WALES
National eauk.org/wales
From outpouring to revival Gethin Russell-Jones goes behind the scenes at what has been described as the most significant move of the spirit since 1904. I’m sitting in a spacious but simple first floor room in Cwmbran, south Wales. The office is part of Victory Church which has shot to evangelical fame in recent months. Since April 2013 this independent Pentecostal church has experienced a phenomenon which has been labelled the Welsh Outpouring. And by current UK standards the number of people attending their nightly meetings is eye-watering. According to senior pastor Richard Taylor, the church has hosted more than 150,000 visitors from the UK and overseas and 1,157 have professed faith in Christ for the first time. Many hundreds have been baptised and the church has received numerous reports of physical and emotional healing. Digital prominence has also been a feature of events in Cwmbran with Victory Church’s sermon downloads shooting to the top of the iTunes religion and spirituality category. Opposite me sits Andrew Parsons, assistant pastor at Victory Church. He arrived in Cwmbran after pastorates in Doncaster and then New Zealand. But this was no career move. Andrew and Richard met as students at the Birmingham Bible Institute in 1996. During a three-hour prayer meeting in Andrew’s flat, they both believed God had spoken to them about their mutual destinies. “He said to me that one day we would work together in a mighty revival, through which the whole world would look on in amazement,” said Andrew. Three years ago while he was in New Zealand, Richard Taylor visited him with a proposition.
“Richard had come to a crossroads and felt called to lead Victory Outreach UK, a Christian rehabilitation organisation based in Cwmbran. He asked me if I’d join him in Cwmbran, working alongside him in the outreach programme and in Victory Church which he had just planted. Since then they have planted congregations in Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Chepstow, Forest of Dean, Rhondda Valley with a further plant due to be launched in Blaenavon soon. Everything changed on 10 April when a man confined to a wheelchair came forward for prayer during the church’s weekly prayer and worship gathering. “Pastor Richard and I prayed for him, the power of God came and he started to shake. His legs shot out from the wheelchair; he stood up, picked up his wheelchair and ran around the building. The tangible presence of God filled the meeting; we were awestruck by His presence.” That night Andrew felt compelled to stay in the building and after the doors opened the following morning people kept on coming for prayer. That night 400 people gathered at the church and they keep on coming. The people flocking to Victory Church have often been in trouble with the police and have various dependency issues; not the normal clientele for most churches. Andrew and Richard have clearly been moved by the people coming to them: “God challenged us as leaders about our hearts; to be more loving and less judgmental. We need to start
£1M VISITOR CENTRE OPENS IN BALA Alliance member organisation the Bible Society is to open a £1 million visitor centre in a deconsecrated church in North Wales. St Beuno’s Church (pictured), at Llanycil, Bala, will be transformed into a place that tells the story of the Bible’s impact on Wales and, through Wales, the rest of the world. It was in 1800 that Mary Jones, aged 15, walked 25 miles from Llanfihangel-y-Pennant, across the Welsh mountains, to Bala to get a Bible from Rev Thomas Charles. It is thought that she had saved for six years to afford it. Thomas Charles was so touched by her determination that he helped establish Bible Society four years later. The new visitor centre will be officially opened in 2014 to coincide with the bicentenary of Thomas Charles’s death.
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Andrew Parsons
loving people more, winning the lost and falling in love with Jesus,” says Andrew. Until this point, the church’s leaders have been happy to refer to their experience as an outpouring. But this has now changed. “This is now a revival; there has not been a move of the Spirit like this since 1904. That (the Welsh Revival) came through an itinerant preacher but this is a local church and our heart is that local churches in Wales would be touched by this.” What happens next is unknown. Victory Church intends to establish 50 churches within 10 years and if successful it would become Wales’s most fruitful churchplanting network in centuries. Nothing like it has been seen since the great 18th century revivals when hundreds of new churches were built across the nation. The future of this revival is however less certain. While people continue to visit from across the UK and beyond, the meetings have been scaled back to twice a week. The events of the past months have taken their toll on the small team serving this local church. Andrew’s rationale however remains simple: “It’s about Jesus, it all comes back to him and points to the cross; he’s getting people’s attention.”