In 1996 we formed Passion with the stated purpose of providing a resource
for tomorrow's church. So, what have we learnt, how far have we got and how successful
have we been in those intervening years? And as our hoped for tomorrow finally dawns, what
are our expectations and what initiatives will we continue or begin in order to serve it?
Probably the greatest things we have learnt so far are as follows:
Cross-generational partnership is the form the rising and overcoming
generation takes.
The spheres and territories of society are the new apostolic and
prophetic landscape that we have to invade with the gospel.
Wheels within wheels is the driving leadership shape that gives us the
way to relate together in an authority dynamic.
Europe is the only remaining truly dark continent.
God has given us new spiritual technologies for mission to prove and
develop; particularly prayer evangelism, spiritual mapping, identificational repentance,
spiritual warfare and extemporary worship.
Serious process and reflection accompanied by repentance and change is
the only way forward to unity and success in our calling.
How far have we got?
We are basically about bringing together the apostolic and the prophetic
to nurture and release new initiatives, mentor and develop people and work for the
re-evangelisation of the islands and nations of Britain and Europe. As a ministry we are
currently reviewing and appraising all our team members as well as developing the long
term mentoring teams that have been running for nearly three years now. The evaluation of
our contribution to the re-evangelisation of our continent, will, we hope, flow back to us
from those who read and reflect on this progress report. The report, which follows, is our
attempt to describe and evaluate our success in the nurture and release of new
initiatives.
The nurture and release of new initiatives
Over the last five years, our main initiatives have been as follows:
Building Together
English Reconciliation Coalition (ERC)
Passion for the Harvest
Council of the Isles
Building Together for London
Passion Respro
Northern European Spiritual Warfare Network
Target Europe
English Strategic Prayer Network
336Watchers4Europe
Conference on the Land
Passion for Camden Town
Tiswas
Deepwater
London's Turn
Love London
Wagner Leadership Institute
Only Originals
Don't panic! Apparently the Clapham sect in the days of its most famous
member William Wilberforce had about 69 different initiatives (just one being the
Abolition of Slavery!) and never had a mailing list of more than about 600 people.
In terms of nurture we can claim a significant measure of success so far
in 13 of the above. In terms of release we can already see good progress in at least half
of these. The stage of development is too early to evaluate 2 of them: Only Originals and
the Wagner Leadership Institute (WLI). The remaining 3: London's Turn, Love London, and
Deepwater, are harder to assess as they in some ways failed to reach their expected final
goals. Nevertheless they helped us to achieve some very important things in the process.
Beginning with the most successful initiatives, these were those where
nurture proceeded to a full or partial degree of release and autonomy. There have been
four of these:
Building Together is the horizontal network of city and regional elders
and leaders committed to the re-evangelisation of the UK which Passion has been
facilitating. This now operates in some shape or form within all the main regions although
with varying strengths. It is now fully corporately led and Passion no longer has to take
all the initiative. In the South, South West and North of England it is now locally
motivated and facilitated. The national core team are in the process of setting up a
charitable trust to take over legal responsibility.
An Apostolic and Prophetic Partnership for Burton on Trent. We have
agreed to the request made to us by Nick Pettingale and other key leaders of the Burton
churches that Roger and Sue commit themselves to working with Sharon Stone and Martin
Scott for two years to see Burton transformed. This is a first for us, and possibly unique
nationally. We have already helped them ride a number of storms! After the first year
important strides have been taken, not least in positioning the Conference on the Land and
the Council of the Isles there in June 2001. In March 2002 we were there together with Ed
Silvoso and a national city-reaching summit. We are committed to working in team with the
Burton leaders and meeting regularly with them and the church in Burton for at least the
next two years.
The English Reconciliation Coalition was a partnership initiative with
Passion and Brian Mills now of InterPrayer. It grew out of the Heal the Land initiative
which Roger and Brian started in order to work on strategic reconciliation initiatives
with Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as with Britain's former colonies and European
cousins. For the last 3 years it has been facilitated by Chris Seaton who had been in a
mentoring relationship with Roger and is facilitated through Peaceworks, the ministry that
Chris co-founded.
Passion for the Harvest was our Partnership with Ed Silvoso and Harvest
Evangelism to help develop city transformation and prayer evangelism throughout the UK.
The principles involved are now common policy in scores of towns and cities and Harvest
Evangelism has been able to fulfil our desire of working in a broad partnership with these
with our support but no longer needing to rely mainly on our help.
Then there are the initiatives where release of responsibility is clearly
developing but the stage of development is still too early to say what the outcome will
be. These are:
The Council of the Isles has largely developed out of Building
Together. This brings together regional elders and apostolic and prophetic types from most
of the main regions and islands of Britain and Ireland who are prepared to take
responsibility before God for the land. It met in Burton in 2001 and on the Isle of Man in
June 2002. The council has carried awesome spiritual weight and has begun to deal in
prayer and spiritual warfare with major spiritual issues affecting the nation that have
come to light in the preceding years. Martin Scott and Roger have agreed to work at
building up relationships for the council so that it even more fully represents Wales,
Scotland and Ireland by next time we meet.
Building Together for London, although part of the national Building
Together initiative, is still directly facilitated by Passion. It has been a real
spiritual fight to establish and both of our least successful projects have been attempts
to strengthen and under gird it. These were London's Turn and Love London (see below).
Simon Rennie made many good relationships across the London boroughs but those that have
strong borough teams remain comparatively few. The post Love London review showed
conclusively that the boroughs with strong initiative for transformation are those that
have had strong but sensitive apostolic help such as Haringey and Newham. Current
strategies of BTL have consisted in attempts to recognise and work with those boroughs
open to apostolic help, and developing the London Multi-national Church Leaders group. The
latter group has now developed into a deeply committed core of relationships among
cross-cultural leaders to forge a new way ahead for the transformation of London.
Passion Respro, our publications department was quite a struggle to get
off the ground. Eventually Jonathan Stringer put time and energy into creating some
initial systems and impetus. Subsequently, with the input of some serious investment, Sue
has got a grip on it together with Chris Mitchell and it is now becoming a significant
provider of a selection of radical resources and a net contributor to Passion overall.
The 2 Book Projects: Sins of the Fathers and Target Europe. Both of
these had a real divine conception and were written in obedience to a clear word from God.
The first of these has been a key tool in documenting the past sins of Britain that the
Holy Spirit led Roger and Brian Mills the co-authors to emphasise. As well as providing
guidance for strategic intercession one person was constrained to put up the money for
every member of the Houses of Lords and Commons to have a copy. Target Europe has sold
extremely well since its publication in October 2001 and was published in French in May
2002 and will be in German just as soon as the publishers find a translator. It's a first
as Sue and Roger wrote it together! It provides a source book and raison d'etre for the
Target Europe initiative. Over the next year Roger is working with Louise Donkin of Speak
on a sequel to 'Sins of the Fathers'. This will be on the general theme of the sins of the
present and will deal with issues of endemic and systemic poverty and the responsibility
of Britain and its allies. He will also be working on an update of 'The Kingdom Factor'.
The Northern European SWN, part of the prayer track of the now
completed AD2000 Movement, headed up by Dr. Peter Wagner of Global Harvest, has
successfully transitioned into the European Strategic Prayer Network and is now part of
Target Europe.
Target Europe is a bold new initiative, in partnership with CTZ of
Hannover, Germany and Global Harvest of Colorado Springs, USA. Its purpose is to draw on
the current international prayer focus 'Target 40/70 window' facilitated by Global Harvest
in the attempt to encourage and link together apostles, prophets and intercessors in
Europe's 48 nations to see revival in Europe go all the way. The Gideon's Army II
conference in Hannover in October 2001 brought together well over two thousand of these
from 37 European nations and supporters from another 28 nations internationally to launch
this initiative. As a result we now have some 7 regional convenors taking responsibility
with us for the Target Europe initiative in approximately seven nations each. Already
major regional consultations have taken place in 2002 in France and Norway, as well as
numerous other national visits and meetings to process and enact the vision. The first
regional consultation for the Balkans is scheduled for September.
The English Strategic Prayer Network is an initiative of the
International Strategic Prayer Network (the new name for the SWN, no. 7). Passion is
continuing to assist in developing its Target 40/70 window project through Target Europe,
and taking direct responsibility for its development in England.
336watchers4europe began in the Summer of 2001 with the purpose of
raising teams of 7 watchmen for each of the 48 nations of Europe from the nations that
inhabit Britain and Ireland and as a complement and support to Target Europe. It is
committed to cross-generational partnership and to establishing a 24-hour prayer base for
Europe in Camden Town. It already has its own service team and a growing team of
recruiters from among other places, Southampton, Cobham, London, the West Country,
Edinburgh and Wales. It began registering the first watchmen in February 2002 and the
bones of 12 teams are now in place.
The Conference on the Land was the first national conference directly
sponsored by Passion. Held in conjunction with the Burton-on-Trent churches and with the
strong support of Martin Scott and Sowing Seeds for Revival together with Sharon Stone and
CIE Europe, it paves the way for us to take similar initiatives to resource the church in
these islands, probably annually. The next of these, RAFT, in partnership with several
more ministries, is scheduled for Aug 31st-Sept 2nd 2002 at Ashburnham Place.
Passion for Camden Town, along with Building Together and Target
Europe, is one of Passion's primary initiatives. While initiatives such as Building
Together and The Northern European SWN were inherited by Passion, PfCT was its first own
apostolic work. However, when the idea of church planting in Camden Town was first mooted
and the team began to be formed, the expectation was of planting a resource church within
the Ichthus family, together with the help and infrastructure that involves. When it
turned out that we were planting a brand new work the goal posts certainly moved! The task
of church planting from scratch in a place like Camden Town was a massive undertaking and
we owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who have laid their lives into the foundations
throughout the last 5 years, not least to Barney Skrentny the team leader and his wife
Shirley. The inroads into the local community and into the spiritual atmosphere during
that time have been very significant. Barney and Shirley have now moved on to Regent
College in Vancouver, Canada. In retrospect, I can see that we failed Barney by not
putting in stronger apostolic foundations at the beginning and leaving an often impossible
responsibility on his shoulders and with which he coped amazingly much of the time. The
new embryonic team, lead by Mark Wilson, have asked Sue and I to give time to put in new
apostolic and prophetic foundations during 2002 and this is what we are currently doing.
Tiswas is the prophetic mentoring group that Sue leads within PfCT. It
is increasingly providing a resource of prophetically developing and maturing people that
serve the wider calling of Passion to equip those who can begin to penetrate the spheres
of society. It is about to embark on a new fast track mentoring group lead by those who
have developed over the year and a half of the group's life.
This brings us to the three important initiatives which are harder to
assess overall: Deepwater, London's Turn and Love London.
Deepwater was our attempt, with Barney Skrentny, to begin a new
apostolic initiative out from Passion using PfCT as the groundwork for training in
prophetic evangelism. Some excellent short term teams served alongside the church planting
process and got some powerful input into their lives. Together we were able to begin to
develop key initiatives in Camden Lock Market; life readings, trading ventures and prayer
campaigns which are now an established part of PFCT's presence in Camden Town. We also
helped along some radical children's work, street work and estate evangelism. Without it
some of the foundational community relationships we now have would not exist. However, as
an ongoing project it proved premature and the church hadn't the adequate foundations to
support or partner with the initiative enough to give it sufficient long term integrity to
continue. We will take up the challenge again in another form as soon as the church is
ready.
London's Turn was the attempt to create a multi-tracked week of events
in Camden in September 2000 that would serve the long term process of transforming London.
While it generated some amazing think-tanking and served to test the readiness of the
churches in the Borough of Camden for a major initiative, (they weren't), it also
highlighted the weakness of both my apostolic leadership style and my ability to choose
and brief apostolic and prophetic people at this level at that time. Basically, I
anticipated being able to help the team I brought together to receive and build on the
vision I had, but I encouraged them to deconstruct it to the point that I couldn't find
any way to put it back together again.
Love London was the only part of the London's Turn vision that
survived. In the attempt to retain at least some event to help the transformation process
we partnered with On The Move to combine the mobilisation of Light Houses of prayer with
street barbeques to try to achieve a new level of united prayer to penetrate the spiritual
darkness over London. Despite the dedicated efforts of the team and the support of Premier
Radio, we managed neither the level of mobilisation we'd hoped to achieve across the
London Boroughs nor the level of breakthrough we wanted to demonstrate across the boroughs
that did join in. Nevertheless, the dramatic results in Haringey proved that our strategy
to mobilise for strategic prayer and intentional unity does begin to change the spiritual
climate!
Finally we come to the newest initiatives of all, about which we can so
far only say a little: Wagner Leadership Institute and Only Originals
Wagner Leadership Institute Western Europe is a new contribution to
ministry training and accreditation based on a variety of courses and work experience. We
are currently developing this in partnership with CTZ in Hannover and the first students
have already enrolled. Two schools have already been held in Hannover with more planned
and the first school to be held in the UK has yet to be scheduled.
Only Originals is a vision to restore the ancient Celtic monastic
vision of prayer that produces creative art which can be sold in the market place.
Currently working with a prayer house in Enzen, Germany, we are buying and selling
ceramics that are crafted with prayer, particularly aiming at Camden market. After an
initial 12 week project that finished at Christmas 2001, we are currently reviewing the
next steps.
MENTORING AND DEVELOPMENT OF PEOPLE
Two years ago we began an experiment in mutual mentoring where we
approached people who Roger had some kind of long term informal mentoring relationship
with to see if they would like make the relationship more intentional and committed. We
made it clear to them that these were all people with some level of prophetic or apostolic
gift. Thirty something people agreed and so they were grouped into groups of twelve or so
on the basis of age and/or stage of development. The purpose was to make a positive and
appropriate move from the one-to-one relationship with Roger to a more mutual and
corporate mentoring experience that included Sue with unanimous agreement. The first and
third groups have developed well with Matt Scrimgeour and Mark Wilson now servicing the
groups alongside Roger but the second group who were the most mature and mutual to begin
with, hasn't really got off the ground. We haven't given up and are currently reviewing
why this is. It seems likely to be to do with the fact that most of this group have never
really been mentored and therefore don't have the necessary skills to give and receive
mentoring easily!
