Fire in our hearts - The Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTSNEW GENERATIONI had a word too while praying one morning: ‘Go to Bathand you will find a group of young people who meet regularlyin a pub seeking spiritual things.’ Then: ‘The White Dog’. Ilooked up this name in the Yellow Pages but it didn’t exist!Undeterred we set off: destination — Bath; mission — locatehippies and evangelise. The friends we stayed with knewof two off-beats, Dave and Steve, who had a kind of Jesus pubscene going. So the next day we headed out with our guitars,hot on the scent. A guy with a twelve-string caught us up inthe park.‘Hi! Who do you play for then?’ he chirped.‘The Lord.’ I said.‘Good. I’m off to a prayer meeting. Do you want to come?’‘Definitely,’ said Jason. ‘Let’s go for it.’Next thing, we were in a pentecostal church, singing andpraying. Then two hippie characters walked in. I nudged Jason,‘I bet these are the ones, Jase.’ When the meeting endedwe walked over to them:‘I’m Dave,’ said one with a grin.‘I thought so,’ I said. Turning to the other, I added:‘And you’re Steve and you meet in a pub every week seekingspiritual things.’ They were wide eyed.‘How do you know?’‘God told us about you in Northampton.’‘Wow!’We made friends, laughed about The White Dog’, and spentthe afternoon singing in the streets. Mission accomplished,we met the rest of the group the following week. Half waythrough the evening, Dave blurted out. ‘Hey look! Amazing!’In trotted a white dog. Jason was well impressed.378