Interviews by Adrian Warnock: Part 4. On moving from Brighton to London

This is the fourth in a multi-part series of interview clips that Adrian Warnock filmed with Terry Virgo when he was in London with Jubilee Church Enfield.

Tope: I’ve got to ask you. You, are moving to London, and I live in London. You are very welcome to my city! But why are you moving to London?

Terry: Well, it’s fascinating. It’s something I never anticipated happening. I was born in Brighton and when I first left secular work, I really felt God gave me promises for Brighton. Quite amazing to be honest. I can show you whole Bibles with verses underlined and things written in the margin. And I really felt God was going to do something remarkable in Brighton. And I think he has! And I think that I never anticipated the way everything would develop. I’m now based in Church of Christ the King, Brighton, which we started back in about ’79 or ’80. And it’s been wonderful to watch the progress. And we would gather with about 1200 now on a normal Sunday. We’re going into different congregations, and a new generation of elders has come through – outstanding young men. And I have the privilege of seeing my son, Joel, leading that. You couldn’t ask for more privilege – it’s just such a joy! So they’re doing brilliantly, the works prospering and to be perfectly honest, over the last, I don’t know, few years maybe, I’ve felt I’m not sure I’m doing anything apostolic here. I’m involved all over the place, and I’m away a lot. I’m visiting our churches.. I’ll be going over to America and Mexico later this year, we’re in all sorts of nations, which I love doing. But when I’m home, I’d love to be more involved in a more cutting edge way, more pioneering, bit more hands-on. And the process of different things happened.

Another son of mine, Simon, is pastoring a church in Kingston, North London. And there’s about 100 of them meeting in a hall. I became aware that they had their eye on what was a Bingo hall – a 2000 seater. And how God prompted them to believe that they could buy it and they went and offered £1.5m for it. And my heart leapt and I thought ‘Wow, they’ve really got faith for something’. And to be honest there’s a prayer battle to win that property. And to be honest, we’ve been through such things in Brighton. The first building, that was a real prayer battle. Our second building, even bigger prayer battle – believing God for nearly £4m. I’ve been through those battles. And I felt my juices start flowing ‘Yes! I’d love to be involved with that’.

I’ve been there, they’re superb people and I was praying about it all and then I’ve had a number of specific Scriptures, people bringing prophetic impressions to me, it all flows together in a way that I feel, ‘No, that is God. I really feel God’s leading me’. So we’ve put our house on the market and we would love to move to Kingston as soon as possible, and throw in our lot. And I know I’ll keep travelling and Kingston isn’t far from London Heathrow or London Gatwick so we can keep travelling. But to be honest, this weekend has been quite key to me that I’ve been feeling ‘Kingston!’ and I do feel very focussed there. But someone said to me ‘It’s great you’re moving to London’ and recently I’ve spoken in a few South London churches and people have said ‘Oh, you’re coming to London’. Hasn’t quite registered to me. I think today and over the last couple of days and our praying together and praying about London, something’s happened in my Spirit, even over this weekend. And although Kingston will be where you’re focussed, I feel God’s doing something in my heart about London. And mingling with your people at the end this morning, I just loved the people. I loved these Londoners, I love their style, I love the way they’ve been. And I just felt ‘Hey, I’m not only coming to Kingston, joining of heart with you and other guys around.’ I believe there’s something in it, which I’ve yet to see to be honest. It’s like up-to-date, I’m talking about the last 24 hours, I feel Gods done something in my spirit about ‘come on, let’s believe for this vitally important city’, and that maybe there’s something more to do there.