Author: Nigel Ring

The vital place of Prayer For Terry Virgo prayer is the context and engine room of hearing and interacting with God. Many are the occasions I have heard him talk about prayer and, even more important, have spent hundreds of hours with him and others in the context of prayer. In prayer we are very transparent and this has been a huge privilege. I soon discovered, as Terry’s administrator, that there was little point in pressing him for a decision if he had not yet heard from God on the issue. Indeed, this gave me great security; whatever Terry agreed to I knew was rooted in obedience to God’s will and so could proceed with faith and expectation of fruitfulness from whatever the initiative happened to be. (I also, of…

Ministers’ Conferences (1982–‘86) The Downs Bible Week was our main conference in the 80s but we also hosted other conferences for particular groups. Ministers' conferences were held for church leaders from across the streams and denominations to explore some of the issues which God was impressing upon us around the topics of restoration in the church, Ephesians 4 ministries and so on. Our heart was to help equip the wider body of Christ and these conferences helped many leaders gain fresh vision. Some even said they were ‘ruined’ now that they had seen the beauty of what the restored church should be; their ministries were transformed. Leaders and Twenties (1986-’88) Other gatherings were more ‘in-house’ such as the Leaders' and Twenties' conferences held at the Pontins holiday camp in Camber…

There is something special about gathering together with men and women of like-mind to worship God and be equipped by Bible exposition. This has always been an important part of our life together so in the next blogs I will share some of the memories and blessings from such events. Downs Bible Week From before Newfrontiers[see footnote] was a recognised family of churches we had organised the Downs Bible Week, beginning in 1979. 2,900 people came with tents and caravans from all over the nation to join us at Plumpton Racecourse beside the South Downs in Sussex for a week of teaching, worship, fellowship and fun for all ages. Meeting in a circus Big Top (erected by a committed set up team in pre-week) and using marquees for all the…

In September 1980 Terry Virgo and his first apostolic team met in Hove. Bryn Jones, who lead the Harvestime team later to become Covenant Ministries, had been a speaker at the recently held Downs Bible Week held at Plumpton Racecourse in Sussex – the second one – and he advised Terry on that occasion to form a team to share the increasingly demanding role he was playing as he travelled to help churches from his base on the south coast. Bryn also suggested that Terry needed to complement his apostolic ministry with the other Ephesians 4 gifts of prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher, not that ‘apostolic’ was a commonly used term in those days as people misunderstood the role of this gift to the church and accused those who might…

A Call to Act is about living a Poverty-Busting Lifestyle and has just been released by Jubilee+ (published by David C Cook) with strong endorsements by many well-known names including Shane Claiborne, Terry Virgo, Bishop Philip North, Gavin Calver of the Evangelical Alliance, and Member of Parliament Stephen Timms, and a forward by Krish Kandiah (Home for Good). A Call to Act is both an easy read and a hard read. Easy because it is very accessibly written with clear Biblical reasoning that is not ‘heavy’ and full of stories that draw you into the book. Hard because there are serious implications if you are going to apply what Martin Charlesworth and Natalie Williams have written to your own circumstances. Martin and Natalie are peculiarly well qualified to joint-author this…