Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS
COMMUNICATE!
So ran a colourful centre-page spread in the Daily Mirror.
As 1991 broke upon us, national papers focused on the startling
results of a UK church census that had just been released
in the book ‘Christian’ England. 109
As the Mirror informed us, ‘Figures show that the evangelical
movement is booming — fuelled by the more extreme
charismatics.’ The report continued:
Half a million people have stopped going to church in the past
10 years, yet each Sunday 130 Christian soldiers swell the ranks
of a new church army. While the pews are continuing to empty,
a huge religious revival is underway. 110
The Daily Mirror reported that ‘house-churches have gathered
more than 120,000 followers in an explosion of commitment.’
It concluded: ‘Though more traditional forms of religion
are in decline, the new churches — noisy, informal passionate
go from strength to strength.’ 111
The Independent On Sunday was also hot on the trail of
these Christian enthusiasts and sent a journalist out to investigate.
She arrived at our second Wembley Praise-Day:
At the sound of the very first note, hundreds leapt to their feet
with hope in their eyes and hunger in their hearts. There followed
12 hours of exhausting bouts of singing, excited preaching
by a succession of speakers from around the world, and a
circus of ‘signs and wonders’ as faith healers, exorcists, tongue
talkers and prophets performed... And, on cue, hundreds poured
forward to be saved. 112
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