13.03.2014 Views

Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS<br />

AWAKE O ZION!<br />

be showered with gifts, sweets, pictures, poems, prophecies<br />

and lots of love and esteem.<br />

At the Hall, we often had f<strong>our</strong> brothers shar<strong>in</strong>g a large room.<br />

Sometimes we welded hospital beds together <strong>in</strong>to bunks —<br />

all of seven foot high. Fortunately, I was athletic. At weekends<br />

we rolled out the spare mattresses and often guests<br />

would end up snor<strong>in</strong>g away <strong>in</strong> the library downstairs. We<br />

th<strong>in</strong>ned out more after the c<strong>our</strong>tyard w<strong>in</strong>g was converted,<br />

but such ‘close fellowship’ enc<strong>our</strong>aged a great sense of brotherhood.<br />

There were frictions, of c<strong>our</strong>se. One brother wanted to be<br />

reconciled to a fiery Scotsman, so he took a bowl of water to<br />

wash his feet. The argument broke out aga<strong>in</strong> so he tipped it<br />

over his head and ran!<br />

John Thom was keen to start up a common bank account.<br />

Noel counselled caution at first, but most of us at the Hall<br />

were young and zealous and conv<strong>in</strong>ced that the common purse<br />

was an example of <strong>Jesus</strong> we needed to follow.<br />

By the spr<strong>in</strong>g of 1975 we were pool<strong>in</strong>g <strong>our</strong> <strong>in</strong>come (before<br />

that we had paid rent). A common purse deacon collected the<br />

money every week and put it <strong>in</strong>to a household account. When<br />

Mike Farrant moved <strong>in</strong> from Oxford with a flair for adm<strong>in</strong>istration<br />

and a degree <strong>in</strong> philosophy, politics and economics,<br />

the large tea pot <strong>in</strong> which we’d collected the money was replaced<br />

by a wall safe and an accounts book. We went to Mike<br />

for what we needed and, apart from a little pocket money,<br />

were expected to produce receipts for all we spent.<br />

We were keen to nurture an atmosphere of the Holy Spirit<br />

and enc<strong>our</strong>aged one another along the way of discipleship. I<br />

suggested to Pete that perhaps we shouldn’t stop off at the<br />

122

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!