The Gospel really is good news, but that does not mean that its benefits come cheaply. God’s lavish grace is a completely free gift but it costs everything. It cost Jesus His life, of course.
Jesus said, speaking about Himself and what He was about to accomplish at Calvary, that unless a grain of wheat is planted into the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels – a plentiful harvest of many lives (John 12:24). And in choosing to receive the Kingdom, we as followers of Jesus are required to sell everything to purchase the treasure in the field or buy the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44-46).
Most of us are sharp enough to spot and reject the worst elements of the “prosperity Gospel” which really is no Gospel at all because it essentially replaces Jesus as the greatest prize with material well-being. Nevertheless, we can, almost without thinking as 21st century Western Christians, airbrush out of our walk with God anything that smacks of difficulties or hardship.
A few years ago, David Devenish, who succeeded Terry Virgo as the global leader of Newfrontiers, was teaching a group of senior leaders in the Global South. He focused on establishing doctrinal foundations, fathering, mentoring and raising up leaders and the planting of churches as, as far as he was concerned, the defining features of New Testament apostolic ministry. He then took questions and was initially surprised when someone in the group, with the backing of the entire room, suddenly piped up, “But why have you not mentioned suffering?”
As David reflected, he came to the conclusion that his questioner was onto something. Suffering and personal sacrifice is not merely the experience of believers in the Global South. It is at the very core of the life of New Testament believers, and this was especially modelled by the leaders of the early church.
The Apostle Paul spoke candidly to the church in Corinth of his imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks, stonings, hard work, lack of sleep, hunger, thirst and exposure as well as threats from Jew and Gentile alike (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). But there was no sense when he spoke like this that he lived like this reluctantly. In fact, like Peter and John in Acts 5:41, Paul rejoiced that he had been found worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus. And it was in this context of hardship, and suffering that the early church saw remarkable growth and expansion. Put very simply, if we want to see Gospel impact then personal sacrifice comes with the territory.
It is for this reason that we need to take note of and celebrate men and women in our generation who have laid down their lives, not just for a year or two, but over decades as they have served Jesus and His church. I was a teenager in the 1970s and my early Christian life was inspired by the stories of people like David Wilkerson who had given up comfortable suburban Christianity to preach the Gospel to the gangs of New York. I was equally struck by the story of Jackie Pullinger in Chasing the Dragon (1980) who went to the walled city in aged 22 with £10 in her pocket to minister to the drug addicts of Hong Kong.
It was around this time (1977) that I first met Terry Virgo. Terry was a young pastor of a small church in a town called Seaford on the East Sussex coast. Seaford is the end of the line, a nothing sort of place roughly half way between its better known neighbours, Brighton and Eastbourne.
I was 16 and Terry was 37. One could never have imagined that nearly 60 years later the movement that Terry founded, Newfrontiers, would have grown from this one church of 50 or so people to a movement of over 5,000 churches in over 70 nations. Terry seemed so ordinary at the time but it is precisely his ordinariness, his delight and surprise that God should ever choose him, not to be a leader, but simply to be His treasured possession, His dearly loved child, that resulted in him accomplishing so much in God’s purposes. Quite simply, Terry has never got over God’s lavish grace poured out on one so unworthy as him.
Terry Virgo has lived his life as a follower of Jesus and as a leader of significance in His Church for decade after decade. His sheer longevity in a Christian world that has, heartbreakingly, seen so many leaders fall in recent years, is a testimony in itself. He came to faith as a 16-year-old and, after an initial period of backsliding, has never looked back. He has been married to the same person for 58 years. He is a father to four sons and one daughter, and a grandfather to 22 grandchildren. However, he has also been a spiritual father to thousands of Christians literally all over the world.
Such long-haul fruitfulness comes at a price. Very early in his Christian walk, Terry gave up his safe secure job in central London to live by faith. He lived in Coldean, a tough council estate on the northern edge of Brighton and lived by faith. Every week he was dependent on God’s supply for his rent, his personal needs and the needs of his ministry. And God was faithful. Faith for millions of pounds and millions of people started so small.
By the 1980s, Terry was leading a significant church in Brighton as well as shaping a fledgling movement of churches. But he had also become something of a pariah in the evangelical world. Terry had a vision to plant “New Testament churches” – churches that were both Reformed in their theology and wholeheartedly committed to the charismatic as well as being elder-led and cared for by “apostles”. His commitment to see God “restore” His church was not universally welcomed. Terry was accused of “sheep stealing” from other churches and of self-aggrandisement because of his theological convictions surrounding apostolic ministry. He was even accused of comparing himself to the apostle Paul which was palpable nonsense.
In 1981 Terry preached a number of sermons at the Downs Bible Week on the Old Testament character Joseph. Joseph was a dreamer but, sadly, he was rejected by his brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and forgotten by those he had helped in prison. Terry drew strong and clear parallels about the Joseph-like dreams he carried, the hardships Joseph had suffered and the opposition that he and the churches that had gathered to him were experiencing. However, he also pointed out that there came a time in the Joseph story when the younger brother was raised up by God to bless his older siblings.
For a number of years Terry trod a somewhat lonely and isolated path in the evangelical world. He began to be assimilated and later much respected and even revered as the integrity of what he was building became evident. His ministry bore fruit. Hundreds of churches were planted and his theological consistency and humble godly leadership became evident to all.
Terry has worked tirelessly as a minister of the Gospel for 60 years. At the height of his ministry, he preached around 130 times a year. He travelled literally all over the world which meant that he was often away from home for weeks upon end.
Now aged 86, he has slowed down just a little. But he remains a powerful preacher, travels extensively and gathers other leaders in his home to pray for revival. His life has been spent – given in passionate commitment – to see the church in the UK and across the world emerge to become all that God has purposed her to be. Terry has given all he has to see a New Testament-style church birthed first in the UK and then across the globe.
But as in the New Testament era, as we have seen, suffering is part and parcel of the deal. Terry would be the first to minimize any personal sacrifice that he has made. Nevertheless, he birthed a movement that has seen people martyred, others imprisoned and many abused and marginalised.
Churches that would consider themselves part of the Newfrontiers world that Terry established are now in many of the most dangerous parts of the world to be a follower of Jesus - places far too dangerous to be listed here.
You can read more about Terry’s life and ministry in the new biography, Building God’s House, by Andy Johnston.
