Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS
AWAKE O ZION!
swayed from side to side. Noel continued to speak with a
calm smile. He didn’t overemphasise the demonic.
In Northampton the two Jesus homes at Argyle Street and
Harlestone Road filled up. The weekly notice sheet got longer.
‘Is This Your Ministry?’ it said on the back. ‘Help needed for
decorating... Someone required to organise bulk buying...
Lawns need cutting... Sister wanted to type new chorus books.’
The Love Community News section included all sorts of jottings:
‘Ralph is working as odd job man... Alan is available to
dig gardens... Please bring surplus fruit, veg and clothes to
the chapel... Dave and Karen have room for two single people...’
In September I went off to Plymouth for a breather to do
teacher training but news of Bugbrooke followed me there. A
friendly but extravagant article appeared in The Daily Mail:
More than 200 people in a village of 800 have dramatically dedicated
their lives to Jesus. Nowhere else in Britain has experienced
such a concentrated surge of religious fervour. So many
want to be part of the Bugbrooke Miracle that some travel for
miles almost every day to attend prayer sessions... So much
was written about the Jesus Freaks. But the pattern here, though
similar, is dramatically different. For this extraordinary revival
slashes through all barriers of age and background. 25
Our fame spread. ‘What Wesley did for gin, the movement
does for drugs,’ reported New Society. 26 We were wary of
publicity, but there was no holding back the secular media.
Television companies got wind and Thames Television began
100