Apostolic Team

International Apostolic Team.

Historically, ChristCentral has been led by Jeremy and a Core Team. Over time, this Core Team grew both in number of people and responsibility, to the point where it had started to become overwhelmed with the amount of information and detail required to function effectively.

Following a season of prayer and a number of prophetic words, we have felt led to devolve much of the responsibility for different areas of ChristCentral life to different teams. These initiative teams include, for example, teams taking responsibility for church planting, evangelism, training, governance, creativity, environmental issues and so on.

Our heart is that these new teams will be as diverse as possible with men and women of different nationalities, backgrounds, ages and experiences serving together.

In addition, Jeremy is gathering a new international apostolic team of apostles and prophets which will help us move forward together. Currently this team includes: Michael Akotia, Graham Anns, Ginny Burgin, Roger Bye, Joe Crummey, Tim Davies, Chris Frost, José Manuel Herrera (Pepe), Joseph Mwila, Graham Pyman, Andy Robinson, Ann Simpkins, Jeremy Simpkins, Natalie Williams and one of our leaders in Ukraine.

Michael Akotia (Ghana)

Michael Akotia

My name is Michael Akotia, I am married to Mabel Akotia who is a teacher and we have three children. We have lived in Ho for the past twenty years. I lead the eldership team at City of Grace church in Ho, which is in the Volta Region of Ghana in West Africa. I am the Apostolic base leader for ChristCentral churches in West Africa and oversee churches across Ghana and Benin. We currently have 11 churches in Ghana and 10 churches in the Republic of Benin. I also facilitate the ChristCentral School of Leadership base in Ghana. It is my privilege to preach the gospel weekly on our local state radio, which serves the whole of the Volta region and beyond. It is my vision to plant churches that are full of grace, that are passionate about the word of God and full of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our desire is that these missional churches will carry the mercy heart of God to the world.

Graham Anns (UK)

Graham Anns

Graham oversees the legal, financial and management side of ChristCentral and works with churches in various regions of the UK and internationally. Graham also oversees the ChristCentral training programs and is a Director of ChristCentral and Jubilee Plus. He and his wife Daryl have lived in the greater Manchester area for over 20 years and Daryl is a former headteacher who now works in the alternative provision sector providing support and eduction to children who can’t access mainstream school. Together they are now beginning to plant a church in West Manchester that will be made up of multiple missional communities serving and reaching out to their local areas. Graham & Daryl love spending time with their family and particularly enjoy walks that involve tea shops!

Ginny Burgin (UK)

Ginny Burgin

Born and brought up in Sheffield, Ginny and her husband Stuart have been part of City Church Sheffield and it's Baptist predecessor for over forty years. Ginny is currently on the staff of City Church serving both pastorally and prophetically as well as travelling in the UK and Canada to help teach and train in these areas. Ginny has held a long standing expectation to see revival in the UK and is passionate to see local churches thrive and grow as they experience the work of the Holy Spirit in their midst. Stuart is now retired so spends much more time travelling with Ginny, and helping to entertain their four lively grandchildren. Ginny recently published a new book "Overpowering Nemo - Encountering Deliverance and Walking in Freedom" you can read more here.

Roger Bye (UK)

Roger Bye

Roger leads the team at Kings Church Cockermouth and serves other churches both in the UK and internationally, especially in the Americas. Roger and his wife Cheryl live in Brigham, Cumbria, UK and have three adult children. They are kept young by their grandchildren and their dog Finn. To relax they enjoy their garden, reading a good book and a glass of wine.

Joe Crummey (Canada)

Roger Bye

Joe leads the team at Christ Central Church in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He is involved in church planting and serving churches primarily in Atlantic Canada. Joe also helps facilitate connections with other Newfrontiers leaders and churches across Canada. He has worked with Jeremy Simpkins and team for many years, and the Fredericton church has been involved in other Christ Central churches across the nations.

Joe is married to Angela, and they have four children with ages ranging from pre-teen to university. Angela works for the Federal Government, leads worship, and together they open their home to the church and neighbourhood.

Joe has a heart for Word and Spirit churches to be established and for the church to bring the kingdom of God into all aspects of society. Joe serves in the community via involvement in his children’s sports teams and schools. And he still plays ice hockey!

Tim Davies (Oman)

Graham Anns

Tim is married to Becky and leads the team at 'Family of Grace’ - a church in Muscat, Oman in the Middle East. Tim and Becky have 3 sons and 3 grand children back in the UK. Family of Grace is a church of many nations and languages that is looking to demonstrate the unity that the gospel of Jesus brings; a unity that they are believing will have an impact locally and beyond.

Chris Frost (UK)

Chris Frost

Chris leads the team at Gateway Church Leeds and has worked full-time there since 2008. He is passionate about leading their community into wider kingdom influence both locally, nationally and internationally. Chris also leads our emerging UK apostolic team helping to bring oversight to our churches across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. He is co-writing 'Leadiagrams' - 52 visuals to help you thrive in your faith and lead effectively. He and his wife Jo have two children, are passionate about intimacy with Jesus, eating out and enjoy family adventures!

José Manuel Herrera [Pepe] (Mexico)

Pepe

Pepe is a pastor and psychologist, he is married to Veronica Hurtado and they have two children, Itzel and Andres, who have recently finished university. Pepe and Vero have worked for over 25 years, planting churches and forming teams which serve in central Mexico. Together they travel serving leaders and hosting conferences and workshops for couples and parents.

Vero is a graphic designer, loves swimming and enjoys painting, discipling others, as well as creating prophetic art.

Pepe's activities depend upon the time of year but he organises conferences, provides therapy and coaching for individuals and couples. Pepe enjoys reading, running and participating in marathons.

Currently Pepe also leads the ChristCentral apostolic team for Mexico and Latin America and together with three other leaders (Nico, Ches and Eliseo) serve a group of 15 churches and pastors in Mexico and Bolivia. The team are also focussed on developing initiatives for church planting and leadership training.

Joseph Mwila (Zambia)

Joseph Mwila

Joseph Mwila is the founder of Dayspring Church and leads a ChristCentral apostolic team based in Zambia and gives apostolic oversight to over 40 ChristCentral churches in Zambia and neighbouring African countries. Alongside planting 13 churches, their community outreach programme, Streetlife Project, runs two orphanages, serves over 1,500 meals to children in poor communities and sponsors over 150 orphans back to schools and colleges. Based in Zambia, Joseph works internationally and is a regular speaker on both National Television and at international conferences. Joseph has pioneered the Zambian School of Leadership, the Zambia 2050 Young Entrepreneurs Business Initiative and founded the University of Kitwe. Joseph is married to Lillian and they have four lovely children.

Graham Pyman (UK)

Graham Pyman

Graham is married to Sarah and they have 4 school age children. Graham leads the team at Jubilee Church in Derby (UK). He works primarily with churches across the Midlands in the UK and Cambodia in South East Asia. Graham & Sarah are approved foster carers for their local authority and as well as looking after children, work with them to help encourage foster care recruitment in the city. Graham is also a Director of ChristCentral Churches (the charitable body that provides a legal, financial and governance framework to ChristCentral) and a school Governor. Sarah trained and worked as a Learning Disability nurse and now leads Smile, Jubilee’s respite facility for children with additional needs. On a day-off they enjoy country walks and pub lunches together!

Andy Robinson (UK)

Partnership Team

Andy led the Senior leadership team of Lifespring Church in Horsham for over a decade and in 2022 passed the team leadership to Jos Wintermeyer to allow him to spend 50% of his time travelling and supporting ChristCentral churches, primarily in Africa alongside Joseph Mwila, but also in Romania.

Andy left a successful career as sales director of a large multinational technology company when he was employed by the church in January 2006. However, his passion for business and the workplace has only grown, as has his desire to encourage those who are called to the workplace, to bring the kingdom where they are, but also to harness the wealth of commerce to advance the Kingdom.

In 2022 Andy founded WayMaker International, a registered charity (1199440) largely to be a conduit for business people and the wealthy to give to people and projects that we believe advance the kingdom, serve the poor, and increase the church's influence in the community.

Andy is married to Hazel who works in a local GP Surgery as a prescribing clinical pharmacist 4 days a week. Hazel is also passionate about her calling to the workplace, bringing the kingdom where she is and helping others do the same.

Andy and Hazel have two married sons, giving them the daughters, they have missed for so long! They also became grandparents in 2020 for the first time although they protest that they are not old enough for that particular title.

Ann Simpkins (UK)

Ann Simpkins

Ann has always been involved in leading alongside Jeremy. She has a particular gift of encouragement to see God's people released into their unique calling, helping people to see that they are free to be all that God has made them to be. She has a passion for the prophetic and Spirit filled worship and feels a real burden to encourage people to step out into their gifting and for churches and Christians to be disciple makers. Jeremy & Ann are currently serving a local ChristCentral church in Macclesfield, UK and have been released to travel together to support, encourage and develop the ChristCentral family of churches worldwide.

Jeremy Simpkins (UK)

Partnership Team

Jeremy has been involved in leading Newfrontiers churches for over 25 years now. In 2009 Jeremy & Ann moved from the church they had planted in Teesside to lead Christ Central Manchester.

In 2011 when Terry Virgo multiplied Newfrontiers from one apostolic team to multiple teams, Jeremy started to lead ChristCentral. In 2014 the team in Manchester appointed a local pastor to lead Christ Central Manchester, releasing Jeremy to lead the ChristCentral team and travel amongst the churches which the team serves.

After 7 years in Manchester, Jeremy & Ann then spent 4 years as part of City Church Sheffield. More recently they have felt called to serve more locally and are now part of the Silklife church in Macclesfield where Jeremy is now an elder. Jeremy & Ann often travel internationally together and both love to support, encourage and develop local leadership teams and other ministry areas.

Natalie Williams (UK)

Partnership Team

Natalie grew up in a working class family in the deprived but beautiful seaside town of Hastings, which the Daily Mail once called “Hell-on-Sea” but is actually quite lovely. She encountered the wonderful mercy of God at 15 and it has utterly transformed her.

Natalie used to be a journalist but for over 10 years has been involved with Jubilee+, a Christian charity which was started by Newfrontiers. She recently took over the role of CEO from the founder Martin Charlesworth. She has co-authored three books about poverty in the UK: (‘A Church for the Poor’, The Myth of The Undeserving Poor and A Call to Act). Natalie is also the Community Engagement Director at King’s Church in Hastings.

Natalie loves the mercy of Jesus and is passionate about churches being a force for good in their communities, tackling poverty and injustice. She also believes churches should be places where people from the poorest backgrounds are welcomed and included.

Site by VisualAdvance.co.uk