A few thoughts about the weekend - touching Heaven, changing Earth.

I was looking for a place to record some of the events from my observation point, and this is probably the best place. This is a bit of an essay, so either skip to the end or be patient.

The Friday night meeting - the first in the series with the Arnotts - was interesting in many ways. Martin Lacelle (I think that's how it's spelt) from Vineyard lead the worship with his band. Slightly unfamiliar spin on familiar songs, but I managed to tune the band out some of the time and worship. After that John Arnott's time was interesting. He is by no means a 'preacher' and is partially chat show host, partially concerned elder brother. It would be fair to describe this time as ordered chaos, where rather than deliver a steady message, he's instead giving opportunity for words of knowledge and people to be prayed for. Good by me!

People around us were being prayed for over things like asthma, damaged limbs (a spine in one case) concussion and a whole pile of things. We saw a girl with a fractured vertebra turn a cartwheel between the rows of chairs and a guy that had a long history of debilitation through asthma jogged a couple of laps of the hall, to his amazement. Chris and I were on the prayer ministry team, and when a couple in front of us were prayed for we became involved, praying for them while they were 'out' on the floor. They seemed touched, both by God and us praying.


Saturday night we were back again (there had been daytime stuff too, but couldn't get away). There were a lot of testimonies, but like the previous night, these were frequently interrupted by words and people being prayed for. There was a testimony from another guy that had asthma for 40 years previously - he was astonished not to have used an inhaler since the previous evening when he'd been prayed for. There were a lot of other testimonies that I didn't get to hear because we had another 'word of knowledge' moment, and I got involved praying for someone for some time.

Toward the end of the meeting effectively everyone wanted to be prayed for by the Arnotts. There were fewer people on the paryer ministry team that night, and we ended up running around madly, organising several hundred people into rows so that a) they were accessible for prayer, and b) so that when they fell over they had enough space behind without hitting anything. It was interesting to watch, with the majority, though certainly not all, falling. People displayed more outward signs when Carol prayed for them - or even just went near them. There were a couple of times where people were obviously under the influence of the Holy spirit, swaying, eyes shut tight, when all she'd do is blow in their direction and it was like they moved up a gear.

As well as catch falling bodies, due to sheer numbers I ended up praying for someone. Not being quite a s powerful in the Spirit, I ended up spending about 15 minutes. At first he felt a tightness in his chest, then a tingling over his whole body before finally his knees buckled. This was particularly interesting as he was familiar with this type of thing but said that it had never happened to him before, and didn't think he was the type to fall over :-)


On the Saturday evening during a 'bio' break I bumped into Mark Soppitt, who lead worship that night. In conversation I mentioned I was envious of him being up there (in a good way ;-) playing in the celebration. He asked why, and I explained how there's something special about playing for a larger meeting, and how I enjoyed working with new musicians. So I got an invite to sit in Sunday morning.

The band from the Wantage church that Mark leads has a strong (and V good) keyboard player, and they tend to be very tight, with a spartan, open sound - kind of showtime rock n roll. Mark was quite strict about what I could do: no chord work, just do fills, keep (musically) out of the way of the other players and don't play in the slow worship songs. Gulp, OK. They also didn't react at all well when I unpacked 3 guitars (each sounds different) so one went back in it's bag off stage and they relaxed a little. Guess they were nervous I was going to try to 'make my mark' and dominate or get in the way.

Well, Sunday morning I didn't play especially well (hardly surprising, I'd got really nervous) and some of the songs I hadn't seen before, but I think I made a positive contribution despite not being able to relax. Did badly on the one hymn of the session, and also a kind of rock n roll style song (never could do RnR). It was good to be up there though, and it did seem to encourage some of the other Bicester worship team too. So Mark, if you read this, thanks for the opportunity.

All that aside, the Sunday morning was a little quieter. John spoke the most clearly of any occasion I'd heard him that weekend, however in the middle of the message he still gave an 'altar call' (we don't have an altar :-). Actually that was a characteristic of every meeting I was in - he'd always get some that put up their hands for salvation, and I'd guess that in total about 20 people went forward on the 3 occasions I was there. Excellent.


Sunday evening I didn't go. I had a pile of things that needed to be done and Sarah had homework too, so Chris and Ben went while I stayed home. I gather it was basically good stuff again. Ben appears to have been touched, although he tends not to talk about such things especially. However since I couldn't be there I can't really comment further.


Overall then, I'd say a quite special weekend.