Category: News

This will be my final post. The site will close shortly. 14 years ago I was urged by several people to write a blog. Since then I have written over 500 posts. The primary aim has been to help raise the bar of excellence in church administration and working with the poor, although I have used the site for other topics, particularly related to the history of the Newfrontiers family of churches. I chose Feeding 5000 is no picnic… as a ‘brand’, trying to embrace the combination of both administration and helping those in need. Much has changed since 2009. Church administration is now widely recognised for its crucial role in helping churches to grow and function healthily, particularly by releasing elders to flow in their gifting rather than being…

I love autobiographies. We can learn so much from the lives of others who have run the race well especially when they are still running. Over the last twelve months four well-known leaders in the family of Newfrontiers have written autobiographies. Each brings a different perspective to life, sharing their experience of walking with God for many decades. John Hosier has written This side of the door. His life story includes much of the history of Newfrontiers from his perspective as a church leader. He ends with a glimpse through the door to the other side of the grave, a very helpful and exciting insight into what we shall all experience in due course. Goff Hope’s book Hope Wins: How a Vision of Our Eternal Future Impacts Our Lives Today…

I’ve written a book! It was in fact written for my family and a few close friends as we celebrated my recent 80th birthday, but I have been urged to make it more widely available. So, I have had a second printing. The title recognises my love of cricket! As well as tracing my childhood and university education, including captaining the Cambridge University Rifle Team, I have written about my time as an engineer leading a research team in a paediatric hospital. This included designing artificial limbs for Thalidomide-affected children. During this period, Janita and I met Terry Virgo when he began to visit our home to speak to a small spiritually-hungry group of believers who were to become his first church plant. As our friendship developed and he formed…

Invisible Divides is one of the most helpful, practical and down-to-earth books I have read for many years, and two of my friends who lead churches among deprived communities in my city agree. They are devouring it and applying it in their ministries. I have the privilege of knowing both Natalie and Paul, and greatly appreciate the way in which they address the sensitive topic of class in the church. ‘Working class’ is often considered an unacceptable term, but the authors address and use it unashamedly as they explain, from their own experience, the huge cross-cultural barriers there are for someone from the ‘working class’ joining a ‘middle class’ church. They deal honestly, with a disarming degree of self-mockery, with some of the ways in which being introduced into a…

Recently I was interviewed by Gavin Smith of The Church Office, an excellent resource for all church administrators, reviewing my history working with Terry Virgo and the Newfrontiers family of churches. We cover many different aspects of how administration can help optimise the impact of a church in fulfilling its vision, and can release church leaders and others into their God-given calling. Click on picture>

Trudy and I have the privilege of serving on the same trustee board of a local charity. She is thoroughly authentic and a beautiful, dynamic Christian who sees the power of God at work in her own life and in the lives of those she is reaching, particularly those whom society would tend to put on the scrap heap. But this has not always been the case. In Abused, Addicted, Free Trudy tells her own story in stark detail – her abuse from early childhood, her many years of drug dependency and all that that entailed, especially some of the ways in which she obtained money, and much much more. This is not an easy read – it is well written, even a page turner, but it does contain some…