EASY CONSCIENCE BUT NO VICTORY?
One of the things I learned to do in my previous parish whenever someone told me a story of what used to happen in parish or in the church was to ask “when did that happen?” Very often the answer would be 30 or 40 years ago!
It was an interesting Surrey “village” in amongst the outer Croydon suburbs of Coulsdon and the Surrey highlights of leafy Banstead and Chipstead. My observation, affirmed by a friend who lived in a prime spot to watch the comings and goings in the village, is that the population in some ways operated in two dimensions.
One was an older generation for whom the village feel was as it was in the 1950s and 60s. Fond memories of Young Wives (the homemaking spouses of the men who went out to work) who formed life long bonds of friendship. In the village everybody knew everybody else and what was going on in their lives. Community cohesion was easier to achieve and the Rector was a civic leader, with the big house in the centre of the village. Opening fetes and a go to person in matters of parish amenity and community alike.
The village of the 2010’s was a quite different place. Those who remembered the old days were still there. But living alongside many new families, for this is a place that many have over generations moved to when starting a family, who could only afford their home by both parents going out to work. Child minders were now one of the dominant business opportunities.
Friendships were made but in smaller networks and circles and not necessarily centring on those who live around you, possibly further afield through (two sets of) work contacts. These two sets of residents, it seemed to me, rubbed alongside each other, not in conflict but not in a cohesive community. More atomised and with social circles less porous than they were in the 1950’s.
This makes mission harder, when one doesn’t know ones neighbour. And as society becomes less Christianised – many at an infant nativity knew NONE of the Carols – then civic influence has diluted over the decades too.
Part of the narrative while I was there was to encourage that “we are no longer the church of the 1950’s”
Yet…..
"Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God". Psalm 90:2
"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth". Isaiah 40:28
"Because I, the LORD, do not change". Malachi 3:6
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" Hebrews 13:8
What else was God doing in the 1950’s?
By 1949 the Second World War was a four-year-old memory. Rationing remained in the time of reconstruction. The days of never having it so good” were still to come. But it was the brink of the 1950’s.
On the Isle of Lewis, one of the Hebridean Islands off the west coast of Scotland, the following happened:
The Hebrides Revival began with two sisters: Peggy and Christine Smith. One was 84 years of age and blind, the other 82 and crippled with arthritis. They were greatly burdened because they'd been told no young person attended public worship at their church. They decided to pray twice a week. On Tuesdays and Fridays they got on their knees at ten in the evening, and remained there until three or four in the morning; two old women in a very humble cottage.
Then Peggy had a vision of the church crowded with young people. They persuaded their minister to call 'a session'. Seven men covenanted 'not to give rest nor peace to the Almighty until He made their Jerusalem a praise in the earth'. Those men also began to meet on Tuesday and Friday nights for some months
Then one night in November a young man began to pray, 'God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?'
But he got no further. He fell into a trance and lay on the floor of the barn. Within a matter of minutes three other elders also fell into a trance. The minister and other intercessors were gripped by the conviction that a God-sent revival must always be related to holiness and godliness.
Are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?
An awareness of God gripped the whole community. Little work was done as men and women gave themselves to thinking about eternal things, 'and God seemed to be everywhere.' In the little cottage the two sisters knew God had kept His promise and told their minister to invite a missioner to come and help them.
Duncan Campbell was called to lead a series of meetings. For the first week of evening meetings little happened, though five young people found God. (Would that every church might have five young people find faith!)
Then on 13 December 1949, at the end of the meeting, all had left except Campbell and one other. The deacon said, 'Don't be discouraged. God is hovering over us, and he'll break through any moment. I can already hear the rumbling of heaven's chariot wheels.'
He began to pray before falling to the ground in a trance. Five minutes later the local blacksmith came back to the church and said, 'Mr Campbell, something wonderful has happened. We were praying that God would pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground, and listen, He's done it! He's done it! Will you come to the door, and see the crowd that's here?'
Even though it was 11 at night between six and seven hundred people had gathered around the church. They'd been moved by a power they could not explain. A hunger and thirst gripped them and the meeting continued until 4 in the morning. Strong men were bowed down and trembled in God's presence. Nearby a dance was in progress but the young people ran from it, 'as though fleeing from a plague', and made for the church.
In a matter of minutes, the dance hall was empty.
Others who had gone to bed were woken by the Holy Spirit, got dressed, and made for the church. There had been no publicity except for an announcement from the pulpit on Sunday that a man would be conducting a series of meetings in the parish for ten days. God became his own publicity agent.
Over the next few nights hundreds gathered in different places. In churches and barns or in fields and homes. There was a prayer meeting every day at noon and those converted the night before were expected to attend. All work stopped for two hours and people gathered for prayer. No appeals were made. People made their way to the prayer meeting to praise God for His salvation.
So it continued for several years and it spread to many of the islands. People who had never been near a meeting before were suddenly arrested by the Spirit of God, stopped work, and gave themselves to seeking God. Men were found walking the roads at night in distress of soul, while others were found during the day among the rocks. Social evils were swept away as by a flood, and whole districts were completely changed. A wonderful sense of God seemed to pervade the whole place.
(Source: https://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/608089/The_Hebrides_Revival.aspx )
In preparation for my own visit to the Isle of Lewis I have started reading Sounds from heaven by Colin and Mary Peckham which is a history of the revival on Lewis between 1949 and 1952. In the Forward Rev Brian Edwards exalts the power of “persistent, insistent, believing prayer” and quotes the following phrase (p7):
“Many of us pray just enough to ease the conscience but not enough to win any decisive victory”
The Smiths were in their 80’s, in poor health, and yet were convicted to pray twice a week for young people.
The effects of the waves of the Holy Spirit that followed convicted the hearts of hundreds over a period of years.
The sisters prayed not just to ease conscience but for victory.
What’s holding us back?
The Lord does not change and is the same yesterday, today and forever. What he has done he is ready to do again.
I’ll report back in a couple of weeks’ time about what I find on the Lewis of the 2020’s.
Seventy-five years on…..
Every blessing
Doug