Reflecting back the years 1998-2008 were years when I thought ‘this is what I was born for’. 1990 we had a visit from a prophet from the USA and something was imparted. We were meeting in a school hall and there was an explosion of life. A literal ‘roar’ went up. 1994 came along and what became known as ‘the Toronto blessing’ impacted so many places in the UK… a little later and news of what was happening in Pensacola came through, then in our little pond ‘Marsham Street’ meetings began (1997) in Westminster. I remember the many responses to faith, baptisms where people were not simply drenched in water but in the Spirit and had to be dragged out of the pool. Heady days… expectations were simple, revival was here and would only grow.
A few years later Roger Mitchell read to me an email that he had received. In summary the contents were that this person knew Roger from years back and he wrote to outline how he had lost faith and lost his way but had now found his way back to the Lord. He wrote that he was not sure what he would do now with church as he observed ‘it was not public like it used to be’. At the close of the communication he said that he was living and working in Leatherhead, Surrey. The town where I lived and ‘church was not public like it used to be’. At that time one of the most prominent churches in the UK was meeting in Leatherhead, renting the largest building in the town. Inside that building one would regularly be experiencing ‘touching heaven, changing earth’ (to quote a song)… but outside?
I lived prior to Leatherhead in a town of some 11,000 people in a Christian community of around 600 people. A BIG percentage. Inside that community everything was awesome. No need to own a lawnmower – one person can ‘own’ it and numbers of us can use it… I walk past 5, 6 doors to the 7th where someone who was ‘in’ lived. Great testimony… but how was that seen by those in the previous 5 or households?
One of the most progressive (and large) churches meeting inside but not visible. And a further challenge – Mr. Scott lived at the same time in Leatherhead – so his faith was not visible?
Anyway that communication was toward the end of the 1998-2008 period, so back to that time.
In the midst of the Marsham Street season I strongly felt this needs to be taken to cities up and down the UK, and eventually one city opened her doors and over the next few years in the context of team we invested 12 weeks into the city of Leeds. I never requested an invite anywhere but numerous cities followed, at one time there were 3 teams running, I wrote two books, Germany, France, Sweden, West Coast of the USA, Brazil and other places also opened. As the Spanish say ‘I was in my salsa’.
I carried a simple approach – the church in the city / region should find that in their unity they were present for the sake of that locality; prayer at every level (and with a focus on how the effects of history can be undone) and lo and behold… well the overriding name will explain – ‘Sowing seeds for Revival’. It was in that period of time that I gained an understanding of ‘land’. With over 1200 references in Scripture not a minor theme, yet if one were to ask most Bible-oriented Christians what word they associate with ‘heaven’ they would answer with ‘hell’. Ask someone to read Scripture with no previous exposure and ask them the same question and the answer would be ‘earth’. The ‘big’ aspect of prayer as instructed by Jesus was ‘on earth as in heaven’. I began to understand how what has taken place in history is what shapes a place spiritually. After Jesus had encountered Jerusalem where he was not accepted (the place that had always rejected the prophets) we come to a few enlightening verses at the end of John 10:
He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptising earlier, and he remained there. Many came to him, and they were saying, “John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” And many believed in him there (emphases added).
So many references to geography with one verse indicating what had taken place there to make this a place of response – John had been baptising there. A lightbulb moment for me with the understanding that land has to be healed from previous wounds and bondages, and it also opened up the meaning of Jesus submitting to John’s baptism.
Thus years of ‘sowing seeds for revival’ began. Revival – in the USA used more to describe what happens inside a meeting context; in the UK with the history of Wesley /Whitfield and more recently ‘the Welsh revival’ or the ‘Hebridean revival’ the impact on the community with deep sorrowful confession of sin and resultant conversions, so that miners no longer swore and beat the donkeys in the mines, or harvests left unharvested as attendance at church overtook every other responsibility.
I am very grateful for meeting James Thwaites who was someone who helped me see that the church is beyond the congregation and is to be embedded in and through all of society. To borrow Eugene Peterson’s language the people of God have to move into ‘the neighbourhood’ to such a level that their glory can be seen – full of grace and truth. There is the deeper challenge. Glory is what we have fallen short of (the core definition of sin – ἁμαρτάνω – to miss the mark).
I perceive that this realisation concerning the transformation of our world is on the agenda of many who have had a similar journey to my own… sadly a model has come up that outlines the need to have believers rise into the top 3% of various spheres to bring about change. I perceive the kingdom of God is not of that order, indeed for some 20+ years I have sought to outline how ‘sharia law’ is but a mirror of that ‘top down’ view, and as I believe that there is no stronger body of people on earth than the body of Christ… thus what is within that body will produce a harvest – hence sharia law draws from the well of christendom.
Wales, Lewis – not as simple as bad people in the pubs and then convicted and then in the chapels. Sure there was that element, but visit, for example Wales, and a great number of chapels were built or enlarged in the 1890’s – to accommodate the children from previous revivals, but with the overriding Calvinist theology conversion was wholly a work of God so until conviction comes there can be no salvation (of course ‘salvation’ is a work of God, but like a drowning person to whom I throw a life-line that person has to grab it. Later that person would be foolish to say ‘I saved myself’ – their part would be simply – thank God someone saved me. Oh and in Acts we do have the phrase ‘save yourselves’!!!!).
We are in a different era. ‘Revival’ as defined by our history I suspect is history other than some further outbreaks, but the body of Christ (using that term rather than ‘church’ as often we use the word we all know and make a direct equivalence with what we know) engaging in the cultural mess of our world I see as the future.
I loved that era that I am reflecting on. I could give so many stories – hundreds of watches and clocks that restarted that were broken and had been put away – at one point in Brazil I asked that people went home dug them out and if they had restarted they should bring them the next evening and we would line the platform with them. I even had a story told me (from the UK) of a clock that had the pendulum removed as the ‘tick’ was intrusive to the room, it was taken down for redecoration and lo and behold the clock started again ‘tick, tock’ with no pendulum. Signs of the start of time, not the repetition of the past.
But as for all of us we project forward from where we are. Looking back is better (‘this is that’) but we do not have that luxury. Inevitably I still project forward – I hope I do it with a less strong viewpoint now than then.