Torchbearers International
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- Estes Park, Colorado, USA, and with 25 affiliated centres in 20 countries around the world
 | |
| Founded | 1947 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Major W. Ian Thomas |
| Focus | Promoting Christ in You – the hope of glory! |
| Location(s) |
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| Origins | Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers, England |
Key people | Peter Reid (Director) |
| Website | torchbearers |
Torchbearers International consists of an affiliation of 25 centers around the world.[1] Torchbearers International was founded by evangelist and author Major W. Ian Thomas, in England, in 1947.
Torchbearers International's goal is to provide practical Christian education to develop personal spiritual growth, prepare people for an effective Church life, and teach a working knowledge of the Bible. The organization works by providing a number of Bible schools and Christian conference centers around the world.[2]
Torchbearers' mission is to proclaim the transforming presence of Jesus Christ through biblical teaching and practical training, equipping men and women for service in His church worldwide.[3]
Torchbearers' founder, Major W. Ian Thomas, was an evangelical teacher often identified with the Keswick Convention ministry. The main thrust of their theology is that of the exchanged life or 'Christ in You'.[4]
Central to Torchbearers' theology is the belief that the way in which one lives the Christian life is by quieting or extinguishing the self, and allowing Christ to live his life through you in a very literal way. This is the essential teaching of the Keswick Convention, which Major Thomas had been a featured speaker for. His advocation of Keswick theology earned him the label of a "strict Keswick" by M. James Sawyer Th.M., PhD in his article concerning the Keswick movement.[2] While there is no end to the verbiage and metaphor used to describe this process of Christ living through you (Thomas himself never used the term "extinguish oneself"), Major W. Ian Thomas states it in the following manner in the foreword he wrote for well-known Higher Life proponent Bob George in his Higher-Life opus "Classic Christianity".
There are those who have a life they never live. They have come to Christ and thanked Him only for what He did, but do not live in the power of who He is. Between the Jesus who "was" and the Jesus who "will be" they live in a spiritual vacuum, trying with no little zeal to live for Christ a life that only He can live in and through them, perpetually begging for what in Him they already have! [5]
It is further observed that it is man's consent that is the efficacious will that moves God to accomplish sanctification in the life of the believer:
The One who calls you to a life of righteousness is the One who by our consent lives that life of righteousness through you! [6]