Interview with Tom Shaw

Last week I was in Seattle, WA to attend the Acts 29 Bootcamp hosted by Mars Hill Church (led by Mark Driscoll). There were several other pastors from Newfrontiers from the UK and Africa who also attended the conference, one of those guys was Tom Shaw. Many of you would know Tom from Mobilise this year and he spoke at Jubilee in 2008. I had the opportunity to sit down with him at the airport before our flights out so I asked him a few questions about Acts 29, Mark Driscoll, and what's going on in the UK.


Bryan: We just finished a few days with the Acts 29 guys and Mark Driscoll. What's your overall impression with Mark Driscoll and the whole Acts 29 network?

Tom: I've been very impressed with the humility of Mark Driscoll and the whole way that they conduct themselves is very strongly emphasizing repentance, emphasizing of humility. I think, to be honest with you, many people wouldn't necessarily when they think of Mark Driscoll immediately think humility, and that was one of the most immediately interesting things I think. Great humility, obviously huge intentionality and focus on what they're doing which is fantastic. Just an extrodinary series of leadership gifts both in Mark and many others around him. I think he's a blessing, not only to America and Seattle, but to many movements. We, I know have been hugely helped in the short hours we've had together in terms of what Newfrontiers can take away from a time of such a 'king' in terms of his love for systems and processes and that kind of thing.

Bryan: So what would you say is the top thing we (Newfronters) can learn from them (Acts 29)?

Tom: Passion for the cross, a passion for mission, and contextualization. I would say they're brilliant in terms of organization. A thinking outside of the box in terms of how a church grows, for example, their use of old quirky buildings, which I would have ruled out, they've used. And obviously a huge emphasis on men, which I think is very much in need in the evangelical world. So that would be just a handful of things.

Bryan: Mark Driscoll gets a lot of criticism. What criticism do you think is unfair?

Tom: Most of it I guess, I think that most of the criticism against him would be primarily in arrogance and a sense of lack of grace but I think that he is just a man who is very intelligent so often I think he's several steps ahead of the average person, myself very much included, so I think he's frustrated why people don't get what he's saying because for him I think things are very obvious. For example, various patterns in scripture about male government, or the passion of the cross, or mission, and therefore I think he's often frustrated. That might sometimes appear as arrogance, but I don't think he's arrogant. So I think that would be one major thing. Another unfair criticism is I think there's a huge openhandedness to them and a huge generosity and a real humility to learn and also to become far more internationally effective which I think is outside of their comfort zones and I think that takes a lot more humility, but I think they would want to be open to all that God would have for them. So I guess that all ties in with a wrong presumption of arrogance and I think they're not. I think they're growing in that.

Bryan: We have a lot of young people who listen to Mark Driscoll podcasts. Nobody's perfect. What are some things you would hope our young people DON'T pick up on?

Tom: What I wouldn't want them to pick up on is if Mark Driscoll says it's true, it's true because I think he does exaggerate and I think he's still very young, and he still overstates things. Therefore, I think you still have to maintain still a holding of it loosely. So I hope we don't have a lot of angry people who think it's justifiable to be angry or very confident that they've always got it right, when actually I think often we're still learning.

Bryan: Let’s switch gears here. Tell us what's going in Newfrontiers in the UK?

Tom: Things are going really well. We're church planting about one church a month. Recently, Dave Stroud of the UK team launched a vision for our next step to get to 400 churches. There's a great level of intentionality in terms of church planting, in terms of parachuting people in, but also wanting to see churches reproduce themselves more and more in local areas. So I think there's a great momentum, to be honest with you. Something I'm particularly passionate about is the student conference Mobilise which is hugely important for what is happening in the UK, because, as of everywhere, we are in desperate need of more leaders and a summer gathering of a couple thousand students and 20's is a key area where we can actually grow leaders and see them released into all that God would have for them. So I think things are going well. There's a huge transition happening at the moment, new leaders coming through. The ongoing question about whether apostolic work should be regional or whether it should be relational, hopefully it should be both, but that means that things get messy. That's another ongoing thing that's happening. I think a lot of movement, a lot of change. Generally growth. And a lot more marketable services which is a huge thing that's happening as well.

Bryan: You've come to us for two years in a row now and really owned what we're doing here. If you were to return in a 3-5 years, what would be your hope for us?

Tom: I know you're living with church planting in the 100 most influential cities, I think I would hope that God would give you steps in that overall hundred, some key cities that God has really underlined. I would want to see a whole raft of new leaders emerging. Thirdly, massive student works because you've have the biggest student population in the whole world in your country so I would want to see massive pumping student works and that flowing into a faster catalytic leadership production all over America and breakthrough into church size so some churches into the thousands and church planting from America overseas. Church planters being raised up here who are going to church plant all over the world!

Mark Driscoll on Newfrontiers and Prophecy

If you are a blogging junkie in the Christian world (especially if you are in Newfrontiers or a reformed-charismatic), you have probably of heard of Adrian Warnock. His blog gets about 30,000 hits a day in the US alone. Adrian is not a pastor, but is a part of a Newfrontiers church in London named Jubilee Church (great name). I like tunning into his blog because he gets good interviews with some great people including our own John Lanferman.

Recently, he interviewed Mark Driscoll to get his thoughts on Newfrontiers and Prophesy. I thought I would pass that along. To view this interview, click here.

What Outsiders Think of Newfrontiers

The main speaker at this year's Brighton conference is non other than Mark Driscoll. Driscoll leads on the fastest growing churches in the USA gathering about 8,000 on a Sunday. He also leads a network of churches that planted more than 100 churches. He's a author and perhaps the most influential pastor under 40 years old.

His time with us has been very beneficial. I think he is serving us very well. I thought you might want to read what he has to say about us. I cut and pasted this off his blog. If you want to read the whole thing, click here.

A healthy mix of Word and Spirit The Newfrontiers folks are a very healthy mix of Word and Spirit. They love the Bible and the leading of God the Holy Spirit. Sometimes in the States those who are charismatic are negatively influenced by health and wealth teachers who say that, in essence, if you have enough faith you do not need to be like Jesus and endure pain or poverty. In contrast, somehow the folks I am meeting from around the world who are connected to Newfrontiers have a healthy biblical reformed theology complemented with an active and biblical view of the person and work of the Holy Spirit and exercise of all spiritual gifts. I have always believed in the perpetuity of all the spiritual gifts (including such things as tongues and prophecy) but have not had much experience in seeing them exercised biblically, so being in circles like this is very insightful and instructive. Yesterday, for example, a pastor from Africa (PJ Smyth) shared a prophetic word about the Father’s love for Jesus his Son and it was incredibly biblically rooted and emotionally moving.

Lastly, the people have been fantastic. My new African friend Pastor Tope who leads a growing church in London has been our host and rarely have I met a man whom I enjoy more than him so hanging with him has been a delight. I am eager to preach to his people on Sunday and honor their pastor who has been so gracious to me. We have been loved, served, and encouraged well. I’ve also been using the Mac to iChat with my family, which is great. Although I am gone, seeing the five smiling, laughing, funny-face-making kids of mine is a boost of joy. And nothing beats seeing your wife’s smile as often as possible, especially when on the road.