Newforms - Video meeting with Peter Farmer

Peter Farmer and I spoke for two hours online using Skype. Despite a number of drop outs and restarts we were able to cover a lot of ground in the time available. I can recommend Skype for this sort of online discussion, it's very helpful to see the person at the other end of the connection at the same time as speaking and listening.

Focused on the King is a loose network of small groups in the Bedford, Cambridge, Northampton area and in our very informal way we are also connected more widely via Newforms, a UK-wide network of networks. Pete started Newforms in May 2008 and aims not only to connect the various networks of simple, organic churches that exist in the UK, but encourage further growth, provide training, arrange national meetings etc.

Some topics we discussed

• Pete's travel to various parts of the UK which he calls Mission Britain, and his plans for visiting the London area in the next few weeks. I was able to give him some contact names. Another group we'd both like to have contact with is one in north east Scotland. They were visited by Alex Campbell and Floyd McClung in 2008 for training in church planting.
  
  
• People and groups we know. We shared about local and UK-wide networks and individual groups. These seem to be developing more quickly now, and it seems to me that much of this growth is spontaneous. Pete mentioned the Salt and Light Network which I haven't come across previously.
  
  
• Church of Two (CO2, see also Stories from the Revolution). I shared the basis of this with Peter, it turns out there are similarities and some overlap with the Pilgrims and Pioneers idea that he's been using in Nottingham.
  
  
• International conferences and contacts. We exchanged some of our experiences from my Dallas trip in September, and Pete's trip to Delhi just recently. I put him in touch with contacts in the Netherlands and in Sweden and we talked about the work of Wolfgang Simson, Floyd McClung and others.
  
  
• Meetings for the early part of 2010. We are considering some sort of gathering in our area in the first quarter of 2010, and Pete is planning two national meetings in the same period.
  
  
• We also discussed training  and resources for making disciples and planting churches.
  

All in all it was two hours well spent. We both ended the conversation informed, encouraged, and connected. And staying connected was the reason for the conversation in the first place.

(You can also read Pete's notes on this meeting.)