The Grace Centre Bolton Family Church

Bolton Family Church is part of the Newfrontiers family of churches worldwide, led by Terry Virgo and a number of regional, national and international teams.

However until the early 1990’s most of the Newfrontiers churches in the UK were based in the South East of England. In 1992 Terry Virgo had a vision that showed a picture of England with a bow touching Cornwall with one end, and East Anglia with the other. The prophetic word was, “As the bow is drawn back into the nation, you will be fired into the nations”. This encouraged the leaders of Newfrontiers to look at planting churches across the UK, with a view to sending many people internationally as God called them.

Out of this vision a church was planted in Manchester, and soon God was giving faith for a number of churches to be planted across the region.

Bolton Family Church began in 1994 as a small group of people meeting in a front room. Our vision was to grow into a strong, local church based on clear Biblical values, but also part of the wider church around the area and indeed world-wide. At first we travelled into the Newfrontiers church in Manchester; then as the church grew it was planted out to Bolton with 35 people, in 1997.

Initially the church met in hired premises for its public meetings. In June 2003 it purchased the former Somerset Road URC building in the Heaton area of Bolton, renaming it ‘The Grace Centre’. The church is now established and steadily growing in strength and numbers, and has plans to plant out into Westhoughton.

Our purpose, vision and goals

The purpose of our church is to be a family on a mission: Serving God, one another and the community.

The vision God has given us is:

To be part of the Newfrontiers family of Churches, sharing their worldwide vision and receiving apostolic and prophetic ministry.
To work with other Churches around Bolton in order to bring the gospel to our town.
To work with other Churches around Bolton in order to bring the gospel to our town.
To plant Churches and Life Groups totalling 1,000 people around Bolton.

We have various longer and shorter-term goals that we review from time to time. Some of our longer-term goals are as follows:

To build a strong base in Heaton that will affect the community around The Grace Centre
To plant Churches in other parts of Bolton, sharing with them in Celebrations, ministry and training resources
To multiply to 60 Life Groups
To build a multi-cultural Church that reflects the ethnic diversity of the town

Our key values

Here is a selection of some of our key values:

The Lordship of Jesus Christ
The authority and teaching of the Bible
Life empowered by the Holy Spirit
Grace that saves & transforms
Praise & worship
Prayer
Faith
Living & proclaiming the gospel message
Servant leadership
Every-member ministry
Training & discipleship
Generous giving
Love, humility & encouragement
Hospitality

Prophetic Words

There have been a number of prophetic words and visions given to Bolton Family Church that have helped to shape and inspire us over the years. Here are a few of them:

A vision of a circle of rainbow colours over Bolton - representing various churches working together to bring God’s peace to the town
“The river of God’s Spirit is rising, but there are presently many people who live far from its banks. Pray for rain but don’t wait for the river to flood. Get ready by digging channels out to where people live, so that the water can flow. Don’t worry if at first the ditches are dug but the water has not yet filled them. There will be various ditches according to people’s faith.”
A vision of unexpectedly coming across a significant, beautiful waterfall in the midst of an urban environment. We are to be that place of refreshing in the busyness of life for people coming to us.
“I am giving you a new strategy for gospel communication. Like the pylons connected over a hillside, so I will give you a new season of effectiveness that will carry you over boundaries & hurdles that have been impassable before now. Now I am going to connect you to the wider world.”
A vision of a mantelpiece with various photos on it of each of us in the church, demonstrating God’s care for us as members of his family. Several frames were still empty: God has others not yet with us who he also wants to bring into our midst.
“God has planted the church as a new vineyard, which will produce an abundance of grapes where there have been none before. It will be a great vintage production.”
“The church is now at the stage where Base Camp has been established, and this has been the battle up to the present time: to establish resources to fall back on. From now on, just as mountaineers climb up the mountain from this point, so different ministries can grow and function out of this base. Mountaineers work as a team, roped together, one leading and then another; and this is how we should look to operate too.”