In the 1980s, leaders gathered for friendship and training around Barney Coombs pastoral and apostolic leadership. This family now reaches into many nations.

He was accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched. (1 Samuel 10:26)

This was the word God gave to Barney Coombs on the day that he was ordained to pastor Gods people in the late 1960s. Within a few years, a group of leaders and ministries in the south of England began to be linked together around Barneys leadership. From the beginning there were certain common commitments and understandings

  • that the body of Christ was essentially relational
  • that the church would eventually come to fullness of stature
  • the priesthood of all believers
  • that the gospel was not only centred in the Cross but also in the Kingdom of God
  • a victorious eschatology that Gods plan included the summing up of all things in Christ

During the last thirty-odd years, hundreds of other leaders and ministries have felt joined in heart, and today there exists a network of leaders and churches that has spread to Africa, Asia, Europe, India and the American continent.

It is difficult to grasp adequately the full significance of being joined to so many valiant men and women, many of whom have hazarded their lives for the gospels sake; but it has happened. We can only stand back and marvel at Gods marvellous handiwork.