This blog series is a personal recollection of the first 40 years of Newfrontiers, not a definitive history. Those who know me will be aware of my love for and involvement in ministries with those who are poor or in need, and it is to this I will now turn.
The exceptions
In the 80s and 90s ministry with people who were living in some form of poverty was not a high priority for most Newfrontiers churches. Yet there were some notable exceptions as I discovered when, one year at Stoneleigh, I interviewed, during one main meeting, some key people for whom ministry with those in need was their passion: Piet Dreyer from Project Gateway in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, Angela Kemm about the townships in Cape Province, South Africa, and also the leader of the Clarendon Street project for homeless people in Bedford, UK. Each had a wonderful story to tell, but they were three of a small number of examples of ministries of excellence among the poor in the midst of the Newfrontiers family at that time.
Remember the Poor
In the 90s we had started to hold leadership conferences on alternate years at the Brighton Conference Centre. At that conference in 1998 Simon Pettit spoke on it being an ‘apostolic mandate to remember the poor’ from Gal 2:10. It was one of those talks that could not just be adjudged to be a ‘good sermon’ – it came as a commission from God. At the end there was spontaneous applause as people stood to their feet. Yet inside many of us there was also a sense of awe at the way we felt God had spoken.
Act2000
The next time Terry met with his apostolic team we gave serious attention to Simon’s talk. We could not ignore it – it required a response. As we were coming up to the new millennium we decided to launch a one-year initiative, which came to be known as Act2000. At the Stoneleigh Bible Week in 1999 we took an offering which allowed us to put £280,000 into this initiative.
Act2000 was led by Penny Relph who had a passion to help those who were poor or in need. As a professional communicator she had made videos and written articles around this theme. Indeed, one was of Angela Kemm’s work in Khayelitsha which can be viewed below. 
It was decided that our response would be to help churches in the UK to launch or enhance their ministries with people in poverty in their localities and to use their experience to produce handbooks of good practice in various sectors – Crisis Pregnancy, Furniture Projects, Street Homelessness etc. Eventually 20 such handbooks were produced.
Act2000 raised the profile of ministries of this type and encouraged churches to address the plight of people living in poverty in the UK. But it did not end there. In March 2000 God woke me one night and spoke clearly to me while I was in West Africa. But more of that next time.