Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS
AWAKE O ZION!
togetherness and opened our lives to input from others. Paddy
and Rufus were exercising leadership within the Jesus houses
and a male ruling authority was taking shape. That in itself
was a cross for some.
Worldliness, too, was a headache. Here we were also fighting
the contemporary Christian emphasis on liberty and anyone
who found our commitment too taxing could always cry,
‘Legalism!’ Many who didn’t hold our vision were keen to put
us right. But we pressed on and ploughed our own furrow.
Prophetic voices and prophetic churches were scarce enough.
As Tozer once wrote: ‘We desperately need seers who can
see through the mist — Christian leaders with prophetic vision...
And if they come, we will no doubt crucify a few of
them in the name of worldly orthodoxy.’ 28
Separation from the world and brotherly sharing were becoming
our hallmarks. It was time for the Jesus Fellowship,
as the chapel congregation was now called, to move deeper
into community.
Bugbrooke Hall, just up the road from Verna’s cottage, had
been empty for two years. Now very run down, it was due to
be auctioned in June. Built by a rich squire in the early nineteenth
century, this old rectory lay on the southern edge of
Bugbrooke in thirteen acres of parkland — an imposing Georgian
house of pale yellow brick, standing with its long annexe
like a stately liner in a sea of grass. To the back was a
courtyard complete with stable block and grassy cobbles. All
around stood great trees of copper beech and oak, whilst a
strip of woodland flanked the stone wall down to the pond.
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