Glyn Barrett: The !Audacious Church leader causing traffic jams in Manchester

Born in Manchester to Welsh parents, by the time Glyn Barrett was a student, he was living on the other side of the world. “Australia is an amazing place,” he says with a smile. “It has something called the sun.”

But despite the golden beaches, Glyn returned home in obedience to a prophetic word that said: “You’ll go back to England, you’ll plant a church and you’ll lead Assemblies of God in Great Britain.” Huge dreams for a 21-year-old and yet, in time, each has come to pass. 

Today, the 53-year-old is senior leader of the megachurch he planted – !Audacious, thought to be the largest church outside London. Barrett also oversees 500 Assemblies of God (AOG) churches in the UK. When I ask him about this, Glyn reels off impressive statistics, including that globally, there are ten times more AOG churches than McDonald’s, a new church is planted every two minutes 58 seconds and, by Pentecost 2033, the denomination will be 1 million strong. 

Glyn is charismatic (in both senses of the word). He’s a visionary and a preacher who is in demand around the world. The misplaced exclamation mark in !Audacious suggests this is a church that does things differently. And that it’s a loud, bold, exciting place to be. Certainly if you like your worship music turned up to eleven and won’t bat an eyelid at someone stagediving during the service (yes, this really happened), this is the church for you.

I met Glyn at their main campus – a huge warehouse on an industrial estate a short walk from Manchester city centre. Theological students milled around the café. Oasis lyrics hung from the ceiling. My eyes were drawn to a poster on the wall: “On the sixth day God created Manchester.” It’s refreshing to see a sense of humour reflected even in the design of the building, and perhaps a reaction against the church Glyn was raised in, where fun was frowned upon. 

Tell me about life growing up. 

Mum and Dad are from the valleys of South Wales and both were brought up going to the Welsh chapels. My parents had an encounter with Jesus in their teenage years. My dad broke a man’s leg playing football and was instantly apologetic. The man said: “I’ll forgive you if you come to church with me tomorrow.” The next day, my dad went to church, heard the gospel for the first time and got radically saved. 

I was born here in Manchester. Mum and Dad were pastors. But when I was two, we moved to Australia. 

When did your faith become your own?

There were two life-changing moments for me. As a twelve-year-old, a group of us got together and arranged a series of prayer meetings in our youth pastor’s office. We had two rules: no adults, because they were part of our problem, and no girls, because we didn’t want to be distracted. Every night, people had unique encounters with the Lord. I was so impacted by the presence of God that I came out of that prayer time knowing I was called to be a preacher. 

The glass isn’t half empty. It’s not even half full. The Psalms say ‘my cup runneth over’ 

When I was 15, I’d reached a moment where I was pretty tired with church. There were lots of rules and regulations and I couldn’t work out why I felt disconnected or even bored at times. I was reading Exodus 3, when Moses said to God: “Who are you?” and God says: “I am.” That was the first time God’s word became living. Because all my life, I thought God’s name was: “I’m not” – I’m not allowed to wear jeans. I’m not allowed to kick a ball on a Sunday – the rules were endless. But I discovered even God’s name was permissive. I am. It was life-giving. Galatians 5:1 says: “It is for freedom that Christ has set [you] free.” I never looked back. 

Tell me about the prophetic word you had about moving back to the UK.

I had a prayer time with a friend and God impressed upon my heart three things: you’re going to go back to England, you’ll plant a church and you’ll lead Assemblies of God in Great Britain. 

All three seemed way out there. They were impossible. And yet we had this growing awareness we were meant to move to England. 

Eighteen months later, you and your wife, Sophia, were preparing to move back to the UK where you would be a youth pastor in Sheffield. But then your dad died. Did that make you question your decision? 

Yeah, that was really an emotional time. It was a great season of turmoil. I was conscious Paul talks to Timothy about looking after widows and my mum was now a widow, and it’s my responsibility as the man of the house to look after her. But through talking to Mum and my pastor in Australia at the time, we just knew it was God’s plan for us to move. 

I remember walking towards the plane and saying: “Lord, give me another sign that we’re meant to move to Sheffield.” I looked out and the British Airways jumbo was called ‘The City of Sheffield’. We wept our way onto the plane, wept for 24 hours coming across and lived on an air bed in somebody’s house for two months. But God was faithful. We knew he was with us even in those dark times. 

How did !Audacious begin?

Eight of us started the church. We knew God was calling us into a big city, to try to make as big a difference as possible. 

We were conscious that one way to do that – and this was part of our vision statement for many years – was to be so large a congregation that we created traffic jams. 

On a workday, it would take me about 40 minutes to drive from my house into the city. On a match day, I would drive past Old Trafford, and it would take me an hour and a half. But on a Sunday it would only take 14 minutes. The question was: “What does a revival look like in Manchester?” The answer was: “Traffic jams!” 

The goal was always to think big and become a large church, to increase the potential impact we could have across the city. 

Is bigger always better?

That’s a really good question. If the goal is just numbers for the sake of it, that cannot be healthy. There’s a popular leadership statement that says: “healthy things grow” but I actually don’t agree with that. I think that healthy things stay vibrant. My dog is healthy, but it’s not growing. 

What does a revival look like in Manchester? Traffic jams! 

People say to me: “It must be great having a big church!” And I say: “Compared to what? 200 yards up the road is the Manchester arena and, tonight, they’ll have 23,000 people at a concert there. Old Trafford [holds] 80,000 people. So, what’s our comparison?” 

Megachurches have a really bad rap these days. But if we go back to the Antioch church in the book of Acts, that was mega in size. Cathedrals were numerically large in attendance. They had big buildings, lands; they became resourcing centres for the parishes and for mission. So that’s the mindset in this context. We’re going for big so we can become a resource, not just so we can go: “Hey, look how many people we’ve got!”

Sometimes there’s a cynicism in British culture toward anything perceived as being too big or successful. Has that been your experience? 

Yeah, I think there is definitely a negative press that can go along with leading a megachurch. We hear about pastors in large churches that have failings, and that’s fairly well publicised. But every day at the airport, thousands of planes take off and land safely. We only ever hear about the ones that have an accident. 

1 Corinthians 10:13 says “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind”. In Bible seminary 28 years ago, they said: “The devil is going to get you in three ways – money, sex and power.” So, if we’re aware of that, then…

Given how prevalent that warning has been over the years, you’d hope church leaders would have learned by now. How do you ensure you aren’t the next leader to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons? 

We’ve got to be absolutely diligent in all those areas. When it comes to money, that’s a big one. It’s not just about remuneration. It’s what you do with your money. Financial probity is everything. How generous are you? What mechanisms are we putting in place to make sure money doesn’t get in our hearts? 

!Audacious will come and go. We’re not precious over any other name than the name of Jesus

I think relationships with the opposite sex – people who are not your spouse, etc – Billy Graham would not travel with somebody who wasn’t his wife or daughter. I think being that vigilant is really important. 

That particular example has been criticised in more recent years. Doesn’t it assume any member of the opposite sex is a temptress out to get you – which isn’t a healthy or honouring view of women?

We need to know ourselves. I know me. I know the fallen nature of humankind. 

I’ve got really clear guidelines in that area, and they may be open to [criticism] by others, but I’m OK with it. Say what you want, but the longevity of my marriage and my salvation is more important to me than any negative criticism. 

You’re involved in planting new churches in locations such as school halls or cinemas or hotels. But why not revitalise the many thousands of church buildings that already exist and are under threat? 

I had this very same conversation with Nicky Gumbel [the Anglican priest who led Holy Trinity Brompton and Revitalise Trust, a church planting network] on Sunday, actually. He confirmed a fairly popular statistic, that it takes seven years to revitalise a church that’s in decline or closing. I think some leaders are called to that tenure of seven years of change – the patience, the sojourn – but for other pioneers, they’re wired a bit differently. 

I think both [approaches] are absolutely right. Some buildings are not fit for purpose anymore. We had an opportunity to take over a beautiful 17th-century church that was closing in Chester. It was on a dual carriageway, the nearest parking was 20 minutes’ walk away and there was no drop-off zone. So, there were just too many things that made it not feasible. 

Some Christians say it’s getting harder to profess Christianity in our culture and we’re being increasingly marginalised. You don’t strike me as having that view. 

Well, by nature, I’m a sanguine. The glass is not half empty. It’s actually not even half full. Psalm 23 says: “my cup runneth over” (KJV). 

So, there’s definitely a theology that underpins the life of our church, that says we’re not a pessimistic people. But we are living, more and more, in a post-Christian nation. I recently did some research in a Church of England high school, and it was amazing to me how many students had little to no idea about God or life after death, even in a Judeo-Christian culture. 

We’re dealing with a secular baggage, a baggage of darkness. I think it gives us the opportunity to shine the light of the gospel in such a way that even a small light makes a really big difference. So I think now is a perfect time for churches to plant, to go multi-site or to do something new.

!Audacious has been around for 17 years. Has ministry become easier or harder over time? 

Denominations and movements will come and go. One day the name of !Audacious will be forgotten. Somebody may write a nice chapter about it in a book in 100 years’ time. As long as we’re not precious over any name other than the name of Jesus, we won’t allow the pessimism of a declining denomination to cause our hearts undue duress. 

Now is a perfect time for churches to plant 

There are some denominations planning their demise, selling their buildings and [ordaining] less ministers. But we’re also seeing new movements growing that are young, vibrant, evangelistically zealous. I think people are as hungry now as they’ve ever been, and it’s our responsibility as the Church to put the gospel of Jesus Christ in a context that they can understand, without watering down what the Bible says. 

On the AOG website, it says the movement is in “a process of denominational transformation”, and that this will “require the leadership to bite the bullet on a number of important challenges facing the church today”. What are those?

They’re the well-publicised ones that become the elephant in the room. There’s lots of fear that if you talk about some things, you’ll be cancelled or have negative backlash, but I think it’s about having a biblical orthodoxy that finds its basis in the timeless truths of scripture. The moment that we remove scripture or change our hermeneutical application to suit the cultural context of the day, we’re in danger.

Some say the problem is that church leaders fear speaking out on issues such as sexuality or abortion, and if they all owned their views and spoke about them publicly, on social media for example, it wouldn’t be the elephant in the room… 

That’s a good point. Actually, the question is: How do we own it, and why would we own it on social media?

Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-33). Who are we [pastors] called by God to lead and equip for works of service (see Ephesians 4:11-13)? Why would we be speaking to the world in a way that we’re not equipped for? There’s no grace actually, to lead or influence [non-Christians], and they’re not actually put in the domain of pastors, for pastors to have pastoral care and responsibility over them.

With social media, if you want to follow me, you’re not following me for a social commentary on what I think about the prime minister. If you want to know what to think about these things, come and get in our church. Come and be in a small group. Come and be a sheep and let me be a pastor to you.  

What are the encouraging stories that keep you going on the hard days? 

One of the worship leaders in our church arrived ten years ago, with scars all over her body. She used to cut herself because of the hurt and pain she had in her heart. She saw people in !Audacious worshipping. She lifted her hands and worshipped. Afterwards, in the bathroom, she screamed at the top of her voice, and people said: “Are you OK? What’s up?” And she said: “Look at my scars. They’ve gone!” Now, if you met her, you would not know she’d had that pain from childhood, because the transformation was so great. We’ve actually seen that miracle happen twice in our church, and we’re seeing other miracles as well. 

You travel a lot. Where in the world should demoralised church leaders in the UK be looking for encouragement?

One of the things we’ve got to stop celebrating is size. I go to conferences where the person is speaking because their church is X amount in size. We’ve got to redefine success. It’s not numeric size; it’s fulfilling the call and plans of God for our life. 

Within months of the withdrawal of the Allied troops from Afghanistan, I had the honour of speaking to pastors there who were being pursued for their lives. How they were standing in the face of the most horrific persecution – it’s humbling. 

I think it was Tertullian, in the second century, who said: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Has ever a truer statement been said than that? You’d think the devil would understand this – the more he goes after the Church, the more it grows. And here in Britain, where we’re seeing a reaction to the Church – our conservative values, our biblical views on certain subjects – I wonder if that backlash is preparing us for a season of national challenge. But our history says that’s OK, because what the enemy means for bad, God can turn around for his glory.  

To hear the full interview listen to Premier Christian Radio at 8pm on Saturday 8 February or download ‘The Profile’ podcast