Interview with John Lanferman

Rick Hein (St Louis, USA) and Nigel Ring (Brighton, UK) catch up with John Lanferman, who is based at Jubilee Church, St Louis, USA and leads the team which serves the Newfrontiers churches in the USA.

R/N: John, what was life like for you growing up in a small, rural town in the Midwest?

JL:  I learned to love the outdoors! At home we didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was eleven and a phone until I was eighteen. I don’t remember thinking we were deprived.

I learned to work at an early age, being hired by local farmers. I loved the times when I could fish in local creeks and ponds.

R/N: Tell us about your Dad.

JL:  My father was a bi-vocational pastor, with a passionate love for God’s word. He studied it constantly.

I remember his work ethic, devotion and passionate praying. He loved God and His people. He loved to share his most recent studies with me and was loving, kind, always laughing, bearing trial and pain with great courage. In his final year he suffered a stroke. When he attempted to speak and blurted out gibberish he would burst into laughter!

R/N: John, tell me about your conversion.

JL:  I was in my father’s church one Sunday evening and was suddenly aware of God’s amazing presence and of my own sin. It was frightening.

The next week I went back and I heard God say, ‘It’s now!’ I was eighteen years of age.

R/N: Were you baptised in the Spirit at the same time?

JL:  About a year later. I was in Bible College and one night went into a study room and just looked up to God. Suddenly I had this amazing experience and heard myself speaking in tongues. It was dramatic!  When I read Scripture after that, it was like having a personal audience with God!

R/N: Was Bible College a good experience?

JL:  I met Linda so I am an advocate! Almost nothing that happened in Bible College prepared me for ministry. The study of theology was wonderful and learning how to exegete Scripture became helpful but I missed having someone to mentor me. I remember saying to God, ‘If You ever allow me to be in a place where I can help young men to be trained and mentored, may I never be too busy.’ He has given me that opportunity now.

R/N: Tell me a bit about that.

JL:  I really enjoy raising up young guys in the church, spending time with them, praying with men that are really hungry. When they come to me, I want to make myself available to see what God is doing. There are men now leading Newfrontiers’ churches whom I have seen saved and mentored into leadership.

R/N: Have you introduced any more formal programmes?

JL:  The Trilogy Project is a leadership training programme. Studies and lectures are built around a mentoring format, teaching men and women how to be disciplined in self-study and so on. Incorporated in it is a Saturday prophetic prayer meeting, so that they are able to participate in the Sunday morning meetings. It is amazing what happens when God’s presence comes; there is prophecy, confirmation of call etc. It is a total package of study, self-discipline, learning how to write and formulate words, and to express an argument. It is also a mentoring project.

They meet in St Louis six times a year. Most of the work is done at home in and through their own local church whilst carrying on their employment.

R/N: How did you first meet Terry Virgo?

JL:  We were both speaking at a leadership conference in Columbia, Missouri. About two years after that meeting God spoke to me that He was joining me to Terry. I invited Terry to come to my home and it soon became evident that God had joined us together.

R/N: John, you are now leading a team serving a number of churches in the USA. Why is team such an important part of what you do?

JL:  I am theologically convinced that Jesus demonstrated leadership through his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He didn’t do or say anything the Father wasn’t doing or saying; all he did was in the power of the Spirit, this wonderful, harmonious Trinity. In John 17, Jesus prayed for that same Trinitarian relationship to be in his disciples. It is God’s design, this power of relationships, people called together, friends, bound in heart, unified in the same mission. It is a joy working together with friends that you love in God’s purpose.

R/N: You are now working with a growing number of churches across the States.  How does that work?

JL:  It depends on how you define church; there are about 25 groups either in the pioneering stage or at various stages of planting. They are in the north-west and south-east, New England, mid-west and into the south-west as well. I have been doing a lot of travelling but now I have delegates for the south-east, north-west, mid-west and New England. I gather with these men a lot.

R/N: How do you handle your travelling responsibilities as well as local responsibilities at Jubilee Church?

JL:  I have handed over responsibility for the church to a young man, Brian Mowrey, who is doing an excellent job. He has a desire to carry on our apostolic vision. That has released me to work more broadly.

R/N: Who ‘weighs’ your diary and how much you travel?

JL:  I have a core team that meets with me regularly. I want to make myself accountable.

R/N: Is Linda a part of that team?

JL:  She is able to travel with me on many of these trips which enables us to partner together. She has a significant impact with the leaders’ wives. She has a good prophetic gifting and we work very, very well together.

R/N: You and Linda have helped countless people in their marriages. What were some specific things you two did that helped strengthen your relationship over the years?

JL:  Early in our marriage I knew it was important to continue to grow our relationship. After our first child came along I told Linda the best thing we could do for our new child was to continue to develop our relationship. We have always practiced daily communication, connecting time and have found fun things to do together. Regular times of dating and days off without the children were important to us. We also share a very real sense of partnership in the work God has called us to. People rarely think of just John; it is always John and Linda.

R/N: Over the years you have had quite a serious health problem. How have you handled that and how have you faced the possibility of an early death?

JL:  Heart disease runs in my family. When I had a heart attack there was the sense of God’s presence in the midst of that. I told my wife what was happening, what to do and how to get me to the hospital. When we arrived they had to take me by helicopter to another place. Through the whole ordeal I had not an ounce of fear. Knowing it was likely that I could die, I just had a deep sense of peace. One never knows how one is going to react in a situation like that but it was that sense of God’s presence which was with me all the way.

I have always been a very hard worker with a desire to perform and accomplish things. I am not sure the motive was always pure. God spoke very clearly out of Ecclesiastes, a book of grace as opposed to toil and works. Chapter 9 says that God gives us the ability to enjoy a good meal, to drink wine with a cheerful heart and to enjoy the wife of one’s youth. Having read that, God spoke to me, ‘You have a doctrine of grace; you know you have been saved by grace but you don’t have a lifestyle of grace. I am going to give you a lifestyle of grace, I want you to learn to enjoy the moment, to rest and to be at peace.  Let me do what I will do!  Cease your striving, have a good glass of wine and enjoy the woman that you love.’ I have been a different guy ever since. I am learning the ‘grace of living’.

R/N: Thanks for sharing a very precious and intimate thing. What other forms of recreation do you have?

JL:  Linda and I enjoy being and doing things together! I also like hunting. Where I grew up if there was meat on the table it was because I shot something! I still enjoy the challenge and try to make it even more challenging by using primitive weapons, like bow and arrow, muzzle and black powder, rather than high tech. I love being in the mountains.

R/N: What do you see as your vision for the Newfrontiers’ family of churches in the USA?

JL:  First, training of leadership because I think that is key for our ability to see the kingdom of God expand in the US. Second, I want us to plant churches in the 100 most significant cities in the US. If we can plant significant, reproducing churches in these cities we can blanket the US with hundreds of churches.

R/N: Do you have any comments on your worldwide perspective as part of the Newfrontiers’ family?

JL:  Being part of this family has been a life-changing experience! Coming together with people from other parts of the world has given me a perspective both culturally and spiritually in what God is doing, and a desire to be a part of it. It is also true for young people. We have some doing a year team in South Africa and others have come to us from different nations.

R/N: In the States at the moment there is quite a strong relationship between politics and religion. Should the church become involved in politics or should we stand back from it?

JL:  I don’t believe that politics is the answer. Our answer is the church. That doesn’t mean that we don’t vote, but too often Christians have attached themselves to one political party which ignores them after it is elected. I think it is a false hope. You cannot legislate morality! Our hope is in the church.

R/N: How should the church get hold of some of the ethical issues such as abortion and gay marriage?

JL:  The way we get hold of those issues is grass roots, showing the love of Christ, helping people through to liberty. It is a heart issue, not a legislative one.

So we work in the neighbourhoods, lovingly embracing people who have found themselves in various kinds of sinful bondages by caring for them and bringing them through. The power of God Himself sets people free.

R/N: It is about a hundred years since the Azusa Street outpouring. How would you read the influence of the church in the last hundred years?

JL:  I don’t think we can overestimate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the turn of the last century. It wasn’t just Azusa Street; it began in the mid-west and spread. The result was incredible. It broke down racial barriers. You had African-Americans and white people worshipping together, listening to African-American preachers. That was unheard of! The Holy Spirit broke down racial barriers like nothing else had been able to. Also people went to do missions all over the world.
We still live in the good of that today. It continues to spread and involve itself in social injustice. The Azusa Street Mission changed the whole social context of our nation.

R/N: Do you have hope for a similar thing to happen in our generation?

JL:  We must have hope because we know the answer is God coming, God pouring out His Spirit, God’s presence in the midst of His people. So we have hope for that, for the power of His Holy Spirit working in us to make us able to preach the gospel and see the kingdom of God expanded. The real challenge for us in Newfrontiers is the second and third generation. The pioneering generation of any movement paid a very significant price for what the second and third generation now live in the good of. They have inherited something quite good but don’t understand the price that was paid for the values we now have.

R/N: What then would you say to that next generation to help them perpetuate and expand further?

JL:  I would say it to the fathers rather than to the next generation. We have a responsibility to those who come after us to understand the importance of values and character. We have a responsibility to bring them alongside, mentor them, let them observe and feel the beat of our heart, our own pulse. We must be good fathers to the next generation and not just hope that they will carry on what we have.

R/N: What would you like to be remembered for?

JL:  That’s a tough question; I don’t actually think that way! That I was a friend, that I gave myself to teach and train God’s people in ways that would see His Word spread.

R/N: Thank you John for sharing with us.