Logos Foundation (Australia) - Early History

Early History

It was established by Paul Collins c.1966 in New Zealand as a trans-denominational teaching ministry serving the Charismatic Renewal. Paul Collins moved it to Sydney, Australia, c.1969, for a short time before it was transferred to Howard Carter's leadership, relocating to Hazelbrook, lower Blue Mountains of New South Wales for a few years, and in the mid-1970s to Blackheath, upper Blue Mountains. During these years the teaching ministry attracted likeminded fellowships into loose association with it, and it was a publisher of Charismatic and Restoration teachings focused on Christian maturity and Christ's pre-eminence in short books & the monthly Logos/Restore Magazine (associated with New Wine Magazine, USA). It held annual weeklong conferences of over 1,000 registrants, featuring international Charismatic speakers, including Derek Prince, Ern Baxter, Don Basham, Charles Simpson, Bob Mumford, Kevin Conner (Australia), Peter Morrow (New Zealand) and others. A Bible College was also established nearby at Westwood Lodge, Mount Victoria. At the main site in Blackheath a Christian K-12 school, Mountains Christian Academy was established - most of the movement's churches had these as part of their ministry in educating their children. It carried over the Old Covenant practise of tithing (to the local church), and expected regular sacrificial giving beyond this. Theologically it taught orthodox Christian core beliefs - however in matters of opinion Logos teaching was presented as authoritative and alternative views were discouraged, and thinking Christians holding these tended to leave the movement eventually.

From the mid-1970s a hierarchical ecclesiology was adopted in the form of the Shepherding Movement's whole-of-life discipleship / shepherding of members by personal pastors (usually their "cell group" leader) who in turn were accountable also to their personal pastors, and so forth, through to Howard Carter who related to the apostolic group in Christian Growth Ministries of Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, Ern Baxter, Derek Prince, and Don Basham, in Ft Lauderdale, USA (whose network was estimated to have approx. 150,000 people involved at its peak c.1985). Howard Carter's primary pastoral relationship was with Ern Baxter, a pioneer of the Healing Revival of the 1950s and the Charismatic Renewal of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Written covenants of submission to the individual church pastors were encouraged for the members of one representative church, Christian Faith Centre (Sydney), and were said to be common practice throughout the movement at the time.

The Logos movement churches were named the Australian Fellowship of Covenant Communities in 1980, and were led through an eschatological shift in the early 1980s from the Premillennialism of many Pentecostals, to the Postmillennialism of the Presbyterian Reconstructionist theonomists. A shift to an overt theological-political paradigm resulted in some senior leadership, including Pastor David Jackson of Christian Faith Centre Sydney, leaving the movement altogether. In the mid 1980s AFoCC re-branded as the Covenant Evangelical Church (not associated with the Evangelical Covenant Church in the USA). The Logos Foundation brand continued as the Educational and Political arm of the Covenant Evangelical Church.

It finally c.1986 moved to Toowoomba, Queensland where they had associated fellowships and a demographic environment more conducive to the growth of New Right religio-political movements.