Revival

As a great contrast to my activities before we went last Sunday to visit a revival. Or that's what its being called, and who am I to argue. I always feel as if I've arrived in a place after the Holy Spirit has moved on a tad, so when this move of God was flagged up as being Now by the useful internet, we thought we'd take a look for ourselves. We weren't bowled over but something is certainly going on. Sixty people had been baptised the evening before our visit, the church, in a warehouse, was full of folks of all ages, the music was approved by HoF who is rather particular about these matters, and the preacher was..........................preaching the gospel! Quite a surprise for this day and age and where we live. And pretty refreshing for someone who was feeling not quite in step with the rest of the ecclesiastical world.

Ashamed

This week I've had various instances of feeling I'm one of the few in step. A sermon of the 'it doesn't matter what you believe' variety; another pastor's theory that it's more important to affirm people than to mention original sin, and last night a meeting of C4M with just a dozen people attending, one an Imam. Where were the Christians? I felt ashamed of such a poor turnout for one of the most important issues of our time, and ashamed of myself when we were asked to leaflet our streets and I chickened out. What if someone saw me?
So today I went to the town to hand out leaflets in the market square. Amongst the items we were shown last night were books published for early readers, infants, about alternative families, titles like 'King and King', 'Mom and Mum get married'. And I thought of my grandchildren growing up with such ideas and not the definition of marriage that has existed till now of 'one man and one woman for life.'

I felt I had to do my part, even if it may be putting my finger in the dyke, against this flood of unwarranted, non-manifesto-ed, legislation. Reactions varied from 'thank you for reminding me, I'll vote tonight' to 'what's all the fuss, my mother's a vicar and she doesn't mind' to plain 'couldn't care less'.

My parents thought the world had changed a lot in their lifetime, but boy, they didn't have anything this big. And I did see people who knew me, and happily, they agreed with our stance. There would have been no hiding, we wore bright green T-shirts emblazoned with title and logo.

And now for blogging this I'll get a lot of stick and still feel out of step. Gulp.