In this segment I ask them to tell us a little bit about what they do, what is Newfrontiers<\/a>, and how Terry came to speak at the New Word Alive Conference this year.<\/p>\n ************************* Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Wendy<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Wendy<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Wendy<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Wendy<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Wendy<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/strong> <\/span><\/em> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/em><\/strong> <\/span> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Terry<\/span><\/em><\/strong>![\"Terry](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/298\/2008\/07\/image01-778560.jpg\")
<\/a>Adrian<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
Hi. I\u2019m Adrian Warnock. I blog over at adrianwarnock.com<\/a> and I\u2019m part of the leadership team at Jubilee Church in London<\/a>. I\u2019m here at New Word Alive in North Wales, and am actually in Terry and Wendy Virgo\u2019s chalet. Terry and Wendy very kindly agreed to join us for a short interview about the conference and whatever else we decide to talk about, I guess. So, thanks for joining us, Terry and Wendy.<\/p>\n
Thanks, Adrian. Good to see you.<\/p>\n
Yeah. It\u2019s great that you were able to find some time to chat with us, and to just be here at this conference. I just wonder, how have you found the conference so far?<\/p>\n
Well, we\u2019ve really enjoyed the opportunity for fellowship with a number of people we wouldn\u2019t normally see. First of all, I\u2019ve never met Don Carson<\/a>, and it\u2019s been magnificent to listen to him, and John Piper<\/a>\u2014inspiring again. It\u2019s good to make new friends\u2014people whose names I\u2019ve known, like Wallace Benn<\/a>. This is the first time I\u2019ve got to meet him. It\u2019s been an excellent time. Thank you.<\/p>\n
Good, thanks. And what about you, Wendy?<\/p>\n
Yes. I wasn\u2019t quite sure what I was coming to, but I was relieved to find it is set in an absolutely beautiful location. And also I have so enjoyed especially Don Carson\u2019s and John Piper\u2019s messages. I\u2019ve really been blown away by their passionate delivery of theology.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it\u2019s been great, hasn\u2019t it? So, Terry, there will be a few people watching this [and reading it] who perhaps won\u2019t know who you are. I mean, I find that amazing; you probably don\u2019t find that amazing. But people do watch this in the States, and also some other places. I wonder if you could, in your own words really, talk a little bit about what it is you do with your life when you\u2019re not in a chalet in Wales.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/298\/2008\/07\/image001-754867.jpg\")
<\/a>Yes, which is pretty rare! I\u2019m based in Brighton on the south coast of England, and I\u2019m an elder of a church there called Church of Christ the King<\/a>. From there, I travel out with Newfrontiers, which is a group of churches that works in about 40 nations now. In the UK we have about 220 churches, and then globally we\u2019re pressing on towards 600 churches. So I travel a lot. Later this month we\u2019ll be in Russia at a pastors and wives conference, and then we\u2019ll be in the States in May and June, and we\u2019ll be in France with our pastors and wives there from the Newfrontiers churches. So we travel quite a lot.<\/p>\n
You say \u201cwe.\u201d Is that the two of you, or just you, or sometimes a mixture of both?<\/p>\n
We have five children who are all now married and have left home. And we often travel together now.<\/p>\n
Oh, that\u2019s the \u201cwe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n
So what does Wendy get up to, then, when she\u2019s not holding your bags? Well, I hope he carries your bags Wendy!<\/p>\n
Yes, traveling does take up a lot of our time, but when I\u2019m at home I love to be involved in things like Alpha Courses, although increasingly I\u2019m not able to do that. But I do write for various Bible notes such as TWR and Day By Day, the Bible Reading Fellowship, Scripture Union obviously for as well. I speak at ladies\u2019 days around the country, and I\u2019m also engaged in writing a book at the moment.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s very interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Or are you sworn to secrecy on that?<\/p>\n
Well, yes, perhaps it is a little bit premature, but it\u2019s about the effect that women can have in a Church for good or bad.<\/p>\n
Very good. That sounds really interesting. I look forward to reading that, no doubt, sometime in the future. Now you\u2019re going to have to finish it as you\u2019ve said it online.<\/p>\n
I know.<\/p>\n
(Laughing) There you go! So, obviously both of you are incredibly busy, traveling an awful lot, all around the place, looking after all these churches. What made you decide to accept the invitation to come here? I know you\u2019ve been involved with UCCF <\/a>for quite awhile as well, haven\u2019t you? Is it some kind of advisory board you\u2019re on with them, or . . .<\/p>\n
Yes. The invitation came from UCCF. I\u2019ve made a very good friend in Richard Cunningham<\/a>. He\u2019s a fine guy.![\"Terry](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/298\/2008\/07\/TOAM_3-779275.jpg\")
<\/a> I like him. He asked me to be involved with UCCF, and then having agreed to that, I was then invited to speak at their Leaders Forum a year or two back, and had a very happy time working through Romans and then leading Bible studies. And I\u2019ve enjoyed the fellowship. I\u2019m so glad that they have embr
\naced us. We come from a charismatic perspective. Our church life is charismatic. UCCF has not been famously charismatic, but they\u2019re making a statement of openness, and I\u2019ve been received very warmly, both in their Forum, which I\u2019m due to speak at again next year (2009), and then here as well. And so it\u2019s an interesting coming together of people who love Scripture, love doctrine, love the truth of God. And it\u2019s great to have Stuart Townend<\/a> here, and Phatfish<\/a>, who come from my home church. We\u2019re very proud of them. Stuart\u2019s written some magnificant songs, as have Phatfish, and I know they are welcomed around the world. It\u2019s great to be together with them here as well. So we\u2019ve enjoyed that.<\/p>\n
Yeah, and we\u2019re singing the same songs as well, aren\u2019t we? It\u2019s interesting. Those divisions, at least in terms of songs, just don\u2019t seem to be there anymore, really, you know?<\/p>\n
I was fascinated when I was invited to speak at the Keswick Convention<\/a>, probably three years ago now, and again I felt as the worship took place before I spoke, I think three-quarters of the songs we sang had been written by people in my home church. I felt remarkably . . .<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/em><\/strong>What is it about the sea water down there? You guys seem to keep producing singers, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
Yes, we have some great songwriters . . .<\/p>\n
I guess that church is a sort of resource church, really, isn\u2019t it? I guess that would be one way of describing it in terms of\u2014you have all kinds of different people going out and serving in various different way from there, haven\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
I think David Fellingham<\/a> originally was with us from the beginning when we started our church. We started with 38 people back in about 1980, and David joined us quite early on with tremendous musical skills and devotion to God. He started writing songs that became very famous. And then others joined us like <\/a>Stuart Townend<\/a>, Paul Oakley<\/a>, then his other son, Nathan Fellingham<\/a>, came through writing songs. Kate Simmonds<\/a>. More recently Simon Brading<\/a>. In fact, we\u2019re starting a worship school<\/a> again this coming autumn, and we trust people will want to book in and come for the monthly program that will take place through this coming year.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s great. So I mean, coming here, I guess we\u2019re joining hands with people who perhaps years ago we\u2019d never have imagined we\u2019d be joining hands with. I mean, would that be a fair way of describing it?<\/p>\n
Yes, it\u2019s true. For me, when I was first converted from a completely non-Christian background, my sister had joined All Souls Langham Place<\/a>, and I first responded to the gospel publically there. So I met John Stott<\/a> on that day. So my roots go back to an evangelical context. And while I was at college, I listened to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones<\/a>. So one feels so at home with these truths. Then I had an experience of the Holy Spirit, opening up the gifts of the Spirit in our church life. Which means we\u2019re certainly not cessationists. We believe in the presence and the power of God. We\u2019ve never abandoned these great evangelical truths which we greatly love and have always preached during this time of enjoying the presence of the Spirit as well\u2014seeing people being healed, and prophecies, and things of that order. So that we can find a very happy combination of those things.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I think that people are sort of almost feeling that this is a new thing\u2014this combination of reformed and charismatic. I guess it\u2019s newly prominent. It\u2019s something that\u2019s been around, I guess what you\u2019re saying, all along. Is that right?<\/p>\n
Well, I think I\u2019ve always held that position going back many years. Joel Edwards<\/a>, who has been the Evangelical Alliance leader for some years, said he felt that we at Newfrontiers in England were fairly unique for being famously charismatic and famously reformed theologically. He thought we were unusual. But we\u2019re friends right across the board, and I\u2019m very grateful for that.<\/p>\n