Fire in our hearts - The Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTSNEW GENERATIONself-righteousness and were hot on brotherhood. Many werekeen to embrace a life of purity, often in stark contrast to theway they’d been. Members of ‘Generation J’ were as uninhibitedin their Jesus life as they’d been in their sin. What’s morethey were daring.Youth was not our only mission field. A typical Jesus Armymeeting was a fair cross-section of humanity. However westill reached far too few people considering the current opennessto God. ‘Come to us’ was the old mindset. This usuallymeant church on Sunday. The Jesus mindset was ‘go to them’;sit where they sit, meet where they meet — whether in streets,shops, pubs or homes.Evangelistic though we were, outreach-orientated thoughwe’d become, our focus had always been on communityhouses. Get people along to the houses and they would findlife. God corrected this. The way we were now growing, communityfolk were the minority. The focus swung out to thewider congregation. Congregation, not just community, waschurch. With an expectation of a spontaneous people movement,it was foolish to think otherwise. Could we even keepup with a revival movement, let alone hang it round community?Our vision and structure adapted to maximise involvementwith the people. Those in their own homes were well placedto network with locals. Revivals usually ran along the lines offamily and friendship. Homes provided great opportunitiesto meet people and home-based cell groups could grow upinto small congregations. We now baptised anyone, anywhere,who had faith in Jesus. Covenant membership was our strongheart, but anyone who loved us belonged. We were inclusive.398