Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS
COMMUNICATE!
That summer we scattered 75,000 highly coloured Jesus Revolution
Streetpapers around cities, towns, beaches and festivals.
(At least one road sweeper came to the Lord!)
We felt the time was ripe for a new Jesus movement — for
Christians to swarm the streets, promoting Jesus as the hero
of the 90s. It was now twenty years since Britain had seen
such an upsurge of excitement amongst the youth with all
their ‘Give us a J!’ shouts and ‘One Way’ signals.
Noel (who aims to initiate something every day) came up
with a greeting for the 90s Jesus Movement. When you meet
a Christian, whether in the street or a crowded supermarket,
you lift your right hand and with five fingers spread out (representing
the five letters of Jesus) you shout ‘JESUS!’ to him.
Hopefully he returns the greeting. The ‘Say Jesus’ campaign
was launched, complete with tee-shirts, badges and stickers,
at our summer festival.
These bank-holiday festivals, now held three times a year
in the Giant Marquee at Cornhill, were becoming major landmarks
in our calendar. Many stayed in our community houses.
With so many guests around, this generated a very lively and
brotherly atmosphere.
The programme began with baptisms on Friday evening
and finished on Monday with a queue of people telling how
God had met them over the festival. Some of the stories were
hilarious, others deeply moving. Sandwiched in between was
a lot of vigorous preaching, the occasional video, much personal
ministry, music, praise and rolling in the aisles (for
some). As a leader of King’s Church, Chatham, remarked at
the microphone, ‘If I’d known the meetings were going to be
this long I’d have brought my flask and sleeping bag!’
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