Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS
NEW GENERATION
We used to drive up to Bristol every Wednesday night for
housegroup and evangelise at weekends. At one Jesus Revolution
meeting in Bristol I spotted a colourful character waving
a big flag with his long hair wrapped in a red bandanna.
He looked like a pirate. ‘Looks a pretty normal Jesus Army
recruit,’ I thought and smiled.
The following Wednesday he turned up at our house-group.
Stroppy, streetwise and loveable, Andy took to us right away
and joined the gang. He was himself, praised God with swear
words and regarded discipleship like medicine, nasty but
needful. But he loved us to bits.
Andy had been brought up in care. Jason had rarely seen
his dad. This was the pattern; family break up, adoption and
even abuse. When these young guys sang ‘This is home’ or
‘This is my family’ it meant so much.
The fathering we gave them was not just passing on some
kind of spiritual mantle but really getting involved. This was
the task of us golden oldies, now well into our 40s. Rejuvenated
veterans brought solidity and security to the lads and
shared from their treasure store with the buzz of a new era.
Young dynamos, for their part, jostled, goaded and wheeled
us out onto the streets. So two generations took their place
for the harvest and the church regained her youth.
Cornhill, a community flagship, was in the throes of such a
renewal and was gaining new people. Jason, with his passion
for God and prophetic artlessness reminded me of an early
Franciscan. Andy came as a rougher version! A young couple
who’d been new-agers in Germany also rolled up with a travellers’
bus and a restlessness for a new society. Cornhill, strug-
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