Conversion No. 2
In other words, I was delighted and amazed at the reality of answered prayer coming in the form of an actual healing prayer group, all four of whom worshipped at a local Baptist church. As a new (secret) Christian of only six or eight weeks standing, and not having had any contact whatsoever with other Christians, I didn’t even know that such things as healing prayer groups existed. Although I could not know it, these were, of course, significant times in Christian circles, following as they did, the John Wimber/Vineyard Movement visits to Britain. One of the John Wimber ‘tours’ had included a visit to a north of England church, which was pastored at that time by the current principal of Spurgeon’s College, London, thereby engendering a fairly local Baptist connection and influence. In the perfect hindsight of a theological training, I now recognize the Wimber influence on this group of sincere, believing Christians, who for two years became a rock of support for Chris.
The group were brimming with enthusiasm and were avidly reading a wide selection of the popular, charismatic books that circulated at the time, especially those with an emphasis on healing. Looking back, it is clear that they anticipated fairly early success in the form of physical healing, but in this, they were to be largely disappointed, instead fulfilling another, very much needed function. Apart from the first two or three meetings, the group met with Chris at our home where the chief result of their prayers, was the indescribable feeling of peace that she experienced. The peace of God (Phil. 4:7) was in fact guarding the thoughts of Chris’s mind (heart) from the psychological troubles of her anorexia. Again and again, Chris met with the group simply in order to experience that peace, and it was this that, in part, ultimately led to her commitment to Christ. It was about four weeks into these meetings with the prayer group that I disclosed to Chris my own prior commitment to Christ, and how their involvement in our lives could only have been the result of prayer. Easter was early that year, and on April 1st. Chris committed her life to the LORD, later often remarking on the appropriateness of ‘April fools day.’ Interestingly, in her prayer of commitment she too struck a deal, for she had recently formed a friendship with a social worker, and asked the LORD to maintain that friendship outside its current professional confines. The prayer of commitment had been prayed from the heart privately, but in a subsequent meeting, the prayer group insisted that this was ‘ratified’ by being repeated aloud, adding in a more stylized line or two of ‘normal’ commitment prayer. In the following weeks, as we began to read our bibles, we felt it was incumbent upon us to meet with other Christians on a fairly regular basis, and so we became members of that same local Baptist church. But throughout, we never lost the specialness, which had derived from having made personal, almost unaided, commitments to the LORD.
Requesting the “Gifts”
From the outset of their Christian commitments, Western Christians suffer from almost insurmountable difficulties in their relationship with God, which derive entirely from their cultural heritage. Indeed, the whole emphasis of our culture rests upon the cult of the individual, whose prosperity and welfare are the mainspring of the policies of all the political parties, of whatever hue. Individualism is now to all intents and purposes, the single most virulent philosophy driving our society, holding metaphysical hands with those other modern philosophies, pluralism and humanism. The ‘Enlightenment’ which arguably began in the seventeenth century, and which has bequeathed huge advances in material prosperity, has also brought about an intellectual ‘sea change,’ profound in its consequences. In essence, the perception of self has changed, and the increasing sense of selfhood has been understood as the transformation of ‘public man’ into ‘private man,’ or psychologisation. The psychologisation process is, in effect, the internalisation of public, corporate man—once exemplified by external indications of rank such as clothing and apparel—into the modern individual known today. All this has consequences for Christians, who respond to their social nurturing by unwittingly placing undue emphasis upon their individual relationship with God, and this is particularly exemplified in their prayer life. It must be emphasized here, that the concept of an individual relationship is quite different from the concept of a personal relationship, and it remains one of the misfortunes of modern society, that this distinction has become so blurred. When acknowledging that Christians have a personal relationship with God, it is necessary to understand that this was intended to be lived out in a corporate environment, and personal prayer also took place primarily within that same environment. New Testament prayer was fundamentally a corporate activity, often to be found within households, that is, amongst (and between) families, and the fundamental unit of the family still remains the relationship between husband and wife.
In response to this shared heritage of social nurture as an individual, I prayed alone—as did Chris, although we did at least ‘compare notes’ from time to time. Amongst the prayers that we each prayed simultaneously yet separately, were prayers asking the LORD for specific gifts of the Spirit. We requested these gifts at the behest of the prayer group, who were imbued with the belief—then current in some charismatic circles—that one could request any combination of the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12. In other words, it was a kind of “pick ’n mix,” and I remember requesting the gifts of wisdom and prophecy—not being too terribly interested in such things as administration—and I remember Chris saying she had also requested prophecy. In the event, we did not receive any giftings, at least, as we then understood them to be, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized the truth of I Corinthians 12:11—God gives gifts as He determines!
Darkening Storm Clouds
If the evacuation of the offices had been our ‘Dunkirk,’ then we were now firmly ensconced inside ‘Fortress Britain,’ and our enforced mid-lease move soon began to have its consequences, as our erstwhile landlord and accountant engaged himself in furious legal activity. To begin with, we owed him a four-figure sum for the last set of accounts he had prepared, and having refused outright our offer of instalments, he began a civil action in the county court to recover the full amount. He sent his partner to represent him at the trial, and we both presented our cases to a surprisingly young presiding judge. The case was defended because I had counter claimed for the few hundred pounds owed to us on a separate matter by their firm. Needless to say, I had prayed fervently for help in this, my first encounter with the civil justice system, and was amazed when the judge ordered us to go into an annex room, in order to work out a repayment programme by instalment! Our counter claim was rejected by the judge, who regretfully pointed out that the monies owed to us, were owed by a different company belonging to our former landlord, and