Fire in our hearts - The Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTSNEW GENERATIONgling out of her institutionalism, was given a helping handand a raw taste of the future.Youth was in upsurge. ‘A rising star, that’s what I am!’ was ahit when Crossrhythms reviewed our tape The Greatest Cause.New bloods wanted to win their spurs and this could meanreleasing treasured sons to pioneer new scenes.From Ian ‘Greatheart’s’ base in Sheffield, the north waswide open. Ian was keen to give his ‘young turks’ their head.We now had a bus, kitted out with bunks, that lan’s men tookover the Pennines in search of adventure. The mould-breakingteam, without established leaders or community members,descended on Barnsley, Wakefield, Bradford, Halifax andHuddersfield ending up in Leeds where a church plant wasnow under way. Their success pointed the way ahead.Ian was emerging as a pioneer with an apostolic spirit. Steve‘Capable’ was another folk hero with church-building skills.Charismatic personalities like these foreshadowed the futurewhich must lie in gifted people birthing church and communityat a distance.Our Northampton community had come into being throughapostolic ministry but daughter churches in Warwickshire,Birmingham or even London were transplanted from motherstock. Locals swelled the numbers, but the core group alwayscame from ‘home’. This wasn’t on. We couldn’t be foreverdividing up the clump.Ian’s base was 100 miles away. He felt their situation wassimilar to Antioch’s in the early church. The Jerusalem communityhad spread through Judea and Samaria and up to Antiochby migration. But from Antioch onwards the thrust out-380