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Not shaken but stirred
New Wine events are all sold out this summer. Rebecca Paveley investigates their popularity
 Refreshing: above: conference-goers spend time in worship at New Wine, Shepton Mallet ROB MOLD |
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MORE conference than festival, more Bible studies than music gigs — if you think this does not sound sexy, well, plenty of other people do. Tickets for this summer’s three New Wine conferences in the UK sold out weeks ago. Some 24,000 church leaders, groups, and families will be heading off to the events, with another 20,000 or so attending the youth spin-off, Soul Survivor. New Wine has been running for 19 years this summer. It was the inspiration of the Rt Revd David Pytches, the former Anglican Bishop in Chile, Bolivia and Peru, and subsequently a vicar in Hertfordshire. His own lineage in the revival movement is strong. His father was a vicar who had been changed greatly by a revival in his church in Lowestoft in 1921. When David Pytches later went as a missionary to Chile, he encountered another revival. He recalls: “It was a moving of the Spirit of God: it made everything come alive, and got people excited about being a Christian. It gathered momentum, but then died out in Chile after three or four years. I was a bishop in those days, and we wondered a little what we might have done wrong, what had snuffed it out.” He came back to the UK, searching for a church “that knew about revival”. He ended up in St Andrew’s, Chorleywood, where he was told the extraordinary story of John Wimber, the Charismatic who had started out playing keyboards in the pop group the Righteous Brothers. Wimber was invited over, and appealed to Bishop Pytches instantly. “He wasn’t one of those shouty evangelists who put Anglicans off: he was very laid-back.” Wimber’s influence at St Andrew’s was dramatic. Soon other church leaders were coming to learn about this “moving of the Spirit”, says the Bishop, and New Wine was born. Although it is an interdenominational network of churches, New Wine is dominated by Charismatic Anglicans. Many of its church leaders were supportive of GAFCON. New Wine’s current leader, the Revd John Coles, has formed alliances with conservative Anglican groups. Nearly 20 years after its first conference, there are now more than 800 church leaders on the New Wine network, and “New Wine churches” have spread across the country. If it sounds as if the movement has completely broken away from its Anglican roots, Bishop Pytches denies it, although he is clearly unhappy about much in the Church of England at present. “I love the traditions of the Church, but the heart of God is in revival,” he says. “I am concerned about church growth.” New Wine churches are reporting growth in numbers. They emphasise building family and community life as well as “Spirit-empowered mission” and church-planting. The networks provide support, and put church leaders in touch with other “like-minded” people — those who, among other things, “accept the ministry of the Holy Spirit”.REVIVAL, once derided as old-fashioned, is now making a comeback. The ministry of Todd Bentley, in Lakeland, Florida, is making waves that are likely to have an impact on New Wine this summer. |
 Children take part in their own praise and worship at New Wine GEMMA MARRINER |
| Mr Coles, who is also an assistant curate of St Barnabas’s, Finchley, has visited Florida. He is enthusiastic about some of the claims of miracles performed during Mr Bentley’s emotionally charged, frequently extremely physical services. Miracles by the Holy Spirit, and also by an angel called Emma, including dramatic healings and raisings from the dead, have been claimed. Mr Coles concluded, in an epistle to members of the New Wine network, that “this really is a ‘work of God’”, although others have been more cautious. Bishop Pytches said that he was aware of a “new stirring up”, and urged people to watch and wait before condemning it. He was one of the first in the UK to experience the Toronto Blessing 14 years ago, after travelling to the “airport church” outside Toronto to see it first-hand. The blessing went beyond the more “usual” Charismatic phenomena: as well as speaking in tongues, those affected fell down, laughed or cried uncontrollably, and shook or jerked. It spread to the UK, to Holy Trinity, Brompton, and to its curate, the Revd Nicky Gumbel, now its Vicar — another man strongly influenced by Wimber, who died in 1997. It is notable that two of the newest Christian “brands” — Alpha and New Wine — began with the same man, and have run parallel, equally successful, courses. The Toronto Blessing was also reported at St Andrew’s, together with other Charismatic Anglican churches, and at New Wine, lasting about a year before ebbing away. “Toronto blessing came to New Wine that summer. . . It was a great blessing, and a blessing as well to me personally. It was an empowering,” Bishop Pytches said. He believes that the new “stirring up” will be obvious at the New Wine conferences this summer, and it has already been embraced by the current Vicar of St Andrew’s, where Bishop Pytches still worships. St Andrew’s is holding weekly FIRE (Father’s Impartation for Revival through Evangelism) meetings, described on the church’s website as “an opportunity to keep imparting this anointing to God’s people, in an environment of high praise and prayer for healing”. Bishop Pytches said: “I am continually surprised by the work of God. . . Insiders are more scandalised than outsiders, usually. God really startles people, whether through healing, or sometimes taking alcoholics and stripping away all their desire to drink. We have had miracles and healings at New Wine: there are always some, and will be more this year. “Stirrings are going on again in Toronto and the US, and in South America, in Colombia, and Chile. These are manifest in falling or laughing or crying: it all seems irrational, but God is beyond that: he is supra-rational.” The Revd Ian Parkinson, Vicar of All Saints’, Marple, Stockport, and the host for this year’s New Wine North and East, at Newark, is also positive about the Florida Outpouring, as it is known. “God is a surprising God. One of the pitfalls that the Church has found is defining in advance what a work of God may look like . . . but any work of God is self-authenticating.” IT IS, however, New Wine’s contribution to building up family and community life that is key to its popularity, Mr Parkinson maintains. “It’s about equipping churches and their leaders to impact on their communities, giving them the wherewithal to make a difference,” he said. Many of the thousands coming will be families. New for this summer will be a strand for churches in urban priority areas. This aims to provide a different style and focus for people who have come from a large “estate culture”. “What I have always found refreshing about New Wine,” Mr Parkinson says, “was the total absence of the celebrity culture. It is a bottom-up movement.” www.new-wine.org |
