The men threw themselves on the floor! There it was again: the sound of gunfire close by! No ordinary church leaders’ meeting this! This was Belfast in the late 1970’s. Bombs, bullets and death were a daily occurrence in our society, as the I.R.A. blew up hotels, bus stations, crowded restaurants and pubs and planted explosives in the cars of policemen, politicians and prominent national figures. Protestant Para-military groups retaliated, by murdering innocent Catholics found in the wrong area at the wrong time and committed terrible atrocities. Protestants were also at great risk in Catholic areas. In the midst of all this “Belfast Christian Family” was born, two thirds protestant and one third Roman Catholic.
Married that year
“the troubles began”
My husband David and I married in January 1969, the year ‘the troubles’ began in Northern Ireland. David was ordained as a minister in an evangelical denomination and we lived in a flat above our little church in Belfast. Then God began to baptise people in the Holy Spirit. The charismatic movement had begun. People in our congregation had ‘words of knowledge’ and prophetic ‘pictures’ for each other. “I see the steering wheel of a car with a leopard skin glove on it, and the Lord is saying that you are about to buy a second-hand car, but the man selling it is not to be trusted. You are not to buy it!” One of the ladies leapt up. “That’s for me that’s for me! I am just about to buy a second-hand car and I don’t quite trust the man who is selling it.”
Miraculous healings
Other people were miraculously healed of physical illnesses. Our own baby daughter was healed of a congenital hip condition. It had been diagnosed at birth and she was fitted with a ‘brace’ that held her hips in position. “She will have to wear it for at least a year” they said. After prayer when she was two months old, we knew that God had healed her but she continued to use the brace. At the next hospital appointment the doctors ordered further x-rays and scratched their heads. “Well I don’t know what has happened but her condition no longer shows on her x-rays.” We knew what had happened! Praise God!Soon the ‘powers that be’ in our denomination began to take notice and to be upset. “This is not ‘our image’ they said. We think you would be happier with the Pentecostals”. In those days being ‘charismatic’ was not the acceptable thing that it is today.
Our first daughter Avril was three months old at this time. With the job went our livelihood and our home. We knew that whatever we were we weren’t Pentecostal in doctrine, and so found ourselves out of fellowship with nowhere to go. But God had his own plans! The Lord had begun to speak to David from the Book of Acts. Things like, the early Christians living in community, meeting in each other’s homes, and us all being members of the Body of Christ, where every believer has gifting and a part to play in ministry. So we spent the next four years ‘making tents’ to earn a living as God taught us about these things. We also discovered that there were other Christians in England who were being taught the same things by the Holy Spirit. God provided a brand new council house for us in Carickfergus, where our second daughter Joanne was born, and others began to join us in the little group that met in our home.
In 1974 the Lord called us to move back into the city, taking our fledgling ‘house church’ with us, the first one in Ireland! God once again miraculously provided for us, giving us a large house in Ravenhill Park at the ridiculously low rent.
Full immersion baptism
The first thing that happened after we moved was, we discovered that friends of ours from our old church days were living just down the street. They were continuing to meet with others from the group who had been baptised in the Holy Spirit, even though we had been out of touch with them for a number of years. The Lord spoke to all of us and said “They are like sheep without a shepherd and David is like a shepherd without sheep.” So with great joy we came together again! We began to meet in our new home and very soon even more people joined us.
Find out what God is doing
About this time, David heard Arthur Wallis, a great pioneer of the charismatic movement. He said “Find out what God is doing in your generation and do it with all your heart”. So my husband enquired of the Lord. “What are you doing in my generation Lord?” To his great consternation the answer came. “I am baptising Roman Catholics in the Holy Spirit.” This was worrying news for us. We had both been born on the Shankill Road, a Protestant stronghold in Belfast. We had never mixed with Roman Catholics. Now God was asking us to ‘cross the divide’.
Hugging nuns
We duly began to attend ‘joint’ charismatic meetings at Queens University Church in the centre of Belfast. I will never forget shaking hands for the first time with a Roman Catholic brother. It was a huge step for me coming from my Ulster protestant background. God convicted us of the religious bigotry and prejudice. We truly repented and found ourselves forgiven, cleansed and enjoying wonderful fellowship with our Spirit-filled Catholic brothers and sisters. Hugging nuns was wonderful!
One of the main characteristics of Catholic Renewal in Ireland was the ‘charismatic prayer group.’ These had sprung up all over the place. About this time we met up with some people from a prayer group in a strong Republican area across the city. God quickly brought us together. As we enjoyed fellowship we began to explore ways that our two groups could come together more regularly. We found that the secret was to emphasise the truths and practices that united us and agree to differ about the others. Some of these things were political as well as scriptural. The big one was the Eucharist (communion). So the sixty or so people from a Protestant background continued to ‘break bread’ together, while our thirty or so Catholic brothers and sisters continued to attend mass and observe their obligations to their church. We all met together on Sunday and in small groups throughout the week.
Part of the practical arrangements involved things like ‘bussing’ people across the city to meet together in each other’s areas. The joint leaders’ team also met together in both Catholic and Protestant homes. They often came home late as they had to wait until it was safe to travel across the city. We prayed a lot for their protection in those days. The Lord reserves a special blessing for his children who meet together in unity across divides and we enjoyed happy hours of fellowship and fun together.
Loss of loved ones through terrorism
So Belfast Christian Family was born. We shared together in our weddings, infant baptisms, infant dedications, adult baptisms and even a few funerals. We had picnics, lunches, and holiday conferences together. We were also involved in planning and running big Charismatic Conferences in the large Presbyterian hall in the centre of Belfast. I would like to say that those days were all fun and fellowship, but everyday life in Belfast took its toll on all of us with much grief, many losses and serious pastoral issues to work through with people as the stresses of Civil War continued. These included the loss of loved ones through terrorism, men for whom the strain of serving in the security forces became too much and some people with a history in the Para-militaries who were trying to extricate themselves from their past.
By 1980 I myself had four young children, (Ian was born in 1975 and Sarah in1980), a busy church and a husband in full time ministry. We left Belfast with our family in 1981 as God called us to work in England. I had lost a number of close family members either directly or indirectly through the ‘troubles’. God sustained me however, and eventually brought me out of the low-level depression I had lived with for ten years during the 70’s. It was to be many years until He helped me to work through the traumas and grief of the losses I had suffered, but I really praise Him for His faithfulness and protection throughout those years. It was worth all the sacrifice and hardship to be a part of what God was doing in those days and to be in at the ‘birth’ of Belfast Christian Family.
David continues to work with Catholic Renewal and is a regular speaker at CCR events. We now pastor New Harvest Community Church in Brentwood, Essex which is one of ‘the new churches’ and we continue to work to bring Christians together in both our home town and further afield.
The Charismatic Renewal and fellowship with Roman Catholic brothers and sisters has brought a wealth of joy and experience to me that I would never have known in my narrow Ulster Protestant experience of God and the unity that God gives us is extremely precious.
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Psalm 133 How good and pleasant it is when |
