I recently reviewed Andy Johnston’s excellent biography of Terry Virgo. I would suggest that the book sits somewhere on a range between first person memoir and critical historical biograph but closer to the former. What I mean by this is that Johnston has, intentionally not set out to give us an account at a distance or engage in heavy critique of Terry Virgo’s theology or practice. As Johnston has indicated, it’s likely that such treatments will come later. I don’t think this necessarily means “negative”. For example, I can see a place for a “Terry Virgo on the Christian Life” volume in the growing and popular series. What Johnston has done is to spend significant time with Terry and Wendy, interviewing, listening and recording. This means that we are presented with a detailed accurate account of Terry’s own recollections, told by Andy in the third person. His aim was to provide not a hagiography but a warm, honest, personal and appreciative account.
I think Andy has done an important service to the church in this respect. Indeed, the service is both to the New Frontiers movement and to wider evangelicalism. There is much interest in “historical retrieval” at the moment, learning the past in order to better understand the present. The danger with such an approach is that it can at times risk slipping into a mining exercise that rushes to interpretation without fully appreciating context. I believe that it is important to ensure we break such a process down into three stages:
- Making sure we know and have told the story as completely as possible.
- Taking time to accurately interpret meaning from words and events
- Moving slowly to application.
Actually, that methodology is good for many things including preaching preparation, feedback, process review and pastoral counselling. Andy’s book contributes substantially to the first element of this. Furthermore, by allowing Terry’s voice to be heard and not rushing to impose his own interpretation, Andy has helpfully created space for others to have useful discussions and to do deeper thinking with reference to the church today. This is particularly important and pertinent because I would argue that New Frontiers now finds itself at somewhere between third and fourth generation (where “generations” refers not to the age and chronology of people but the degrees of separation from the founders). This is an important moment for the movement to be discussing the kinds of questions I’ve highlighted. Indeed, that kind of discussion may have implications across the evangelical spectrum beyond New Frontiers.
The three questions I suggested for staters were
1. What unintentional impact might relationships have on a culture?
2. What are the benefits of a close-knit foundation and what are the drawbacks? To what extent is the movement able to draw and graft others into the movement from outside?
3. To what extent is the original vision still live and necessary? Does the movement still have a mission of reform and renewal for the whole church, or has it now evolved into a network of churches/loose denomination in the more traditional sense?
Andy very kindly gave some time for a video call conversation with me in the middle of a busy visit to Pakistan. We used these questions as discussion prompts and I wanted to give you a flavour of that conversation here. I’m not going to give you a verbatim account but share my recollections of the conversation perhaps with some limited observations. My aim is for us to hear something more of Andy’s own perceptions whilst recognising that we are still at stage 1, building the story.
What unintentional impact might relationships have on a culture?
This question was promoted by Andy’s recounting of the relationship between Terry and the Jones’ brother Bryn and Kerry, their Bradford based church network, Dales Week Festival and place in “Restoration 1”. Johnston has referred to Terry’s ability to “chew the meat and spit out the bones” and this has led to a generous orthodoxy, a willingness to invite in and platform people that might sit outside of the movement and at times may have proved controversial.
Andy identifies a real and close connection between Bryn Jones and Terry. [1]There was a relationship between the movements as well. Terry spoke at the Dales weeks and the Downs weeks were modelled closely on them. Bryn spoke at Terry’s events too. However, there is a distinction between the movements. Harvest Time/New covenant ministries had a much more command and control structure to it. There was a sense that the Bradford Church was “THE Bradford church”, other Christians and churches were expected to join it. There was a reputation for heavy shepherding with rumours of people being told how much to tithe and given strong direction over relationship and career choices.
New Frontiers has developed into a different kind of movement with a much softer approach to pastoral discipleship and relationship to the movement leaders. There is greater freedom for the spheres and churches to develop their own identity. Crucially Terry and New Frontiers have experienced a far greater integration into mainstream evangelicalism than others in Restoration 1 did. This is more akin to Restoration 2.[2]
My question is around whether there could be a risk that whilst the movement leader has learnt how to spit out the bones, the movement itself might absorb the unhealthy aspects. Jhonston has been open in identifying the risks for New Frontiers of having had on the platform controversial figures such as Mark Driscoll and Mike Bickle. It Is important to recognise in that respect three things. First that when those people were platformed, the full nature of potential controversy was not known. Secondly that the same people were being welcomed, listened to and given platforms beyond the charismatic ecosystem. Driscoll was taken under John Piper’s wing for example. Further, the challenge is not solely a New Frontiers one. I observed in our conversation that the FIC had John MacArthur as a speaker at their Easter conference in the 1990s. We can surely appreciate MacArthur’s commitment to expository teaching and defence of the Lordship of Christ. However, there is much, as I’ve highlighted on Faithroots that might concern us about MacArthur, his early leaning to a form of adoptionism, his tendency to polemic battle, especially in relation to charismatics and concerns about Grace Church’s culture that have emerged.
Andy’s view is that we need to make overt to the audience what the meat is that we are chewing and where the bones are. For example, Terry has both welcomed onto the platform speakers and publicly but graciously disagreed with them. Additionally he suggested that there may be times when with hindsight we can humbly recognise that the nature of the bones meant that the meet wasn’t worth chewing.
What are the benefits of a close-knit foundation and what are the drawbacks? To what extent is the movement able to draw and graft others into the movement from outside?
We began to discuss this question later in the conversation as Andy was preparing to board his flight home. I’ve preserved its place in my original question structure to fit with my previous review. However, this means that we probably did not give it as full a discussion as possible.
Instead, we focused in on the question “How can people grafted into the movement thrive and what can they bring?” This obviously was personal for me as someone who has come in and spent time within the movement from a different background.
Andy’s key piece of advice was that we thrive by pressing in and seeking to know more of the Holy spirit, to enjoy him and seek to know his presence and power in ministry. This is a key concern of Terry Virgo.
What we can bring is a continuing commitment to knowing, appreciating and living God’s Word. This is important because Terry’s emphasis has been on Word and Spirit. This caused me to pause and reflect that one of Terry’s concerns is that we do not become nominal charismatics who in reality sing modern songs and raise our hands but have become practical cessationists. My observation was that there we can become practical cessationists with regards to Word as well as Spirit if we observe its form but deny its power. We need to be careful that we don’t pay lip service to Scripture but fail to let it saturate our meetings for its own sake or we are quick to impose our own frameworks and eisegesis onto it. This applies across the board to conservative evangelicalism.
3. To what extent is the original vision still live and necessary? Does the movement still have a mission of reform and renewal for the whole church or has it now evolved into a network of churches/loose denomination in the more traditional sense?
This was where Andy spoke quite passionately about Terry’s concern that New Frontiers do not become “charismatic in name only”. You could sense that this was important for Andy as well. This reflects his own biography as someone whose early years were in a more conservative evangelical/non-charismatic context.
Andy explained that he had intentionally chosen the title of the book to reflect an ongoing concern of Terry’s. Instead of downsizing as they have moved into their 80s, Terry and Wendy have kept on a sizable house because they want to gather people to pray for revival. Terry’s concern would be that the structure of building a house may have happened but we have not seen the great revival in our land that he longed for. We have not seen anything that could truly described as “revival” at local level since the Hebrides Revival in the mid 20th century, you have to go back to 1904 and the Welsh Revival for something truly substantial, not localised (although the Hebrides Revival had some impact on Norther Ireland and through fishing routes to East Anglia). The last recognised nationwide revival was probably the 1850s.
There is a separate discussion here both about whether or not being “revivalist” reflects something central to Terry’s vision and therefore to the movement or whether it reflects a personal desire. Andy has, rightly I think, left that conversation open. However, I believe that there is something important, regardless of how we frame it in seeking to nurture life in the Spirt within our churches.
Conclusion
This article is not intended to be “the last word” on the matter. Rather, I’m hoping to see a growing conversation both specifically within New Frontiers and the wider conservative evangelical eco-system. I’d love to hear from you with your contribution to the story and to reflections on it.
[1] For clarity, these were rumours that circulated in the 1970s through to the early 90s and are my observations on those rumours rather than Andy’s account.
[2] The terminology of Restoration 1 and Restoration 2 to distinguish two distinct but linked generations of pioneer leaders comes from Andrew Walker’s book.
