Fire in our hearts - The Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTSNEW GENERATIONThe secret of Steve’s success? He admired Noel’s spirit,drank deep of the community vision and was a happy mix ofprophetic spirituality and winning love. His team in Londonhad a knack of attracting ‘quality’ people and were producinga new generation of community lovers.Brokenness, soul freedom and yielding to God were vitalingredients. Steve had known frequent anointings since ourgeneral outpouring in 1988. They were a rocket boost intonew ministry. Now, at the summer campaign in London, Stevewas doing strange things again in the worship times (likerunning backwards with his eyes closed). During the missionhis team was so ‘intoxicated’ that passers-by came in to themarquee looking for the bar!We, like many Christians, were discovering a new closenessto God through what the media were calling the ‘Toronto Blessing’.In May we’d heard the story of Eleanor Mumford’s visitto Toronto and the subsequent ‘bedlam’ of laughter, shakingand ‘swooning’ in the highly-respectable London Anglicanchurch, Holy Trinity Brompton. The power-wave, connectedwith Toronto’s Airport Vineyard Fellowship, was nothing ifnot startling. Before long it had spread into hundreds of Britishchurches and alerted the national press.Some of the things they reported were pretty bizarre. Roaringlike lions, jerking like chickens and pogoing about likepneumatic drills didn’t easily fit into the British mindset! Inevitablyevangelicals of a more rational bent questionedwhether this was really the Holy Spirit at work. However researchinto genuine historic revivals showed that such manifestationswere not entirely new.383