It’s my great pleasure to bring a report on the Newfrontiers conference here in Brighton on the south coast of England. There are over 5000 attending, from some 50 different nations.

I could discuss the excellent teaching by Stephen van Rhyn from Jubilee Community Church in Cape Town (I used to share an office with Stephen when I lived in Cape Town), or Rob Rufus from City Church International in Hong Kong. Terry Virgo was magnificent teaching from Joshua 1. I don’t need to tell you about these guys as you can download the talks for FREE from the Newfrontiers website – give it a few days for the talks to be posted.

I would rather then talk about why this is such an enjoyable experience. Newfrontiers conferences are more like family gatherings. The title, “Together On A Mission”, is no corporate catch line. It really feels like doing something great with your friends. Having been part of all this for decades now and having served in various nations the thrill of being with so many genuine friends working hard for the vision of a glorious church and to see the ends of the earth reached is truly wonderful. Many conferences are highlights for believers and I know it sound bias but this is different. The focus is not on the conference but on the Jesus and reaching His world.

It’s friends that make this so special. People we’ve served with and shared our lives with now running hard after God in contexts far and wide. What is so unsatisfactory is only having a few minutes with each person and while talking to them, seeing others you dearly would love to spend days catching up with and you know you might have to wait until Heaven for that.

There are many prophetic words over us as a family of churches. One that shapes my thinking and is so evident here at the conference is that “we can do more together than we can apart”. For those who were worried about such things, the evidence from this conference is that the Church in the UK is alive well and aggressively looking to advance with the Gospel on all fronts.

More tomorrow…

andy cottingham

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