Dream or was it a nightmare

DREAM OR WAS IT NIGHTMARE

Quite some time back now,  although the date has long since been forgotten,  the dream is as vivid as ever.     It starts with me having died,  arriving in heaven and picking up two rather heavy suitcases  from where I had laid up my treasure (in heaven)  Matt 6 v20 store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. before heading up the hill to the city.   To the new Jerusalem.     Just as I got there and was about to walk through the gates,  a great deep voice boomed out “Hey where do you think you are going”   Looking up I saw Peter standing there with great big keys in his hand.    “Hi” I answered  “I am Edward and I have just arrived.    I’m sure my heavenly Father will be expecting me”    “That may be so” Peter answered back  “but you can’t just walk into the city.    You have to be introduced and anyway you just can’t walk in carrying cases like that.   Someone has to help you.    Is there anyone here who knows you and will be willing to help..”    “Hundreds if not thousands” I confidently replied.  "I have been a Christian for over 40 years and know lots and lots of Christian from all over the world."  “Stay here then and I will get messengers to go around the city to tell everyone you have arrived and everyone who knows you to come to the main gate”    Sure enough as the words got out  a large crowd began to gather at the gate.      Many waved and shouting hello.    Peter then stood up and said “Edward,  here wants to come and live in the city.    Who will come and carry his bags and help him settle in.  Someone,  who if it wasn't for him would not be here today”   Silence descended on the crowd and no one moved.    Peter then said again “Who will come and carry his bags and help him settle in for he helped you when you were in great need”   Again no one moved.    So Peter repeated again “Is there not someone who will come and carry his bags and help him as he helped you whilst on earth”   You could still hear a pin drop and still no one moved.   A fourth time Peter asked for someone to help me saying “Surely there is someone here who wants Edward in the city”    As he spoke I picked up my bags, turned to go back down the hill and said “It’s OK Peter,  Don’t worry.   I don’t want to be where I am not wanted.”    As I started off down the hill, I heard the voice of Jesus say from somewhere at the back of the crowd   “I want you.   Someone go and pick up his bags for Me”    I don’t know what happened or if anyone moved for I had started walking back down the hill and at that moment I woke up in a cold sweat.

At the time I didn't know what all that was about or what it meant.     I do so now for not one person will move to bring me into the church here in Plymouth.   Let alone carry my bags or share my burden.

Life in a blue suit (2) - the adventure continues

All change

Life back in the UK was still wine and roses although the girl I fell madly in love with was in Durban South Africa whilst I was now back in port in the UK.    She was now anxious to become a Salvation Army officer and so applied to go into the Salvation Army Training College in Johannesburg,  fully expecting me to follow her as soon as I had extracted myself from the Navy.   Alas life never turns out as simple as that.    My father had got himself a job as a Railway crossing keeper in Babworth a small village near Retford.   The family now went regularly to the Salvation Army corp in Retford which turned out to be quite disastrous for everyone all round.    My youngest sister understandable was the apple of his.    Do anything for her and you couldn't  put a foot wrong.    Upset her and you would never be forgiven  unfortunately the good folks did both.    First they gave her a cornet and taught her to play a brass instrument.  Dad beamed.    Then when she had mastered the instrument sufficiently to be able to play in the band, they took it off her and gave it to someone else.  Dad was fuming and never went back again.    But all that was still to come.     The ship had now returned to Chatham,  her home port and I had a letter summoning me to the Salvation Army Headquarters in London.    By this time Brenda had gone into “training” and was now at the  Salvation Army Training College in Johannesburg.     In those days the Salvation Army was very strict about their cadets (people under training) being engaged to someone who was not either a fellow cadet or a Salvation Army officer so when they found out she was engaged to me she needed to get permission for it to continue.    As I was still a candidate for officership she told them it was OK as I was a candidate and would shortly be going into training as well..     So of course we both needed permission for the relationship to continue from our respective Training college principle.   Not a problem or so I thought.   I duly went to London and met the kindest, sweetest person I have ever come across except she tore apart every argument,  every but,  maybe going to.   Every argument I put forward as to why I was not rushing back to my ship and  requesting to “buy myself out” she shot down in flames.   Feeling now two inches tall and with not a shred of clothing left to cover my modesty she sent me on my way to think about it,  pray and then come back and tell her what I was going to do.   It must have been the first and only time I have been left speechless,  before or since.   With every argument ripped to pieces  even before I left the room I knew what I had to do.    It was Christmas 1968 and I was on my way home to my parents new home in Retford.    On leave with a lot of thinking to do.   Christmas is the season for carol playing.    A time to go round the street telling people the good news that Jesus had been born in Bethlehem and collect lots of money in the process.     Unfortunately,  I have always been ambiguous about carol playing.    I have always enjoyed carol playing,  going round the streets with the Salvation Army band playing carols.   I also had no problems collecting money,  for the work of the social side of the Army needed as much money as it could get.   For in those days there were no money from the government and all the money needed for the work had to be collected from donations.     There was though a tension,   where we out there collecting money and by the way tell out the good news or out there to tell the world a Saviour was born and if we raised lots of money in the process all the better.     I was very much the latter.   I did not though know it at he time,   Retford Corps was the opposite.    They wanted to buy a complete new set of band instruments and therefore was raising the several thousand pounds needed by doing as much caroling as possible that year.   The rush to go round every street in the town hardly taking time to draw breathe in order to cover as many streets as possible in the shortest time as possible was something I found very difficult to come to terms with.     But when on the next Sunday the bandmaster stood up and pleaded and cajoled even more collectors to go knocking on the doors it was too much.    I downed my baritone and refused to do any more carolling.    Nothing was said and I didn't think any more about it.   Until I got back to London that is.     This time as soon as I walked through the door I knew there was something amiss.    This time instead of the nice friendly Brigadier lady  there was a cold frosty Major and the first thing I was greeted with,  was him saying  “I gather you are not happy with some things in the Salvation Army”  Taken aback by the abruptness and hostility  especially after the last meeting I struggled to think of what he was getting at and what to say in reply.    After a few moments I said "Yes I suppose I do as no churches are perfect and I would find I would disagree with some things in whatever church I belong to.   After further conversation it became obvious he was referring to my objection to the way they had been carolling in Retford.    I tried to explain that I had no objections to carolling or collections per say but the focus had to be playing enough carols in the street for people to hear the reason for Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ not to raise enough money for a double bass and euphonium.    But it was not too be.    I had gone into the meeting planning to say I was going back to the ship to request my discharge but I left with the ringing tone of “Come back when you've changed your views.   Until then don't call us,  We'll call you."      They never did and little did I know it but God had closed the door on full time ministry and my girlfriend in South Africa.    A few months later I got a letter from Brenda to say she had met another Salvation Army cadet.    A few months later they married and our relationship was over.    25 years later I was to learn the marriage was disastrous almost from the start.    They both shortly after getting married left the Salvation Army and despite having two children he started playing around..    As she now had two small children to look after and there is no social services or other financial support she had to put up with it and stayed with him until the children had grown up 18 years or so later.   But God,  despite all my failings,  prepared something much better for me.    Less than a year after my encounter in London I was posted to Malta,   met Julie and 44 years later still with her and with 3 great children.    Life is still good and God still is providing for all my needs.    Occassional I would like a few greeds as well but He said I had to work for them if I really wanted them.   As I am too lazy for that I just stay content with my needs.    Despite all the bumps and twists on the road,  life is still full of wine and roses.

As for my dad,  sadly  all the family left the Army 6 months after that Christmas in Retford and in 1969 he died.    My mother and three sisters moved to Barnsley to be near his side of the family and they lived there for another 40 years until she died.  My mother did go back to the Army but my sisters never did

Life in a Blue Suit - the Royal Navy (1)

LIFE IN A BLUE SUIT

It is not what you do that makes you who you are.    But who you are that makes you do what you do.

They say who we are is determined by a mixture of genes and culture.    The genes come from a unique mix of our biological parents genes which are implanted at conception.     They are added to and moulded into a unique person in our mother’s womb.     Who we are is then shaped by our culture and experiences,  first in childhood and then adulthood.      Our basic nature is fixed by our genes and early childhood.     The skeleton as it were is fleshed out as we grow,  moulded and shaped by the culture we are brought up in and the experiences we go through.      Culture can though change, awareness of early experiences help correct the harm done earlier on.   Or reinforced and made worse by subsequence experiences. 

And so in 1965 I joined the Royal Navy,   the introduction to which was at HMS Raleigh where the adventure began.   From the basic training and square bashing I went off to HMS Pembroke in Chatham to do my professional training as a Store keeper.    I had started my working life as a trainee electrician for the Coal Board and wanted to continue in that profession.   Little did I realise at the time by running away to sea God had set His face against my calling as a Salvation Army officer and was to make me a watchman over the house of Israel  (Ezekiel 3:17  "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.”   This I was not to know until 20 years later when I had come out of the Navy and become a Management Accountant.    A Management Accountant is different from a Financial Accountant in that he is employed by a firm or company to keep watch over the affairs of the organisation.   To give account on a daily basis to the Board for the financial well being of the firm.   To advise it on the best use of its resources.    A financial accountant in the main someone outside the organisation,  to represent the finances in the best possible light to the outside world.   But as I said I knew nothing about all that,  my plans were clear.    I would serve for 9 years in the Navy,   gain the experience and the confidence  which comes with experience.    Save up and go into the Salvation Army Training College on my 27th birthday.   So much for the plans of mice and men.

Life in the Royal Navy was great,  full of life and adventure.   First posting after my training was to RNAS Culdrose in Helston Cornwall and my real first taste of girls,  wine and roses.   I went into the Navy fully determined to maintain my witness as a Salvation Army Christian.    No drinking,  no smoking and definitely no women until I was married.    Well the no smoking part I have kept to this day.   No sex with my girl also made it but not for the lack of trying.    The problem there was all the “nice” girls that love a sailor didn’t go to church and I did.    The trouble was I tried running with the hare and the hounds.    Jolly Jack tar on a Saturday and the Salvation Army on Sunday.    After 18 months of that jolly jape I was posted to my first ship HMS Jaguar based in Chatham, Kent.  The Jaguar was a small Anti-submarine frigate with a crew of just under 200.    Shortly after joining the ship God confronted me and said “Choose.    You can run with the hounds or with the hare.   You either enjoy being a jolly Jack Tar and all that the men in blue suits get up to or follow me.    You cannot do both”   I chose Him

The ship left shortly after that encounter for a cruise around the world or at least half way round then back taking just under two years before returning to the UK..   First Gibraltar and then down the African coast to South Africa to make our base in Simonstown,  the South African Naval base 10 miles or so from Cape Town.  At each port of call I found a local Salvation Army or if there wasn't one,  a local church.    In Cape Town I had the strange experience of going around the streets and market place playing “carols” in shorts and short sleeved shirts.     Until then I had only played wrapped up in heavy coats, scarves and thick woollen mittens,   Deep snow crisp and even one year hot blazing sunshine the next.     I still not sure which one I prefer.    As for Christmas day.    After the Army in the morning, a bar-be-que on the beach in the afternoon.    

From Cape Town we sailed into the Indian Ocean,  calling first at Port Elizabeth then Durban South Africa.    There I met and fell in love with a beautiful young girl called Brenda and from that moment on, started scheming of ways to leave the Navy,  return to South Africa and marry her. But in the meantime Jaguar continued showing the flag and reached the Seychelles before turning round and heading back to Cape Town via Durban.   Yippee.     In Cape Town Brenda came down and spent a week with me before we sailed off to South America and  Rio de Janerio.   From there the Antarctic  round the Cape and up the other side to the Panama canal,  calling on all ports on the way.  Once through the canal,   Bermuda and then home.      I may have chosen to follow God and no more wine, women and song but the trip around the world was great and I had the best time of my life

God's call to full time ministry in the Salvation Army

GOD'S CALL TO FULL TIME MINISTRY  IN THE SALVATION ARMY

Give me a child until he is 7 and he is mine for life may well be a misquote of the Jesuit Francis Xavir.   I don’t know how true that is but I was a member of the Salvation Army for 25 years from spiritual birth then both Julie and I worked for them for several years and despite no longer being a Salvationist I still feel deep down I am part of the Salvation Army.    You may therefore ask why I am still not a member of the Salvation Army.     I don’t know,   you may need to ask God about that.   I would though ask “how do you know what’s God’s plan for your life.     How do you know where God wants you to be.    Of the 70 or so churches in the area,  which church does He want me to serve in.    This is the purpose of this blog.    Since returning to Plymouth I have tried to serve Him in 3 churches believing that was what God required of me.   On each occasion I gave it a good 12 months or more,  except the Engage church in Whitleigh  which closed down after only 5 or 6 months.    But to continue with my early life in His Kingdom.

After my “baptism” of the Holy Spirit I was keen to go and talk to someone about it.     I therefore sought out Salvation Army office in Worksop but was given a brush off with “Umm Let put it down to a second blessing”   There were no more talk of the Holy Spirit or an infilling and nothing changed.   I was a 14 year old boy who knew nothing about God or His Kingdom.    Seems nothing has changed I may now be 68 but I am still seen as the 14 year old boy who knows little about God or His Kingdom.    In February 1961,  I was now old enough to become a ”Senior” soldier,   signed the Articles of War and became a Salvationist.    A few months later God called me to become a full time Salvation Army officer.     You could not become a candidate and enter the Salvation Army Training College until you were 18,  so I became a Junior candidate.    From now I put all my efforts on preparing for College and doing “candidate” lessons.    Studying the bible,  the Army’s history, doctrines and beliefs ete., etc.     I also lead more “Open Airs”.    Took meetings and preached at the local Salvation Army halls in the area.    Despite all this I lacked confidence in my calling and continually cried out to God for reassurance and asking that He would give me someone to go with me.     I reminded Him of  Moses and the burning bush.    How Moses asked God to provide someone to speak  Ex 3v 11 “But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?....... Ex 4 v 10 "Moses said to the Lord, "Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue....." v14 “ Then the Lord 's anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you”    Ignoring the bit about Lord being angry with Moses I kept pressing for an Aaron to go with me.    Sadly nothing has changed I am still seeking someone to go with me.      A year or so later I had the mad cap idea of joining the Royal Navy and get some experience of life before going to College.    There I would have to learn how to stand on my own two feet.    To witness alone and just as importantly save the money needed to pay my way through College.   So in 1965 I joined the Royal Navy,  not realising at the time much as His call remains with me until this day God would not allow me to fulfill that call,  although there as been 4 or 5 occasions when I tried.

First encounter of the Spirit kind (2) .... baptised with the Holy Spirit.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit

It was on one of those weekend trips to my grandmother’s that the Holy Spirit first met with me and answered my cry.    Although the encounter is seared in my memory the date alas is not.    It was though a Saturday night around 10 or 11 o-clock at night,  six months or so after I had found Jesus and became a Christian.    The word found is not strictly true for in all these encounters it is God who found me.    First God the Father at the little Anglican church.    Then Jesus his Son who became my Saviour at the Salvation Army  hall and now The Holy Spirit at my grandmothers home in Oldham.    The Godhead three in One found me and despite all my wanderings.    My attempts throughout the subsequent years to give up and go my own way.    Despite the numerous times I have told Him how to do things my way or I won’t play.   God said He will never leave me or forsake me and He never has but again I digress.

It was late and grandma had gone to bed.   There was no T.V.  those day,  only the radio and that was not that exciting a choice for a 14 year old boy,  so I passed the night away reading a book.     After a while I picked up the bible and again found myself reading Acts and praying that God would baptize me with the Holy Spirit.   Suddenly the coal fire seemed to burst into flames from the dark dying embers of the fire that was going out.   The fire seemed to become very bright and the room filled with light.   Although I was praying for the Holy Spirit to come upon me I didn't know what to expect.    I wasn't in a church meeting with people around me praying for me.   Shouting and praying out loud for the Holy Spirit to come as I had seen it several times before.   I was in my grandmother’s living room,   my grandma sleeping next door and everything still and quiet.    I sensed though through the peace and quiet the presence of God and I found myself talking to Him.    I wasn't too fussed or bothered about the gifts of the Spirit or wanting to speak in tongues but I knew everyone says the first thing that happens when you are filled with the Holy Spirit,  you speak in tongues.   So I said to God "I don’t particularly want to speak in tongues but if You have heard my prayers and I have been baptised in Your Spirit, could I just speak a few words,  a sentence or two in tongues as a sign I have really been filled with Your Spirit."    A moment or so later I was speaking in tongues which lasted for 5 or so minutes and then the words came “Take my yoke upon you,  for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”     Suddenly it was over,   As quickly as He had come He as quickly went.    The fire in the hearth went out and the room was again dark apart from the small table lamp which I had been reading by.   Only a strange,  warm comfortable feeling was left behind and I was in no doubt I had had my first encounter of the Spirit kind.   I had been baptised with the Holy Spirit.    After a few moments as there was nothing left to do,  I got up,  turned off the light and went to bed.

The next morning I had to get the train back to Worksop and there were no opportunity to meet up with my Uncle or go to the Pentecostal church with him.   I needed to get the train home and so I did.

Mum's family brought back together

The Wider family is brought together

Unknown to me at the time,  my two uncles on my mother’s side had become Christians at about the same time as us.   Derek the youngest of the two brothers, having joined the Regular Army was at the time in the Tank Regiment at Bulford Army barracks on Salisbury Plains.    The eldest  (Jim) and my mother’s older sister (Irene) still lived in Oldham,  where we had all been born.    All four,  in all the moving around,  had lost touch with each other and so when Derek became a Christian he decided he wanted to get in touch with everyone again.   He therefore contacted the Salvation Army Missing Person’s Tracing Service to see if they could trace his family.     None of them knew that 3 of the four of them had now become Christians,   Or that we were in the Salvation Army when he contacted their Missing People’s department.    It was therefore quite a surprise when their tracing service found first our family then the other brother to only discover we were now Christian howbeit in different denominations.    Jim in the Pentecostal church,   Derek in a local chapel and we in the Salvation Army.      The tracing service also found the other sister and put all four in touch with their mother.    The whole family was again united and one could not but see God’s hand in it all.

Although it was difficult to keep in close touch with my Uncle Derek due to the distance and lack of transport at the time,  we regularly exchange letters from then on and during the main school holidays I occasionally went to stay with them in Bulford,   getting a taste of Military Army life in the process.    Oldham was a lot easier to get to as it was only 30 or miles or so  away and there were regular bus and train services to and from Sheffield and Manchester.   Both Oldham and Worksop were only a hop skip and a jump from the city so I soon found myself regularly spending weekends at my gran’s and thus meeting up with my uncle Jim.   During those times together we talked of the new found excitement through our encounters with the living God and I occasionally went with him  to the local Pentecostal church.   Although these encounters fueled my seeking after the Holy Spirit and despite constantly being told both by the Salvation Army and now my uncle that if I wanted to be

baptised by the Holy Spirit I would have to leave the Salvation Army and join the Pentecostal church,    God was saying otherwise and I was to remain in the Salvation Army another 25 years,   even after 6 months from my search began I was baptised by the Holy Spirit.

First encounter of the Spirit kind (1)

FIRST MEETING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

They say a new convert is the most radical of the group and I would add a teenage new convert is the most radical of all.    Looking back at my teenage years I must be proof of that and I bet I was a real pain in the neck.    Nothing new there I hear you say. "You still are".   The Salvation Army at time was most evangelical of the evangelical of churches.   Open Air meetings,  two on a Sunday,  often one or even two on a Saturday if they had say a visiting band.  Going into the pubs to sell the War Cry’s”  every Friday and Saturday evening and in December going round the streets,  standing on the market squares playing carols.   Yet that wasn't enough for the newly converted teenager.   There must be more.   Funny how I still haven’t “grown up” I am still saying “Is that it.   Is that all there is to church”     But in fairness to me,  most churches now only have one meeting on a Sunday morning and no outreach.  To though continue.    Despite all the evangelical activity there were not hundreds of people rushing into the church,  even the ones and twos seem few and far between.   Yet when I read the bible,  especial Acts there were converts almost every other day, sometimes even hundreds or more when like  Peter, the early disciples preached   Acts 2 v 41 “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”      Even in the early days of the Salvation Army similar stories could be told.    There was at one time so many converts that the pub landlords and brewery owners stirred up riots and paid gangs to attack the open air meetings and even the indoor meetings as so many people became teetotal and pubs losing so much money they were going out of business.   So what had changed.     What was different from those early days of the church,  the early days of the Salvation Army and now.    God had not changed.    I am told over and over again that God is the same today as yesterday and He will never change.    But He has or has He?   If He had not changed then we must have or else something is missing.    Something we don’t have to day which the disciples had.     The Holy Spirit?  Or as people would say, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.   The Salvation Army in the sixties were totally against  baptism of the Holy Spirit and I was told over and over again if I wanted to be pursue that line then the Salvation Army was not the church for me and I should join the Pentecostal church.   Strange I am still being told that today.    Not necessarily about being baptised in the Holy Spirit,  the power and the gifts He brings  (Gifts of the Holy Spirit) or from the Salvation Army but it seems from the churches I try and join.    Like for instance the church I was asked only a couple of weeks ago  not to attend again.    That I should go and find another church where I would be more happier for I kept asking “Is this it.    Is this all there is to church” and the email that prompted the summons to meet the elders started with:-  

“Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."  Matt 9 v 37.   This is the driving verse that makes me tick and such a pain for the leaders of any church which I would belong to.     I see out there in the world great need which only Christ can meet and my constant prayer is that He sends out the workers.     The question of course is what is the definition of “harvest”    Is it as evangelists see it outreach and  making Christians   Or hurting souls whose lives are in a mess which only Jesus can put right and in the process may become Christians.     I believe it is both although I would major on the needs which scream out for the church to be meeting.       The problem though is,  I see the great needs out there and I want to run out into the field and as the old song says  “Rescue the perishing  care for the dying” whilst the leaders want to walk or even dawdle.”

But I digress.   But the more I studied the history of the Salvation Army the more I read about how they went out in the power of the Holy Spirit.    Likewise the story of the early church was of how people were being baptised by the Holy Spirit and so it seemed what was missing from the church was the power of the Holy Spirit.    Somehow with the passage of time the church decides this was only for the birth pangs of a new church and not needed when the church becomes established and “respectable”   but the more I studied the bible and the early days of the Salvation Army,  the more I began to disagree with the leadership of the day and started to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit

But before I go on there is another story running in parallel with these early encounters of a spiritual kind.