaim the Lord’s love to the prodigals who are in the far-off land among the swine!

C.H. Spurgeon. January 7, 1877 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, London.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) - Spurgeon regularly preached to a congregation of more than 10,000 people in Victorian London while still in his twenties. His sermons were transcribed and published, selling up to 25,000 copies every week. As many as 2,500 of his sermons are still on sale today and he continues to be highly influential among Christians of different denominations.  While he is often recognized for his strong reformed theology, Spurgeon also emphasized the need for the Holy Spirit's power.  These blogs will reflect the second emphasis.

The Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to make everything that we do to be alive. We are sowers, Brothers and Sisters, but if we take dead seed in our seed baskets there will never be a harvest! The preacher must preach living Truths of God in a living manner if he expects to obtain a hundred-fold harvest. Too much of Church work is nothing better than the movement of a galvanized corpse! Too much of religion is done as if it were performed by a robot, or ground off by machinery. Nowadays men care little about heart and soul—they only look at outward performances....

Machines, not men

We can preach as machines, we can pray as machines and we can teach Sunday school as machines. Men can give mechanically and come to the Lord’s Table mechanically—yes, and we, ourselves, shall do so unless the Spirit of God is with us! Most hearers know what it is to hear a live sermon which quivers all over with fullness of energy. You also know what it is to sing a hymn in a lively manner and you know what it is to unite in a live Prayer Meeting! But, ah, if the Spirit of God is absent, all that the Church does will be lifeless! It will be as the rustle of leaves above a tomb, the gliding of specters, the congregation of the dead turning over in their graves!

As the Spirit of God is the Quickener to make us alive and our work alive, so must He specially be with us to make those alive with whom we have to deal for Jesus. Imagine a dead preacher preaching a dead sermon to dead sinners— what can possibly come of it? Here is a beautiful essay which has been admirably elaborated and it is coldly read to the cold-hearted sinner. It smells of the midnight oil but it has no heavenly unction, no Divine power resting upon it, nor, perhaps, is that power even looked for! What good can come of such a production?

Living seed

It is only as the Spirit of God shall come upon God’s servant and shall make the Word which He preaches to drop as a living seed into the heart, that any result can follow his ministry! And it is only as the Spirit of God shall then follow that seed and keep it alive in the soul of the listener that we can expect those who profess to be converted to take root and grow to maturity of Grace and become our sheaves at the last! We are utterly dependent here and, for my part, I rejoice in this absolute dependence!

C.H. Spurgeon. January 7, 1877 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, London.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) - Spurgeon regularly preached to a congregation of more than 10,000 people in Victorian London while still in his twenties. His sermons were transcribed and published, selling up to 25,000 copies every week. As many as 2,500 of his sermons are still on sale today and he continues to be highly influential among Christians of different denominations.  While he is often recognized for his strong reformed theology, Spurgeon also emphasized the need for the Holy Spirit's power.  These blogs will reflect the second emphasis.

The necessity of preachers being under the influence of the Spirit

"While Peter spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word." Acts 10:44

Beloved, the Holy Ghost fell on Peter first, or else it would not have fallen on his hearers. There is a necessity that the preacher himself, if we are to have souls saved, should be under the influence of the Spirit. I have constantly made it my prayer that I might be guided by the Spirit even in the smallest and least important parts of the service; for you cannot tell but that the salvation of a soul may depend upon the reading of a hymn, or upon the selection of a chapter.

Two persons have joined our church and made a profession of being converted simply through my reading a hymn - "Jesus, lover of my soul". They did not remember anything else in the hymn, but those words made such a deep impression upon their mind, that they could not help repeating them for days afterwards, and then the thought arose, "Do I love Jesus?" And then they considered what strange ingratitude it was that he should be the lover of their souls, and yet they should not love him. Now I believe the Holy Spirit led me to read that hymn. And many persons have been converted by some striking saying of the preacher. But why was it the preacher uttered that saying? Simply because he was led thereunto by the Holy Spirit.

Rest assured, beloved, that when any part of the sermon is blessed to your heart, the minister said it because he was ordered to say it by his Master. I might preach to-day a sermon which I preached on Friday, and which was useful then, and there might be no good whatever come from it now, because it might not be the sermon which the Holy Ghost would have delivered to-day. But if with sincerity of heart I have sought God's guidance in selecting the topic, and he rests upon me in the preaching of the Word, there is no fear but that it shall be found adapted to your immediate wants. The Holy Spirit must rest upon your preachers. Let them have all the learning of the wisest men, and all the eloquence of such men as Desmosthenes and Cicero, still the Word cannot be blessed to you, unless first of all the Spirit of God hath guided the minister's mind in the selection of his subject, and in the discussion of it.

C.H. Spurgeon. June 20, 1858 at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) - Spurgeon regularly preached to a congregation of more than 10,000 people in Victorian London while still in his twenties. His sermons were transcribed and published, selling up to 25,000 copies every week. As many as 2,500 of his sermons are still on sale today and he continues to be highly influential among Christians of different denominations.  While he is often recognized for his strong reformed theology, Spurgeon also emphasized the need for the Holy Spirit's power.  These blogs will reflect the second emphasis.

“Through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

The power of the Church for external work will be proportionate to the power which dwells within her. Gauge the energy of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Believers and you may fairly calculate their influence upon unbelievers...the outward work must always depend upon the inward force.

Take an illustration from political life. Here is a trouble arising between different nations...Everybody knows that one of the hopes of peace lies in the bankrupt condition of the nation which is likely to go to war, for if it is short of supplies, if it cannot pay its debts, if it cannot furnish the material for war, then it will not be likely to court a conflict. A country must be strong in internal resources before it can wisely venture upon foreign wars. Thus is it in the great battle of the Truth of God—a poor starving Church cannot combat the devil and his armies.

Unless the Church is, herself, rich in the things of God and strong with Divine energy, she will generally cease to be aggressive and will content herself with going on with the regular routine of Christian work, crying, “Peace! Peace!” where peace should not be. She will not dare to defy the world, or to send forth her legions to conquer its provinces for Christ when her own condition is pitiably weak. The strength or weakness of a nation’s money supply affects its army in its every march. And in like manner, its measure of Grace influences the Church of God in all its actions.

The one thing I want to say is this—you cannot get out of the Church what is not in it. The reservoir must be filled before it can pour forth a stream. We must, ourselves, drink of the living water till we are full—and then out of the midst of us shall flow rivers of living water—but not till then. Out of an empty basket you cannot distribute loaves and fishes, however hungry the crowd may be. Out of an empty heart you cannot speak full things, nor from a lean soul bring forth fat things full of marrow which shall feed the people of God. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks...So the first thing is to look well to home affairs and pray that God would bless us and cause His face to shine upon us, that His way may be known upon earth and His saving health among all people.

C.H. Spurgeon. January 7, 1877 at The Metropolitan Tabernacle, London